John stood behind him, looking as happy to be here as a crocodile would be in Antarctica. Richard twisted from his spot on the front bench to peer at her legs.
But it was the dark-haired linebacker in a suit on the other bench that made her knees nearly buckle.
Max was still pale, his movements slow when he turned to smile at her, but when his aquamarine gaze landed on her, firecrackers lit up in her heart.
She couldn’t have stopped smiling if she’d wanted to.
She held his gaze for the short walk up the red carpet that had been rolled over the wood aisle, only breaking eye contact when the music changed to Mom’s favorite song, “Canon in D.”
Max stood and looked to the back of the room. Mom stepped into the arched doorway, lifted her chin, and spread her lips in her bridal smile.
Patrick breathed out a small gasp.
And Merry said a silent prayer that Mom would make it all the way up the aisle.
That she’d let Patrick love her.
That she’d love him back, heart, mind, and soul.
Merry slid a glance at Max.
In his profile, she could see his lips were turned up, his eyes soft. She wasn’t used to seeing Max still, or even in his suit often, and suddenly she wanted to see him in a tux.
Standing where Patrick stood.
Losing his breath at the sight of his bride.
Merry losing her own breath at the idea of him being hers.
She blinked quickly, steadying her breath.
Mom stopped beside Patrick. Merry dutifully took her bouquet, and her mother turned and gripped Patrick’s hands.
“Vicky, you look—” Patrick’s voice broke.
Max smiled softly at Merry.
And for that moment, she was the girl she’d been a year ago. Happy. Optimistic. Brave.
Except this time, Max knew her worst secrets. He knew about her father. He knew about the fake Mrs. Claus diamond ring. He knew her mother was a serial bride and that Merry herself had done some fairly reprehensible things in her life.
Yet he was still here.
Smiling at her.
Believing in her.
France would still be there next week. Or the week after. Or—
The door to the chapel banged open, and six uniformed police officers burst in. “Meredith and Victoria Silver,” the first one said, “you’re under arrest for the theft of the Mrs. Claus diamond ring.”
Chapter 25
The rain fell in sheets, battering the old tin shed where Phoebe Moon huddled beneath her threadbare blanket. This rain didn’t smell like rain.
It smelled like Uncle Sandy’s laboratory.
—Phoebe Moon and the Sinister Cloud
* * *
Time went into slow motion. The police moving through the room at the speed of snails. Max’s neck twisting, bringing his head to face Merry, his lips parting, surprise and denial battling betrayal in his beautiful eyes. Mom’s arm reaching out, a barrier between Merry and the cops.
Even Phoebe Moon spoke in slow motion. Oooooh noooooooo.
“What?” Patrick said.
“What?” Mom said.
Patrick straightened and stepped between Mom and the police. “Gentlemen, there’s been a mistake.”
Zoe hustled after them down the aisle. “A big mistake,” she echoed.
“No mistake,” the lead cop said.
“Excuse me, but we’re getting married,” Patrick said.
Another cop snorted. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Max was still gaping at Merry with disbelief and a total lack of comprehension. “The Mrs. Claus diamond?”
Something metal clinked around Merry’s wrist. Then her other wrist. She vaguely realized she was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “But I—”
“Quiet, Meredith,” Mom commanded.
“Officers, stop,” Patrick said. “Vicky, Merry, don’t say a word. Not a word. I’m calling my lawyer right now. Quit manhandling my bride.”
“Max—” Merry said.
But he seemed just as bewildered as she was.
“I told you they were trouble,” John boomed.
“I could go for some jailbird action,” Richard said with a wag of his brows.
Matching bright red spots appeared high on Max’s cheeks. “Merry?”
“Max, it’s a mistake. Tell them. Tell them what I told you.”
“Meredith, be quiet,” Mom ordered again.
Max gaped at Merry as though he had no idea what she was talking about.
This wasn’t happening. She hadn’t stolen the diamond. She’d saved the diamond.
“Did you set your alarm?” she gasped.
“Did I…?”
“Set. Your. Alarm.”
“Merry,” Patrick said.
The cop behind her was talking, something about her rights, being silent, attorneys, courts of law.
“Max, set your—”
“Merry.” Patrick stepped between her and Max. “Please, honey. Please be quiet until we figure out what’s going on.” He touched Mom’s cheek. “We’ll get this straightened out, Vicky.”
Merry blinked back at Max, but all she saw was his retreating back.
The policeman gave her a firm shove, and while her instincts shrieked for her to fight, to shake him off, to run, instead she followed Mom’s lead and let herself be pushed out of Mom’s wedding in handcuffs.
* * *
Adrenaline was the only thing keeping Max upright when he stormed through the crowd gathered on the sidewalk outside With This Ring. He banged on the locked door.
Dan looked up sharply from a conversation with a cop beside the Mrs. Claus diamond display case. He sent Max a withering glare, then turned his back.
Fuck.
Max hadn’t eaten a full meal in almost two days, and he was sweating unnaturally beneath his suit. Despite the frigid December temperatures, a coat was too hot.
But he still marched around to the rear door of With This Ring and let himself in.
A tear-streaked Rachel met him at the back door. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “God, Max, I didn’t know.”
“Why the fuck did my girlfriend just get arrested at her mother’s wedding?” Max snarled.
“Because she switched the Mrs. Claus diamond for a fake,” Dan said.
He stepped into the short hallway between the offices, wearing his pissed off with a righteous indignation that made Max want to punch him.
“The hell she did.” No. No. That had been a dream. A hallucination. She hadn’t. She wouldn’t have—
“We have it on video, Max.”
“I’m so sorry, Dan,” Rachel said.
Dan grunted. “Once again, it’s not your fault we didn’t know who we were dealing with.”
“There’s no way—” Max started.
“The real ring was there yesterday morning. But today? Today, I find this.” Dan thrust the Mrs. Claus diamond at Max.
Max didn’t touch it.
He didn’t have to.
Even without taking it, he could see that the setting wasn’t the work of art Gramps had designed. It was an impressive replica, but the platinum didn’t bend right and the snowflake tips weren’t perfectly symmetrical.
And the diamonds—they weren’t diamonds at all.
“Merry didn’t do it.”
“Her mother dropped the real ring,” Rachel whispered. “Merry picked it up. It was my fault. She wrote a big check for Pepper’s bidding fund, so I let her try it on. And I—I didn’t look closely when I put it away.”
“No.”
“You need to leave,” Dan said.
“No.” She wouldn’t have. Merry wouldn’t have switched the Mrs. Claus diamond.
She wasn’t her father. She was running away to France to get away from her father. She’d been robbed herself, and she’d accepted it as punishment for the way she was raised.
Or had she told him everything he’d wanted to hear so he would believe her?
She wasn’t a psychopath.
Was she?
“The cops have a few questions for you when you’re feeling up to it,” Dan said. “We told them you’d been sick. But you won’t have long, Max. This is a fucking disaster. For all of us.”
Max turned on his heel and banged out the back door.
A disaster?
Nope.
This was worse.
* * *
This wasn’t real. If Merry didn’t open her eyes, she couldn’t wake up, and then this couldn’t be real.
She was sleeping at the B&B. Mom’s wedding was still hours away. The Mrs. Claus diamond was safe at Max’s house. No, check that. Daddy had never made a fake Mrs. Claus diamond, and Merry hadn’t switched them yesterday. And she had just broken through that plot complication that had backed Phoebe Moon and Zack Diggory into a corner.
It’s okay, Merry, Phoebe Moon said. Max will save us. How swoony will that be? Saved by your hunky boyfriend?
He’s not coming to save us, Phoebe Moon, Zack Diggory replied. He should’ve stopped the cops back at the wedding. Merry’s screwed.
Merry grunted and squeezed her eyes tighter.
She should’ve saved herself. She should’ve refused to come to Bliss. She should’ve explained the situation herself to the cops, but who would believe the daughter of a jewel thief? And where was Patrick’s lawyer, and why hadn’t the police tried to question them yet?
Dastardly Uncle Sandy laughed his evil laugh, and Merry pressed her hands to her ears to shut him up.
It didn’t work.
“Merry? Sweetheart, it’s going to be okay,” Mom said. “Patrick’s lawyer will have us out of here in no time.”
Would he?
Because she had done it.
She’d stolen the Mrs. Claus diamond.
She was guilty.
“I’m sorry about your wedding,” she whispered.
She still couldn’t open her eyes. Couldn’t look at Mom, still in her beautiful green wedding gown, sitting in the next cell over, steel bars separating them.
“I’m…simply sorry,” Mom whispered back.
Merry couldn’t hide forever. She forced her eyelids to move, even if she refused to acknowledge the gray ceiling, the fluorescent lights, and the cobwebs in the corner. Her feet hit the concrete floor, and she faced her mother. “Did you see…?”
Mom’s hesitation was answer enough.
She’d seen Daddy too.
“I didn’t say anything about your trip,” Mom said.
“My…trip?”
“Were you going to say goodbye?”
She knew? Merry peered around the jail, looking for listening devices or peeping LEOs listening in and taking notes. Being overheard talking about fleeing the country wouldn’t help her case here. “Mom…”
“I’ve always known you’d go one day. But I kept hoping you’d tell me. And then you seemed so taken with that handsome young man, even though we both know he’d be a horrible temptation for your father, I thought maybe you’d change your mind and stay.”
If only Daddy had been a plumber. “There will never be a way for us to have a happy ending.”
“Once this is behind us—”
“No. No, Mom. What happens the first time Daddy hears we had a fight? What happens when Max hurts me, even accidentally? What would happen if we broke up? Daddy would happen. Daddy’s always waiting to happen. I don’t work in medical billing anymore. I have a good job. A very good job that I’m amazingly good at. Did you know that?”
Mom’s lips parted, and she blinked.
“You don’t know, because I can’t tell you. What happens if I have a professional spat with someone?” Merry hissed. “What would Daddy do then?”
“Oh, Merry…”
“So what choice do I have if I’m ever going to give you grandchildren?” She didn’t mean to let her voice crack. But she couldn’t go ninja on her vocal cords to keep them in check. “I want to be normal, Mom. And I can’t do that here.”
Not that she’d get a chance to be normal anywhere now.
What was the penalty for stealing a famous diamond ring?
And why hadn’t Max said anything when the cops showed up?
“Merry, we could talk to your father—”
“He won’t change. You know it and I know it. Mom, you could’ve married Patrick. He’s normal. He’s mentally and emotionally healthy. He’s dependable. He’s head over heels for you. Why don’t you let yourself love him back?”
Mom picked at the velvet ribbon around her waist. “Are you asking me that about Patrick, or yourself that about your Max?”
Her Max.
You’re not your father, he’d said. You’re my Merry, he’d said.
He’d forgiven her. He’d made love to her. He’d let her back in, time and time again this week. But he’d still walked away at the very moment she needed him the most. “If he were my Max, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Oh, Merry.” Mom sighed again. “Come here, my sweet girl.” She reached through the bars separating their cells.
And because Mom was everything she had in the world, Merry went to the bars and hugged her back.
Chapter 26
“But would you have come if I’d told you he was my uncle?”
“I guess we’ll never know, will we, Phoebe Moon?”
—Phoebe Moon and the Missing Sunshine
* * *
One year ago…
Max pulled up to his house Thursday night, half hoping Merry would still be there after she’d come down to Bliss last night.
And a good night it had been.
All she needed was an internet connection to work, right? Since she hadn’t called, texted, or emailed to say she was home yet, maybe she’d decided to hang out one more night. Eat some more cheese, watch him tinker with Trixie to figure out where that odd noise was coming from, make love to him all night long…
But his garage was empty.
So was his house.
Huh.
Maybe she’d left late and got stuck in traffic. Her apartment in Chicago was only ninety minutes away.
Errands, then? She might’ve been low on groceries.
He grinned to himself.
Or cheese.
He dialed her number, then waited for the phone to ring while he filled Scout’s food bowl.
After half a ring, the tinny recording of the phone woman came on the line. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again.”
Max pulled his phone down and peered at it for a moment, then hit Merry’s picture to dial her again.
Same message.
Odd.
He tried a text.
It bounced back.
Had she forgotten to pay her phone bill?
Her car was an old beater—had Max missed the signs she was having money trouble?
Was that why she always paid in cash?
He opened his email and typed out a message.
Just checking that you made it home safely. Give me a call.
He shut his email down and changed his clothes, then headed out to see Gran and Gramps for a few minutes before dinner. Rach had invited him over for steak, and Olivia was itching to start that next Phoebe Moon book.
On his way into Dan’s house, he pulled up his email.
His message to Merry had bounced back.
Undeliverable.
He tried her number once more—computers could be glitchy—but it was still disconnected.
Hell, maybe it was his phone. He dialed Dan’s house phone while he walked into their house.
Three kids darted past him to lunge for the phone while he listened to it ring through his cell phone, then he heard the echo of their argument bounce in his ear.
So it wasn’t his phone.
Rachel appeared in the doorway. “Max? Everything okay?”
He hadn’t said much about Merry—too many people were always waiting
for the other shoe to drop in his relationships, thanks to the ridiculous Golden Bouquet hex he supposedly had—but Dan and Rach had figured out he was seeing someone. “Nope. All good,” he lied.
His pulse had sat firmly in the worried zone all through dinner.
After dinner, he read the first two chapters of Phoebe Moon and the Stolen Sound to Olivia, bought two more bags of Cub Scout popcorn from Ty and Gavin, then headed home.
Max still couldn’t get a call through to Merry.
Two more emails to her bounced back.
Scout whimpered by his bedside all night long while Max lay there, telling himself he’d be able to reach her tomorrow.
He wasn’t worried because he was in love with her or anything. This was a normal worry for a friend.
A friend he liked.
A friend he missed.
A friend who was completely and totally out of reach.
He would’ve called one of her other friends to check in on her, but he didn’t know who her other friends were.
Did she have family? She’d mentioned moving around as a kid, but she hadn’t said if her parents were still alive. And she was an only child.
Wasn’t she?
He still couldn’t reach her on Friday.
By Saturday morning, he’d had enough. So he hopped in Trixie and headed up to Chicago.
When she didn’t answer her door, he went to the police. Heart in his throat, his hands shaking so badly he almost couldn’t shift.
Something bad had happened.
He pushed through the double doors of the local precinct closest to Merry’s house and approached the desk.
A uniformed guy with a mustache and round cheeks looked up. “Morning. How can we help you?”
“I haven’t been able to get in touch with my girlfriend since she left my house two days ago,” Max said.
The older guy’s dark eyes said he’d heard this story before.
“Her phone’s disconnected, her email’s bouncing, and if she’s home, she’s not answering her door.”
Wasn’t often Max felt like a creep, but this guy’s flat stare made quick work of questioning everything from his sexuality to his capability of hurting a woman enough to make her want to disappear. “You sure she wants to talk to you?” the cop said.
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