Chapter 6 - WHAT ELEANOR NEVER SAID
Eleanor did not deny it.
That frightened me more than if she had screamed.
We were still standing in Harrison’s library when she slowly removed her silver coat.
“I knew this day would come.”
Preston stared at her.
“You accused my father.”
“I accused him of what he did.”
“You said he killed Daniel.”
“I said Daniel died because of Harrison.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Harrison laughed bitterly.
“Sixteen years, Eleanor.”
She looked at him.
“You framed an innocent man.”
“To save him.”
“You destroyed his reputation.”
“And you destroyed his life.”
“Enough,” I said.
They stopped.
I was tired of being the last person in every room to understand my own father.
“Who killed him?”
Eleanor sat down.
“I don’t know.”
Harrison swore.
“You just said—”
“I know who ordered Daniel stopped. I do not know who caused the crash.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed.
“Who ordered it?”
Eleanor looked toward the window.
“My husband.”
Charles Ashford.
The dead man from the photograph.
I thought of Eleanor describing Charles as Dad’s ally.
“You said Charles believed him.”
“He did.”
“Then why?”
“Because Charles discovered Daniel intended to expose everything.”
“That was the point.”
“Not everything.”
Another layer.
Another lie.
Eleanor folded her hands.
“The stolen diamonds were only part of it. Hartwell charity auctions were being used to move undeclared assets for wealthy families. Jewelry crossed state lines. Ownership records were altered. Some people were hiding money from divorces. Some from creditors. Some from federal investigators.”
Rafe understood.
“Charles was involved.”
“Yes.”
“And Daniel found out.”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“So Charles ordered my father killed.”
“No.”
I slammed my palm against Harrison’s desk.
“Stop saying no and then giving me something worse.”
Eleanor flinched.
Good.
She deserved to.
“Charles told someone Daniel needed to be frightened into silence.”
“Who?”
“Harrison’s partner.”
Harrison went still.
“I never had a partner.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Yes, you did.”
She said a name.
“Victor Mercer.”
June’s last name.
I stared at her.
“June’s husband?”
“Lily’s father.”
June had told me her husband left.
Apparently that was another softened version of history.
Harrison sat down.
“Victor handled transportation.”
“And he disappeared,” Eleanor said, “the week after Daniel died.”
Rafe asked, “You think Victor caused the crash?”
“I think Charles believed he did.”
“Believed?”
“Victor told him Daniel had been warned.”
My stomach turned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafe walked to the window.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he turned.
“What time did Daniel crash?”
I looked at the watch.
“Police report said around two-thirty.”
Rafe held out his hand.
I gave him Dad’s watch.
Stopped at 2:17.
He examined the damaged crown.
“This didn’t stop from impact.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s wound.”
I stared at him.
He pulled the crown gently.
“It was manually stopped.”
2:17 wasn’t the time Dad died.
It was a message.
“Why 2:17?” Preston asked.
Nobody knew.
Then Harrison spoke.
“February seventeenth.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“What happened February seventeenth?”
Harrison walked to a cabinet and pulled out an old Hartwell auction catalog.
He flipped through pages.
February 17, seventeen years earlier.
A charity estate sale.
Lot 217.
A diamond rosary.
Eleanor stood.
“Oh God.”
“What?”
She looked at me.
“The first substitution Daniel discovered.”
Lot 217.
Dad had stopped his watch at 2:17 because he wanted somebody to remember.
Harrison found the catalog photograph.
A white-gold rosary.
Small diamonds around the crucifix.
A larger stone at the center.
“Where is it?” Rafe asked.
Eleanor whispered, “It was sold.”
“To whom?”
She looked at Harrison.
“Your wife.”
Preston’s mother had died seven years earlier.
Preston looked stunned.
“My mother had a rosary.”
Harrison slowly sat down.
“She was buried with it.”
Silence.
Then Preston shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“She wasn’t.”
Harrison looked at his son.
“What are you talking about?”
“Mom gave it to me before she died.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she told me not to.”
Preston’s voice cracked.
“She said it belonged to someone who deserved an apology.”
He walked out.
We followed him upstairs.
In his childhood bedroom, Preston opened an old wooden box from the back of a closet.
Inside was a white-gold rosary.
The crucifix was worn smooth.
The center stone looked ordinary.
To everyone except me.
I held it beneath the desk lamp.
There.
A feather inclusion.
Lower right.
My knees nearly gave out.
“This is it.”
Rafe moved beside me.
“The original center diamond?”
“No.”
I looked at the old auction photograph.
“Older.”
Dad had used the flaw from this diamond as the model for the stone Eleanor eventually purchased for my necklace.
He had been recreating a trail.
I removed my jeweler’s loupe from my purse.
Yes, I still had it.
Jewelry designers carry strange things to galas.
Under magnification, tiny characters appeared along the girdle.
Not a serial number.
Three letters.
V.M.C.
Then numbers.
Rafe wrote them down.
Harrison stared.
“What are they?”
I recognized the format.
“Bank box number.”
Eleanor whispered, “Victor Mercer.”
We didn’t need a lawyer with documents.
We needed June.
When we showed her the inscription, she sat silently for almost a minute.
Then she began to cry.
“Victor had a safe-deposit box.”
“Where?”
“Philadelphia Federal.”
“What was inside?”
“I never knew.”
“Did Daniel?”
June nodded.
“I think so.”
Rafe asked the important question.
“Who can access it now?”
June wiped her face.
“If Victor is dead, his heir.”
“Lily.”
“Yes.”
That explained why she had returned.
Not revenge.
Access.
“Where is she?” I asked.
June looked at the rosary.
“I think I know.”
We found Lily that afternoon at the old Dunn & Daughter storefront.
The shop had been empty for years.
She stood behind the dusty front window wearing the silver star bracelet.
She looked like June around the eyes.
But when she saw Rafe, she reached inside her coat.
He froze.
“Don’t.”
She pulled out no weapon.
Only the missing replica necklace.
“I needed you to find the rosary,” she said.
Her voice shook.
“You could have asked.”
“No.”
“Why?”
She looked at Rafe.
“Because the last person who asked Rafael DeLuca for help ended up dead.”
Rafe’s expression darkened.
“My father?”
Lily shook her head.
“Yours.”
The room went still.
Rafe took one slow step forward.
“What did you say?”
Lily reached into her pocket.
She removed an old photograph.
Daniel Dunn.
Victor Mercer.
And Rafe’s father, Salvatore DeLuca.
All three standing beside the same car.
The car my father died in.
On the back was a handwritten sentence.
SAL KNOWS THE BRAKES WERE CUT.
Rafe stared at it.
Lily whispered, “Your father knew Daniel was murdered.”
May you like
Then she looked him directly in the eyes.
“And he helped bury the truth.”
