AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kade's gaze moved from my mother to Rachel. "Did you feel that way? Or is your sister making you out to be a better person than you are?"
"The answer to both questions is yes," Rachel replied. "I was messed up when I met Max. I was stupid and reckless, and I didn't think I had anything to lose, but it turned out I had a lot to lose—my babies, my name, my life. I wish I'd never met Max, never gotten involved with his crew. I had no idea how dangerous he was until that night. That doesn't excuse what I did, but it's part of the story."
"I just wonder if it's a true story," Kade said. "You and Laura appear to be very good liars. And the fact that you kept the jewels for twenty-seven years and never turned yourselves in tells me that you never had enough guilt to want to come clean about everything."
"We always thought the stones were our insurance policy," Rachel said. "That Max could never kill us until he got them back."
"Did you sell any?" I asked.
"Only a couple small diamonds," Rachel replied. "To pay for some things we needed, but we were too afraid to sell more. We thought they might be traced back to us." She paused, her gaze moving to me. "How did you find them?"
"I remembered my mom telling me that she had magic stones that made the flowers grow."
Laura gave me a sad smile. "You caught me one day, and I had to make up a story. I can't believe you remember that."
"I remember a lot of things. This past week, when I met Kade and your students and your friends, I got angry, Mom. I resented the fact that you were there for so many other people, but not for me or for Dani. You were nurturing other peoples' dreams, but not ours."
"I shouldn't have told the nurse to call you. I just had this feeling I was going to die, and I wanted you to know that I loved you, that I was sorry. It was selfish of me to do that. When I left you, I should have cut the ties completely, but I kept going back to punish myself with glimpses of you and your sister and your dad. I got your number from a flyer at a music school where you gave violin lessons, and I put it into my phone, pretending we still had a relationship."
"Why didn't you put Dani's number in there?"
"After she turned away from me at graduation, I thought it was best that I never show my face near her again. I thought she'd told you that she'd seen me. And then I felt horrendously guilty and afraid that you'd both start looking for me."
"Dani didn't want to believe you were alive, nor did she want to upset me, so she stayed silent. The first time I knew you were alive was when I got the call from the hospital saying my mother was dying." I paused. "Did you talk to Max before he shot you?"
"Yes. He confronted me after I left school on Tuesday. He had found me through the video that went viral. I'd always stayed out of the limelight, but that night I'd had no choice but to do what needed to be done. I never imagined the clip would spread to so many news outlets."
"What did Max want?"
"The stones and Rachel," Laura answered. "I said I didn't know where the stones were and that I hadn't seen my sister in twenty years. Max made a lot of threats, but I was able to get away when some of my students interrupted our conversation. I sent Rachel an emergency text. She didn't get back to me, and I didn't know what to do. I needed to warn her. I also needed to leave. But then your father showed up the next day and I had a really unpleasant scene with him. It was all starting to unravel. I decided I would leave town after the concert. I didn't want to leave the kids in the lurch. I thought I could find a way to stay away from Max for a few days, but he wasn't having that. I was told he shot me in front of my house."
"You're lucky he didn't kill you," I said.
"I know."
"Is it over now?" I asked. "If Max is part of some crime family, won't there be others who want the jewels? Who will want revenge for Max's death?"
"Max and his friend Jonah did the Holden heist on their own," Rachel said. "If it had gone as planned, Max would have bragged about it and used it to bolster his position in the organization. But because it was a total screw-up, he couldn't tell anyone that he'd killed someone and had lost the stones. It was better for him to stay quiet." Rachel paused. "To answer your question, we're safe now because both Max and Jonah are dead. There's no one else who knows anything about the robbery."
"But the family will know that Max is dead," I pointed out. "Couldn't they want revenge just for that alone?"
"They won't care," Rachel said. "Max went to jail for ten years and he completely destroyed their business operations. His death won't matter to anyone in that family. I made it look like he sold them out. In fact, I hoped he'd die in prison, that one of them would kill him, but somehow that didn't happen. Max always seemed to come out on top."
"Well, he didn't today," Kade said.
"Thanks to you," Rachel said.
"We don't want the stones," my mother put in. "We'd happily give them up if we could finally be free."
"Then give them up," I said.
"It's not that easy," Rachel said. "If I come clean to the police, I might take Laura down with me. She wasn't at the robbery, but she helped me hide everything, and she was with me in New Orleans when I killed Jonah. I don't want to see her go to jail for my crimes. I don't want her to lose you again because of me, but that could happen."
She made a good point. I didn't feel emotionally connected to Rachel. In fact, if I felt anything, it was dislike and anger, but my mom…I really didn't want to see her go to jail. I saw the worry in both of their eyes—eyes that looked exactly like mine.How on earth could I turn in my mother and aunt?
"The police don't know that I found the jewelry," I said slowly. "All they have is the box of photos, the postcards and the cash. None of that ties you to the robbery. The cash could have come from anywhere. I don't want you to have to run away again. But I also don't want to hang onto stolen jewels. I think we should get them back to James Holden. I know you don't think he got them legally, Rachel, but two wrongs don't make a right. My mom once taught me that."
Laura's eyes brimmed with tears at my words. "I wanted to be a good role model for you, but I wasn't."
