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“I knew there was a good reason to invite you to stay.”
She batted her eyes at him. “I know the way to a man’sheart. Now if you were about forty-five years older, we might get somewhere.”
He laughed. “You’re one of a kind, Mary Tucker.”
He slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar and contemplated how much to unload on her. She had a lot of wisdom, but he didn’t want to tell her something worrisome—or details Carly would rather keep quiet.
She pointed a set of tongs his way. “Bless your heart, you’d better tell me what’s ailin’ you.”
His mouth watered as she layered the lasagna noodles with the sauce and cheese for a minute. Eric’s infidelity was Carly’s news to share, but he could tell Mary his suspicions. “I’ve found evidence that there may be two groups of people after that egg. It ups the danger to everyone, and I’m not sure what to do about it.”
“You’ve done everything humanly possible, Lucas. Not one of us will leave this earth until the good Lord decides it’s our time. It’s fine to take precautions, but I wouldn’t want any of us to be paralyzed by fear. Have you made any progress in finding my twin sister?”
“Not yet. We know the couple who adopted her were named Durham. It will take a while to track down the right Durhams, but it’s a good start.”
“Elizabeth Durham. Such a lovely name. I can’t wait to meet her and see if we look alike or have the same interests. But it doesn’t matter a hill of beans to me if we are very different. A sister!”
He wanted to caution her that Elizabeth might not be alive, but he didn’t want to dampen the glow in her blue eyes. “Durham is a common enough name. I hope we can find her.”
Footsteps clattered on the wooden floor, and he turned to see Carly approaching with Noah in her arms. The baby kicked his feet and smiled when he saw Lucas. Lucas smiled back and took Noah’s hand when Carly was close enough. The baby’s fingers curled around his in a tight grip.
“I didn’t think you’d fall back asleep after that car ride, little man,” Lucas said.
The baby kicked his feet again and seemed excited to see him. Even though it was probably Lucas’s imagination, his chest warmed and he took Noah from Carly. “I’ll take him in case you need to help Mary.”
As he lifted the baby from her arms, he saw the anguish in her eyes, and he wished he could lift that weight from her. She’d taken a terrible blow today.
He shuffled the baby to one arm and took a gulp of his water.
Mary studied her granddaughter’s expression. “I’m fixin’ to put the lasagna in the oven, and the garlic bread is ready to be toasted as well. Have a seat, Carly Ann, and tell me what Lucas isn’t saying. I could tell the minute you came into the room that something has upset your apple cart. You’re pale and your eyes are red. What has happened?”
Lucas choked on the water in his mouth, and he met Carly’s gaze. Her dark eyes narrowed as though she thought he’d spilled part of it, but he shook his head to reassure her. Carly slid onto a seat beside him and handed the baby a new set of plastic keys, the “key” to unlocking Eric’s secret.
“We saw Kelly’s baby today.”
“And?”
“She’s Eric’s child.”
Mary’s eyes widened, and she took a step toward Carly, who held up her hand. “I’m okay, Gram. It was a shock, but the bigger surprise was that the large amount of money she’s been spending has come from a Russian businessman named Ivan Bury. He’s put out a bounty on finding any of the Fabergé eggs, and Lucas suspects Kelly might be trying to help him find my egg. And it all started with Eric. We don’t know what Eric found in the chest. Did he see the egg and suspect its value was great? Or was there something there that led him to reports of the missing egg? If so, he might have discovered the bounty Ivan Bury had on the egg and contacted him. Kelly asked a few questions when I called her after finding Eric’s note, but I’d thought it was just idle chitchat. Now I don’t know.”
Mary’s lips twisted with disgust. “Pillow talk. I can’t believe Eric would do this. Her baby is a little older than Noah, right?”
“Yes, six weeks older.”
“Scum,” Mary said darkly. “Total scum.”
Lucas couldn’t disagree. Everything he thought he knew about Eric had changed the instant he’d realized what Kelly was hiding. “I’m going to go back and see her. Once she knows we’ve tracked where the money came from, she might spill what she knows.”
“I wonder if she realizes how much danger she might be in,” Carly said. “People have already died. If this Ivan Bury thinks she could incriminate him, he wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate her.”
Lucas would have liked to think they could wrap this up quickly, but having two separate groups to investigate muddied everything. And he still needed to find Mary’s twin.
Twenty-Two
How had life gotten to be such a mess?
Carly put Noah into his crib after dinner and forced herself to go back downstairs. Living with her sisters had been tense and uncomfortable. Her initial dreams of mending fences with them had gone nowhere with her focus on the danger swirling around them.
