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Carly wore a worried frown as she bounced Caroline up and down in her arms. “Is it trauma or something more?”
“You know her better than me. Could she have been more involved than we know?”
“I can’t believe she’d put the baby in danger.”
He knocked on the door. “Isabelle, you need to face this. We just have a few questions.”
Carly touched his arm. “Let’s leave her alone for a while. It’s been a traumatic day, and she’s probably overwhelmed. If she sleeps awhile, she might be in better shape to answer questions.”
He allowed Carly to pull him from the door, though he didn’t like it. There were too many questions to be answered,like who was the other person working with Roger? There had to be at least one, and that man was still on the loose.
They went down the stairs and into the living room, where Bernard and Agent Chen waited on the sofa. They showed obvious disappointment when only he and Carly joined them.
“She won’t come out, so I decided to let her rest for a while. We’ll try later,” Carly said.
Bernard rose from the sofa. “We’ve got your statements. Call us when she’s out of her room, and we’ll come back. I’m going home to have dinner with my wife for the first time this week.”
Chen’s smile landed on Caroline. “I’m so relieved this ended happily. You have my number.”
Lucas and Carly walked them out. Fatigue pressed down on Lucas’s shoulders. It had been quite the day, and it wasn’t over yet. He smelled the aroma of fried chicken wafting from the kitchen and heard the soft voices of Mary and Elizabeth talking. Amelia and Emily had taken Lainey and Holt out for dinner, and Carly’s dad had left without telling anyone where he was going. He’d been gone when they got home.
Lucas carried Noah back into the living room and laid him on a blanket on the area rug. Carly put Caroline beside her baby and handed toys to both of them. She gestured to the old chest in the corner of the room. “We’ve got a little time before dinner. We could go through that while we wait. Elizabeth told us to take a look whenever we wanted.”
Though all he really wanted to do was fall into bed and nap awhile, he lugged the chest over to the sofa in front of her. “Have at it. I think I smell coffee. Want some?”
“Sure.” She yanked on the chest. “I forgot it was locked.”
Coffee forgotten, he went to the basement and retrieved some tools. A few minutes later, the lock released and he lifted the lid. The odor of mildew and must rushed out, and he wrinkled his nose as he stared down into the pictures and papers inside.
Carly let out a mewl of dismay. “I was sure we would find the surprise inside.”
He plunged his hands into the contents, lifted them out, and laid them on the floor. “Looks like old pictures.”
She picked up a handful of pictures and shuffled through them. “Aunt Elizabeth will probably treasure these. They’re probably of her grandparents and their parents. Some are really old.”
He took a stack of pictures, too, even though he had no idea what they were looking for in them. Many were of Elizabeth’s house while it was being remodeled. “Seems like these were taken in the 1930s and 1940s. They did a big remodel on the house and added on the new kitchen.”
They plodded through the photos, and he was sure there was nothing of interest until Carly gasped and showed him a picture. “Look at this.”
He took the photo and stared at it. Two babies on an old bedstead. Beside one was an egg and beside the other was another object more round than oblong. In the black-and-white picture, they were both dark. Painted?
He lifted a brow and stared at Carly. He touched the round object. “The surprise?”
“I think it has to be!”
He flipped the picture over and found spidery handwritingon the back that he read aloud. “Elizabeth and Mary, age two weeks. Always remember Mama loves you.”
Carly took it from him and stared at the front again. “I have to show Gram and Aunt Elizabeth.”
***
Gram and Aunt Elizabeth both cried when they saw the picture of themselves as babies. Carly left it in their possession and went back to the living room, where she found Lucas perusing his phone. The babies had fallen asleep entwined around each other, and she smiled to see Major curled up beside them too.
Carly settled on the sofa beside Lucas. “If you could find Dimitri, maybe he’d talk.”
“I doubt it. The Russian mafia is loyal to a fault.”
“It might only be Dimitri and the mafia doesn’t know about it.”
