Chapter Twenty-One
Teresa pulled up in a car with Winthrop a few minutes later, and they took Kelly to a home he owned on the outskirts of South Lyndvale.
“I purchased this home in case I ever found the perfect woman,” Winthrop said, glancing fondly at Teresa, who simpered in a way that Kelly found rather gross but Winthrop apparently found charming.
Winthrop’s house was tucked away on a couple of acres of property at the end of a long driveway with meticulously clipped hedges. It was an English-cottage-style home with a steeply pitched roof and a chimney, and Kelly could see Winthrop’s influence everywhere. The gardens were neat and orderly, the topiary bushes with their balls of greenery didn’t have a leaf out of place. The gardens around Gabriel’s castle were much more free-flowing, designed to look like wildflowers had sprung up from the rolling hills.
“What are we doing here?” Kelly asked as they walked to the front door.
“You’ll see. Come on, clock’s ticking – we have no time to waste,” Teresa said.
They hurried into the house, and to Kelly’s surprise, Evangeline was waiting for them in the living room. She was sitting with a woman who looked like an older version of her – a thin woman with deep circles under her eyes and a blank stare. The woman wore a white nightgown, and had copper bracelets on her wrists. Dragon shifter. Evangeline’s mother, clearly.
“We smuggled her out of the castle through a secret tunnel that only the Kingsleys know about,” Winthrop explained to Kelly. “That way, if the forty-eight hours expire without a solution, the ice dragons won’t find her when they storm the castle.”
As Kelly got closer to Evangeline, she felt a humming. A vibration.
She walked over to her and looked down. Evangeline was holding the Dragonsblood Ruby cradled in her hands. The enormous red stone was thrumming with power; Kelly opened her mind and it hit her in waves that almost knocked her off her feet.
Kelly sank down on the couch next to her. “Where did you… How did you…”
“How did I get it?” Evangeline shrugged. “I know where my family keeps their loot. And they use retinal scanners for their security system. My retina is in their system; I can use it to get anywhere in the castle.”
“How did you make it work? You’re a dragon shifter.”
Evangeline’s lips quirked in a wry smile. “I’m half human. My father was a gem empath. That’s how he and my mom met; they used to boost power gems and sell them on the black market.”
“Where is he now?”
Evangeline scowled. “When my mother went crazy, it was too much for him. He took off.”
“I’m sorry. That was a dick move. I mean—”
“I’m fifteen, Kelly, I’ve heard the word dick before,” Evangeline scoffed. She looked down at the ruby. “After I talked to you about power gems and empaths, I went and got the ruby out of our safe, because I thought it might fix my mother. I knew it didn’t work just having her hold it, but I thought maybe if I amplified its powers it would work. I sat there and experimented with it. I practiced and practiced, but it didn’t work the way I hoped it would.” Tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “I can control her actions so she doesn’t try to attack anybody, but I can’t bring her mind back.”
“You were the one who made the dragons attack the Maplethorpes,” Kelly said. “Evangeline, you could have killed people.”
Evangeline’s gaze dropped to the ground. “Pandora called me crazy,” she muttered.
“Evangeline.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her expression pained. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’ll never do it again.”
“All right, focus on the real issue here – we need to fix her mother, and there’s only one jewel that has those kinds of powers,” Teresa said. “You know the Sunrise Citrine? We’re going to steal it from the museum in New York and use it to heal Alexandra.”
Teresa was planning a heist? Had the world gone mad? “Why would you do that?” Kelly asked, astonished. “And how?”
“I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. And as for how, everyone thinks of me as this perfect goody-two-shoes who does everything she’s supposed to. Nobody is going to suspect me. I’ve already contacted the museum and told them Allied Jewel Insurance needs to see the citrine. I will go in to the museum with a fake. While pretending to examine the citrine, I will swap it out, and I will bring the real one back here.”
“My God. That might actually work.” Kelly’s eyes widened in admiration. “But where will you get the fake?”
“Gabriel. Already called him. Their family had a replica prepared for when they tried to steal it the first time.”
Teresa glanced at Kelly. “Also I called him a few things that I won’t repeat in front of Evangeline, but that’s a story for another day.”
* * * * *
Teresa was pants-peeingly nervous as her heels clacked on the polished marble floors of the Mildenhorff Museum. Chad and his family would have pitched a fit if they’d known she’d turned jewel thief. She could hardly believe it herself. But Winthrop had just nodded in his grave way when they’d told him the plan. That was the difference, she decided, between being concerned with decency and being concerned with appearances.
