Drift

by Amy Murray

  “Here. I thought this might explain it, but there’s something I’m missing.”

  I cringed at the heading. “Priceless Diamond Stolen by Prominent Society Heir.” I shook my head and looked to James. “He—you—James didn’t steal the diamond. It was given to him by Thomas.”

  “Keep reading,” James encouraged.

  “Nino Roselli, owner of the Valentine Room on Seawall Boulevard, accuses Thomas Bellingham, heir to the Bellingham Hotel fortune, of stealing the priceless yellow diamond he gifted his daughter, Valentina, only one week ago. Valentina was staying at the Bellingham Hotel when the valuable was reported stolen.”

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I scanned the rest of the article and dropped the paper on the desktop. “I think Roselli lied. Thomas wouldn’t have needed to steal that diamond. He was wealthy in his own right.”

  “Then how did Thomas end up with it? Why did he give it to James? Why not return it? Why die for it?”

  James fired the questions at me, and I shook my head at each one. “You’re right, we’re missing something,” I said.

  James ran a hand through his hair and plunked his hands loosely at his hips.

  “You should try and get some sleep,” I told him.

  “Probably,” he admitted. “But I can’t. At least not until we figure this out.”

  I pulled my hair over my shoulder and twisted it into a knot. James believed we would find the diamond, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “What’s wrong,” he asked, sensing the change in my mood.

  I stared at him and tried to gauge my feelings. “What if we can’t find it?”

  James straightened his shoulders and his eyes burned with intensity. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s a legitimate question.”

  “It won’t come to that. I’ll figure this out.”

  I walked around the desk to the window that overlooked the backyard and stared at the patches of dead grass and dirt.

  “We have two days. Even if we knew where to look, I’m not sure it’s enough time.”

  “Look, we may not have much—yet—but it’s a start, and I’m convinced the answers are here.” James moved from behind the desk and placed his hands at my waist.

  Everything about him screamed with determination. “It’s just—I need to know my options. Our options. We can’t face him again without a plan B.”

  “Well,” he said with a sigh. “That’s easy.” He wrapped himself around me. “We’ll run. We get out of town and start over somewhere.”

  History was repeating, and even though his warm body was pressed against mine, I was cold. I wanted to tell him that it was no use. Roselli would find us, and even if he didn’t, how could I leave my father and Gracie behind without an explanation? And what about my drifts? Running wouldn’t stop them; I’d just be carrying the same problem to a new location.

  “You’re quiet,” James said, interrupting my thoughts. “What’re you thinking about?”

  “I was supposed to graduate this May,” I said into his chest. “Start my life. Look for a job.” James’s arms tightened. “It all seems so pointless now. All that time I spent worrying about my grades. Stressing about exams. I should’ve had more fun. You know? Lived a little.”

  “You sound like you’re giving up.”

  “I’m not giving up, it’s just that the future I’ve planned for isn’t what’s being handed to me.”

  James nodded. “Sometimes, life sets us on a path, and believe me, it’s not always the one you want to be on. But, I can’t help but think that there’s a reason to go through it.”

  “I get that, I do, it’s just that this feels different, like I’m standing on the wrong side of a mountain during an avalanche. I can’t shake the feeling that Roselli’s going to crush us. With or without that diamond.”

  James held me arm’s length. “He won’t. I won’t let him.”

  I tried to pull away, but his hands tightened at my waist.

  “Look at me,” he said. “Roselli isn’t going to hurt you. He won’t even touch you, because I’m not leaving your side. Ever.” His words pierced my skin and crawled through my bones. James was a fierce thing to behold. Determined and immovable, solid as stone.

  I wanted to believe him, to believe that everything was going to be okay. He made it easy to think that it would, but there were worse ways to hurt me that had nothing to do with killing me. I thought about James’s murder and the devastation I felt kneeling over his broken body. Yes, watching him die again would be worse than my own death. Much, much worse.

  “What’re you afraid of?” he asked, his hands softening against my skin, holding me rather than caging me.

  “Everything,” I said honestly. “I’ve never been so afraid, and every solution I think I find ultimately leads to a terrible end.”

  An image of my mother, her arms folded around her knees as she stared blankly at the wall, flitted to mind.

  “My mother couldn’t separate her drifts from her reality.” I remembered her last lucid moment, the last time I ever saw her. “I don’t want to end up like that. I don’t want to lose myself to my drift, reliving that horror over and over again. If we run, and I don’t figure out how to stop my drifts, I’ll end up just like her.”

  “I’d rather have you alive and drifting than dead and buried.”

  I pulled away. “You don’t understand what it will be like. You don’t understand what I’ll become.”

  James placed his palm, rough with calluses, against my cheek. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying. You never met my mother. I won’t put you, or anyone else, in that situation.”

  “Then let’s figure it out, okay? Tell me about the night Thomas was killed.”

  “I’ve told you everything. Thomas had run to the corner, across the street from where we stood. A car pulled up and—”

  “What about before that? Can you remember anything Thomas said before he ran to the corner?”

  I fell silent and closed my eyes. “Thomas said to tell her he was sorry.” I shook my head. There had to be something else, something that could help. The image of Thomas running toward us felt alive as I replayed the drift. My eyes snapped open.

  “What is it?” James asked. “What do you remember?”

  “I didn’t, nothing new anyway.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It was something Mack said when he first told me about Roselli. He had a daughter, didn’t he?” James nodded and fumbled through his papers.

  “Valentina,” he said. “Why?”

  “What if Valentina was the ‘her’?” Tendrils of excitement swirled around my ankles and wound their way up my body.

  “Who?” James asked, not following my line of thinking.

  “That night, right before Thomas ran off, he said to tell ‘her’ he was sorry. I wondered who he could’ve been talking about, and then last night, during my drift, you—I mean, James Bellingham—mentioned that Thomas was in love. That he was seeing someone whose father would never approve of their relationship.”

  James ran his hand over the scruff of his beard as his eyes lit with understanding. “But if it was Valentina he was in love with, why would he steal the diamond from her?”

  “I don’t think he did. It wouldn’t make sense.”

  “Then how did he end up with it?”

  I crossed my arms and tapped my fingers against my elbows. “Because she gave it to him.”

  He shook his head. “No, that doesn’t fit. You said yourself that Thomas didn’t need the money. He was to inherit a fortune.”

  James was right. It didn’t make sense, but something he said jarred a memory in the back of my mind. I turned to James and smiled.

  “That’s it.”

  “What?”

  “He was to inherit a fortune.” My heart raced with excitement, and last night’s drift came flooding to the forefront of my thoughts. “Last night, in my drift, you and I
had a similar conversation. I told you I couldn’t…” My face flushed and I looked away from James.

  “You couldn’t what?”

  “Nothing, it’s just that I told you I had no money, and you told me you didn’t, either. It was your parents’ money, not yours. What if Thomas felt the same way?”

  James eyes narrowed.

  “Don’t you see?” I asked, but James didn’t move. “He didn’t consider himself wealthy, even though, by right, he was incredibly rich. If they truly wanted to be together, and they knew that Roselli would never approve, they would have to leave town. And to leave town they would need—”

  “Money,” James finished.

  “He didn’t steal it,” I said with certainty. “She gave it to him, probably to pawn or sell or something. That’s why he said to tell her he was sorry. Roselli must’ve found out before he could do anything about it.”

  A weight shifted in my chest as the mysteries surrounding the diamond and my drifts began to clear. Now, if I could only figure out what happened to the necklace after I took it to Houston. I glanced at the articles scattered on the desk. The answers I was looking for wouldn’t be there, and a nervous round of butterflies kicked inside my stomach. We had less than two days before Roselli’s deadline, and I could only hope we’d find it before then.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I stood in the middle of James’s studio and stared at a dozen faces that looked like my own. Skimming my hand along a stack of sketchbooks, I made my way to the center table. At some point during the night, he’d moved the canvases, and in its place were three charcoal sticks and a several sheets of paper.

  My curiosity piqued, I examined the drawings. Lines, somewhat frantic, swashed back and forth over the top page. The charcoal was heavy and smeared in some areas, while others remained light, the lines hardly drawn at all. It was a lattice of some sort—a series of Xs curved in a wide U-shape.

  I picked up the paper and revealed the drawing underneath. The latticework was the same, but this time more fluid, like braided rope folded in a circle. I lifted the second page, and when I saw the last sketch, my heart stalled, tripped a bit, and began pounding.

  It was a drawing of an engagement ring. The diamond was large and round, and it stood proudly against a band that was twisted like rope, yet delicate as a vine. My eyes narrowed and my lips parted as I leaned forward to examine it more closely. Not only had I seen this ring before, I’d worn it. Picking up the final drawing, I left James’s studio.

  I found him in the kitchen staring into the mostly empty fridge.

  “James?” I asked quietly.

  He turned, and I glimpsed a rare moment where the worry inside his heart bled into every feature on his face, but with a blink, it was gone. He looked at the paper I held and watched as I placed it on the bare countertop.

  “When did you draw this?” I asked to break the silence.

  He didn’t say anything as he pulled the sketch toward him. His eyes widened with the lift of his brow before he shrugged. “Last night.”

  James’s expression was unreadable, and I didn’t know how to proceed. Should I tell him I’d seen it? Should I tell him who’d given it to me? In the end, I couldn’t.

  “Have you drawn it before?” I asked.

  “No.” His head tilted and understanding dawned. “But you’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

  I didn’t answer. James ran his hand across his cheek and stared at his drawing.

  “Why did you draw it?” I asked.

  He gave a quick shake of his head. “I don’t know. It just came to me.”

  I shifted on my feet and splayed my hands on top of the counter. “The same way I came to you, or was it something else?” I asked. The answer I already knew, but I wanted it confirmed.

  He pressed his lips together and considered me for several moments. Placing a scarred finger against the paper, he took a step toward me. “You’ve seen this ring before,” he said. His dark gaze bored into mine and reached a deeper place near my soul. He moved closer but said nothing.

  I nodded.

  “Did I give it to you?” He took another step toward me. Our hands were an inch apart, and our chests were so close I could feel his heat. Every part of my body hummed and vibrated.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  James was confused, and I could all but see the questions running through his mind. “Who gave it to you?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, and at the same time James blinked and blew out a gust of air. “It was McCormack,” he said, answering his question before I could.

  I nodded and cleared my throat. James turned to lean his back against the wall and crossed his thick arms across his chest.

  I frowned at the drawing. “Colin gave this to me two years after you were murdered.”

  James stood motionless against the wall while his gaze remained fixed on the ring. In the ensuing silence, I had the urge to be as honest with him as I could. Knowing Mack and I shared a history was difficult for me to wrap my thoughts around. I hated to think what must be going on in James’s head. Still, he deserved to know the truth.

  “He brought me here to Houston after that night. We had a house. It was a little one story with two bedrooms.” I closed my eyes, seeing the bedroom where Colin asked me to be his wife. “The night he gave me this ring, Colin saw the necklace. I never meant to show it to him.”

  “Do you remember what happened to it after that?”

  “I don’t know. Colin told me it was valuable, but that was it. He wrapped it back in the handkerchief I’d hidden it in. I haven’t had a drift where it appeared after that moment. It’s as if that was the last time I saw it.”

  James sat in contemplative silence. “That night was Colin’s first time to see the diamond?”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  “How had he not seen it before? Y’all had been living together for two years, right?”

  “I’d hidden it under a loose floorboard in my room, next to my wardrobe, but I can’t be certain I ever put it back. Colin had seen it, so there probably wasn’t much need to hide it after that, right? And anyway, we know now he knew what he was holding. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen the necklace, like I’d originally thought.”

  James lifted his shoulders. “Do you think he would’ve taken it?”

  I considered that for a moment. “No. When Roselli came to our home in Houston, Colin was just as surprised to find him there as I was. I don’t think he wanted us found.”

  “Then the necklace could still be there. Do you remember anything about the house? Anything that would help us find it?”

  Find the house? I hadn’t thought about it before, but James could be right. The necklace could still be there, hidden away under the floorboards. The twinge of excitement was promptly dampened by another thought.

  I shook my head. “It’s been a hundred years. The house may not be standing, but even if it was, I haven’t seen anything but a couple of rooms inside.”

  Frustration overwhelmed me. I pushed away from the counter and paced the kitchen.

  “I wish there were someone we could talk to.” I plunked my hands on my hips. “Someone that was alive during that time that would know. Someone that could point us in the right direction.” James’s forehead wrinkled and his eyes shifted to focus on something in the living room behind me. “Ridiculous, I know.”

  James shook his head and with his eyes still averted said, “Maybe not.”

  He disappeared down the hallway, and not a minute later, he strode back into the kitchen and held a photograph in front of me.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  I pulled the photo from his fingertips and stared at the image. It was of a building sitting at the end of a long pier that jutted into the ocean. “That’s the Valentine Room,” he said.

  Three figures stood in the foreground. “That’s Nino and Valentina, but I don’t know who this is. I’ve never seen him before.” I pointed at the unknown man
standing next to Valentina. His hands were in his pockets, and his face was narrow and cold.

  “That’s Nickolas Bastone,” he said.

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He was Valentina’s husband.”

  My eyes lifted in surprise. “Really? When?”

  “They married in August of 1922, according to the announcement in the paper.”

  My brow furrowed, and I shook my head. “Thomas was killed in June of that year. That would mean she married him two months later?”

  “You forget,” James said. “According to the papers, Thomas was only missing. His body was never found.”

  “Then why, if she had hope Thomas was alive, would she marry someone else? Last she knew, he had her necklace. Do you think she thought he ran off with it? And then she married this guy? Why?”

  James motioned to the picture. “Look closer. What else do you see?”

  I studied their faces and shrugged. It wasn’t until my gaze traveled down toward the bottom of the picture that I saw her. A little girl hiding behind Valentina’s leg.

  “There’s a girl.” Her face was partially obscured by her mother’s dress, and the rest was covered by strands of long, dark hair blowing in the wind. “Who is she?”

  James moved to my side so we could both see the photo. “That’s Evelyn Bastone, Valentina’s daughter.”

  “Daughter?” I asked. “When was she born?”

  “That’s the crazy thing.” James handed me a second paper, an article stating that Valentina and Nickolas had welcomed the birth of a daughter. The article was dated February of 1923.

  “They didn’t wait long,” I mumbled to James. He lowered his head—looking at me from under his lashes, and the pieces clicked into place.

  “Think about it,” James said. “Valentina and Nickolas were married in August. Six months later they have a baby?”

  I knew what he was getting at, but I couldn’t help but state the obvious. “The baby could’ve been premature.”

  “That or Valentina was already pregnant when she married Nickolas.”

  I studied what I could of the little girls face. “So, if Evelyn isn’t Nickolas’s daughter, then she’s…”