“Do I look that bad?”
“No,” she said quickly. “You look great. Really good. I mean, I’m so glad that you look so good and—”
“You mad at me?”
“No, not at all.”
“You’re doing it again.”
She fidgeted with the hem of her sweater sleeve. “I made a little mistake. But the thing is, I couldn’t have known it would lead to all that.”
“Spill.”
She told me that she had kept the gemstones I had given her in a stash with her other things. Except she winced a little when she used the possessive term. Stolen things, she meant.
“I took a pen. I just wanted to, you know, write with it or something. I had no idea it was a special pen or that it cost so much. Who pays a thousand dollars for a pen? So then he comes into my room and is looking all around, and I’m pretending not to know what he’s talking about. And then he finds the whole stash, and he starts going through it and saying everything is his. Which it kind of was. But I told him the rocks were mine and that I was keeping them. Then he says he remembers them being part of some little statue thing in the library, and we had a fight.”
“Lord,” I said.
“Right? Anyway, he takes them, and apparently there are serial numbers on the diamonds. Can you believe it? He says he’ll prove that they were purchased by him through a broker or whatever, and I’m like fine, because I know they’re yours and even if you stole them, you didn’t steal them from him.”
“Appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“So it turns out the diamonds were sold twenty years ago to some guy who Philip knows and hates. So then he thinks I was sent there to spy on him, like the stones were a payoff. He was mad.”
Mad was an understatement. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No, but he called Colin to come get me. And he wouldn’t give the stones back to me.”
“Probably for the best. Everyone knows diamonds are blood money anyway.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You mean you’re not going to get them back?”
“We’ll consider it payment for room and board and security. I know you were very concerned about inconveniencing him.”
She looked mutinous, but she’d get over it. Eventually. “The important thing now is to get back your old life. Get back to living.”
Her forehead creased. “I know it was scary, what with the threat of death and all that. But in some ways, it was easier like that. Just in limbo, no one expecting things from me. I’m not sure how to go back.”
“I know, sweetheart.” But we’d both have to figure it out.
Chapter Sixteen
Luke found me in my hospital room and didn’t leave my side. When they discharged me, he took me straight to the cabin in the country. He seemed to know that I could breathe there, heal there. But I was restless too.
Allie had come to see me here. Even Jenny had been to the cabin for a short visit, which was awkward. Major had brought her. They had escaped from the men who’d held them, and not knowing where to look for me, had holed up in the woods until the cops arrived. Rico had slunk away that night, not wanting to be questioned by the cops—apparently he hadn’t exactly left the gang.
But there was one unanswered question that refused to let me rest. I asked Luke to drive me back into town. It was time to understand what had happened, time to pick up all the pieces so I could finally let them go.
The car bounced along the potholes in the parking lot, and I winced. When the car rolled to a halt, I sighed in relief.
“I’ll get you,” Luke said, coming around the car.
He opened the door and held out his hand. Gingerly, I stepped from the cab, careful not to jostle my leg. In an annoying twist of fate, the cut caused more complications and more pain than my old gunshot wound had.
“You wait here.” I could see from his face that he was about to refuse. “I have to do this alone. She won’t talk to me otherwise. Claire deserves to know, and so do I.”
“Damn it, Shelly. You can’t trust her.”
“She’s the only one in there. And you’re right out here. I’ll be fine. She was never the type to use force anyway.”
“This is not comforting.”
“Trust me,” I said and won the argument. Trust was a slow climb for us both, but we had our eye on the peak.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right out here. If anything goes wrong…”
I kissed him. “Love you.”
He still looked startled when I did that, which was probably the best incentive to keep doing it. It touched my heart that he understood what a big step this was for me. It broke my heart that some part of him believed himself unworthy. I wanted to see the surprise fade, turn to acceptance.