Chapter 5 - THE GIRL WITH THE STAR BRACELET
We found June at six-thirty that morning.
She was sitting in a booth at a twenty-four-hour diner three blocks from my studio, staring at a cup of coffee she hadn’t touched.
Rafe had people searching half the city.
I found her because I knew June.
When she was frightened, she went somewhere ordinary.
Somewhere nobody expected a frightened person to go.
She looked up when I slid into the booth.
Her face collapsed.
“Iris.”
Rafe remained near the entrance.
I had insisted he stay back.
For once, he listened.
I placed the photograph of June, Dad, and Lily on the table.
“Tell me.”
June stared at it.
Then covered her mouth.
“I hoped you’d never find that.”
“Apparently everyone in my life has been hoping I’d never find something.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is Lily alive?”
June closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt even though I wanted it.
“You knew?”
“For three months.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at her.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“She contacted me through letters.”
“What letters?”
June reached into her purse.
Three envelopes.
No mysterious anonymous threats.
Actual handwritten letters.
The first contained only six words.
Mom, I remember the yellow kitchen.
June’s hands shook.
“When Lily was little, our kitchen was yellow. Daniel painted it for me after my husband left.”
“You and Dad were close.”
“He saved us.”
“From Harrison?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
June explained.
She had worked as a bookkeeper for Harrison Hale.
She discovered payments tied to substituted jewelry.
When Harrison realized she knew, he threatened to have her arrested as an accomplice.
Dad helped her collect evidence.
Then Lily disappeared.
“Who took her?”
“I thought Harrison did.”
“Thought?”
June pushed the second letter toward me.
Lily had written:
He didn’t take me. Someone took me from him.
I looked up.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafe approached now.
June stiffened.
He stopped several feet away.
“June, Daniel contacted my family the night before he died.”
“I know.”
Rafe’s face changed.
“You know?”
“He was trying to get Lily out.”
I looked between them.
“Out where?”
“Philadelphia,” June said. “Daniel believed Harrison would use Lily to control me. He arranged for someone to move her somewhere safe.”
“Who?”
June looked at Rafe.
“Your mother.”
Rafe went completely still.
“My mother died when I was twenty.”
“I know.”
“That was two years after Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“What are you saying?”
June swallowed.
“Your mother took Lily.”
The diner noise seemed to disappear.
Rafe sat down.
It was the first time I had seen him look genuinely shaken.
“My mother never told me.”
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
“Where did she take her?”
“Connecticut. A family she trusted.”
“Why didn’t Lily come home?”
June began crying.
“Because Daniel died before he could tell me where she was.”
That was the cruelty of it.
Not an elaborate conspiracy.
A plan broken by one death.
Rafe’s mother had hidden Lily.
Daniel had been killed.
And the only person who knew how to reconnect mother and child had died two years later.
“What happened to Lily?” I asked.
“She grew up under another name.”
“What name?”
June looked toward the window.
“She hasn’t told me.”
“But she came to my studio.”
“Yes.”
“You recognized her?”
“Not at first.”
“Then how did she get inside?”
“I gave her the code.”
My anger returned.
“You let her steal from me.”
“I let my daughter take a replica necklace because she said it contained proof about what happened to Daniel.”
“You could have told me.”
“She begged me not to.”
“So you chose her over me.”
June flinched.
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than an excuse.
Then she said, “I would choose my child every time.”
I looked at her.
And I understood.
I didn’t forgive her.
But I understood.
Rafe asked, “Did Lily switch the center diamond?”
“No.”
“Did she arrange the robbery?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“She was trying to stop it.”
June removed the third letter.
Inside was a sketch.
My necklace.
The center stone circled.
Beside it:
THE WRONG PERSON HAS THE ORIGINAL.
Underneath were three initials.
H.H.
Preston’s father.
Rafe leaned back.
“Harrison.”
June nodded.
“Lily believes Harrison took the diamond before the gala.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least I knew who could.
“Kessler.”
The gallery had held the necklace overnight.
But when we called, Kessler answered immediately.
And his explanation changed everything again.
“I didn’t give Harrison the stone,” he said. “I gave it to Charles Ashford.”
Eleanor stared at him.
“My husband?”
“Sixteen years ago.”
Not the current diamond.
Another one.
Kessler explained that after Daniel died, Charles gave him a loose diamond and instructed him to hide it inside Hartwell’s uncatalogued teaching collection.
“Why?”
“He said if Harrison ever found it, more people would die.”
“What happened to it?” I asked.
Kessler looked sick.
“Three years ago, Eleanor ordered the teaching collection inventoried.”
Eleanor whispered, “I didn’t know.”
“One stone was removed for appraisal.”
“By whom?”
Kessler looked at Preston.
“Harrison Hale.”
Preston stood so quickly his chair scraped the floor.
“My father sits on Hartwell’s finance committee.”
“Yes.”
“He took it?”
“I can’t prove it.”
Preston grabbed his coat.
Rafe blocked him.
“Where are you going?”
“To ask him.”
“No.”
“Move.”
“Your father may have killed a man to protect that stone.”
Preston’s eyes flashed.
“He is still my father.”
“And Iris is standing here because somebody tried to rob her six hours ago.”
That stopped him.
I stepped between them.
“I’m going.”
Rafe stared at me.
“To Harrison’s house.”
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“We’ve done this part.”
“Iris—”
“My father spent sixteen years being remembered as a thief. If Harrison has the stone that proves otherwise, I’m going.”
Preston looked at me.
“I’ll get you inside.”
The Hale house in Bryn Mawr looked exactly like Preston.
Beautiful.
Expensive.
Cold.
Harrison Hale was seventy-one.
Silver hair.
Straight back.
He greeted us in a navy robe as though finding his son, his son’s ex-girlfriend, and Rafael DeLuca in his library before eight in the morning was mildly inconvenient.
Then he saw Dad’s watch.
His face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Someone used it to lure me into your mess.”
Harrison looked at Rafe.
“You should have stayed out of this.”
Rafe’s voice was calm.
“Daniel asked me not to.”
Harrison looked back at me.
“You resemble your mother.”
“Did you kill my father?”
Preston inhaled sharply.
Harrison did not.
“No.”
“Did you frame him?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
Preston closed his eyes.
I felt something inside me break.
“Why?”
“To keep him alive.”
Nobody spoke.
Harrison walked to his desk.
“Daniel was going to expose people far more dangerous than I was.”
“You planted stolen diamonds in his shop to protect him?”
“To discredit him. If nobody believed him, the people above me had no reason to kill him.”
“Above you?”
Harrison gave a bitter smile.
“You think I built that operation?”
He opened a drawer.
Rafe’s hand moved toward his jacket.
Harrison removed no weapon.
Only a child’s drawing.
Three stick figures.
A man.
A woman.
A little girl.
Across the top, in crayon:
UNCLE DANIEL WILL FIX IT.
Lily’s drawing.
Harrison placed it in front of me.
“I framed your father.”
His voice cracked for the first time.
“But I spent sixteen years trying to find the person who murdered him.”
May you like
Then he looked at Eleanor.
“And she has known the answer all along.”
