by Mira Gibson
Holly had never heard him talk like that.
“And no one should be alone during this... difficult time.,” he added.
She uttered, “Thank you,” as Warren began ushering his wife through the store. The bell chimed overhead as they left and it wasn’t until they had disappeared down the sidewalk that Holly felt like she could breathe again.
“I’m so sorry about that,” she said, rounding behind the counter where her customers had been eyeing a number of pendants.
The girl grinned darkly now that she had Holly’s attention and introduced herself as Roberta. “Do you have poison rings?”
“I thought you wanted a necklace,” said her mother, whose face screwed up at the term poison.
“I have a few,” Holly told her, getting a strange feeling from the request. But she padded down the counter, slid a glass door aside, and grabbed a velvet tray, which displayed eight rings.
After returning to them and presenting the options, the woman, who Roberta had referred to as Gerty, asked, “What’s a poison ring?”
Holly explained, “It’s a ring that has a small pillbox under its bezel.” She pinched one of the rings off the tray and used her fingernail to pop up its sapphire encrusted bezel, revealing a tiny compartment and then handed the ring to Gerty for examination. “Poison rings were popular in Europe during the sixteenth century. Women kept perfume and other keepsakes inside, but the style was also rumored to hold poison.”
As she went on detailing the history, it wasn’t lost on her that in this day in age people generally used poison rings to hide drugs, more often than not cocaine. She suddenly remembered Rose’s stash and how she’d left most of it with Benjamin that night. Perhaps Roberta wasn’t merely curious about the style, but would have an actual use for the ring, assuming she had nabbed a baggie or two.
“You want a ring like that?” asked Gerty.
“I don’t want a ring like that,” she corrected. “I want a necklace like that. Do you make those?”
Holly smiled at her. “It’s a possibility.” Then, thinking fast on her feet—she didn’t know if she would ever have another opportunity with the girl who was the last person seen with Benjamin, what did she know? What might the peculiar girl tell her if she could get her alone?—she asked, “I might have to build it from scratch, but if you’d like to come with me into the studio you can pick out a gemstone?”
“I thought you made them here,” she interjected, her eyes gleaming in subtle challenge. “A friend of mine had one and I could’ve sworn she said she got it at Shackles.”
The comment peaked Holly’s interest. She never forgot a face and she would’ve remembered selling a pillbox necklace. Something about the girl, her self-assured smirk, the confident glimmer in her eye, made Holly want to jam her revolver down her throat, but she kept her expression even, as she said, “I can make whatever you like.” Shifting her gaze to Gerty, she asked, “What’s the occasion?”
Proudly, the woman began commending her daughter. “Consistent grades even in math and she’s been handling her responsibilities well, working at Tony’s Pizzeria and meeting her curfew.”
“Congratulations,” Holly said dryly, touching eyes with the girl and feigning a smile, all the while pitying the woman. Clearly, Roberta had her completely snowed, which meant that Cody and Lucas hadn’t paid Gerty a visit to grill or at the very least question the girl. Why hadn’t they? She reasoned the detectives might not want to waste time arresting a burgeoning prostitute when there was a killer on the loose.
“Let’s pick out the chain and the gemstone and I’ll give you an estimate.” Starting for the studio door, she added, “It’s a bit messy, but-”
“I know what I want,” Roberta said, stopping her. “A sterling silver cable link chain, a heart shaped pendant, also sterling silver. And it has to have a jagged opal dead center.”
What the fuck?
Roberta had just described her sister’s necklace.
Holly tensed, slowly facing the girl. “What did you say?”
Angling her cat eyes on Holly, her chin tipping down, the light dimmed behind her eyes. “Just like my friend.”
Her mouth went dry. “Ah, yeah,” she managed, her chest tightening and her thoughts reeling with sudden and confusing revelations.
How well did she know Rose?
Gerty asked, “Do you have an idea of the price?” but Holly didn’t even hear her, her heart was pounding so hard that her pulse throbbed in her ears.
Holly touched her collarbone, expecting to feel Rose’s necklace, but it wasn’t there. Fumbling for words, she stammered, “Yeah, ah, a price...” and returned to the counter in search of an estimate pad. She found one in a drawer near the cash register.
As she began jotting down materials and their cost, her brain not quite working, she sensed more than saw a man enter the store. When he reached the woman, he breathed a smile and kissed her cheek, and Gerty called him Jake, while Roberta milled off, wandering around the store.
They whispered to each other something about lunch or dinner, Holly had no concept of what time it was, and then Gerty asked if she could email the estimate, placing her business card on the counter.
“Sure, no problem,” she said in a hollow tone, as the couple walked to the door, leaving their peculiar daughter behind.
Roberta was staring at her again. “How long will it take?”
“A day or two.” The second Gerty and her husband—boyfriend?—disappeared down the sidewalk, she urgently asked, “How do you know about my sister's necklace?”
Roberta shot her a sly smirk as she weaved—hips swaying and heeled boots tapping—her way around the displays towards the entrance door. After pushing it open, she glanced over her shoulder, saying, “See ya in a day or two,” then stepped into the wintery afternoon.
Her stomach bottomed out like a blade over an anvil.
Was Roberta taunting her? Had she asked for Rose’s necklace to rattle Holly like this was some kind of sick game? Or was the cunning girl hinting at something much deeper, much darker?
Had she meant to imply that Rose’s necklace was significant for some reason?
Holly could remember every detail of making that necklace for Rose from molding the silver to pickling the pendant to setting the sparkling opal onto the bezel. There was no pillbox beneath.
But Roberta’s confidence, the dark conviction that had underscored her breezy comments—Opal dead center, and Just like my friend, and Could’ve sworn she got it at Shackles—had Holly second guessing herself.
Had Rose modified her necklace?
“Fuck,” she breathed, ridding Roberta from her mind. She wasn’t about to let a teenage girl get inside her head and mess with her like this.
What would it matter if her sister had altered the necklace? Rose had been an addict. She had turned every nook and cranny into a hiding place. It was what it was. So what if she had softened the pendant in the kiln, carved out a compartment, welded on hinges in order to create one more hiding place?
Holly locked the storefront and flipped the sign, needing a breather before the next customer wandered in. But as she padded into her studio fully prepared to suck it up and get started on Roberta’s necklace, she couldn’t deny the unsettling fact that the girl had succeeded in disturbing her. Roberta’s comments were worming their way through her mind and she couldn’t shake the terrible urge to drive to Rose’s house and examine her sister’s necklace.
Grumbling, “Shit,” she bundled up at the backdoor after unplugging the space heater and Crock Pot—the last thing she needed was to burn her store down, she wasn’t even certain she had been keeping up with the insurance payments.
Once outside, she locked up and carefully made her way over snow-dusted ice to Rose’s BMW.
Climbing into the vehicle sober as a judge was surreal. The sheer class of the interior—black leather seats, a slick dashboard, technology that reminded her of a spaceship—seemed suddenly foreign. She clicked the
gear shifter into Drive and as she drove through town towards her sister’s house, the glaring incongruity between her sister’s life and her own leapt out at her.
If Roberta had meant to insinuate that she knew Rose better than Holly, maybe she was right. Holly hadn’t known her sister, not really, not since the estrangement.
Rose had lived in a world of designer drugs and seedy nightclubs. She’d associated with men like Ron, characters that wouldn’t hesitate to shove a gun in her face, perhaps kill her and her husband, and take her son for God only knew what reason. She had forged unlikely friendships with teenage girls and received envelopes stuffed with cash, all while raising an infant into a toddler then into a reserved four-year old with signs of developmental regression.
What other secrets had Rose Wythe kept and why was Holly filled with the terrible intuition that Roberta wanted her to open the necklace?
Why did Holly sense that if she did, the secret it contained—its hidden truths—would break her?
Pulling off Newman Road into the driveway, she decided to park the BMW in the garage where it belonged since she had resolved to drive her own car from now on.
She pressed the remote where it was clipped to the sun visor and the garage door jutted upwards, slowly feeding into the ceiling rack, as she eased on the gas.
As soon as she had parked the BMW bumper-to-shelving unit at the back of the garage, she turned the key, killing the engine, and forced a deep breath as if doing so might prepare her for what she was about to discover should the necklace actually open.
CLICK.
The sound was faint yet distinct and when rhythmic clicks followed, coming from the garage ceiling like an eerie premonition, instinct spiked hard and fast in her veins.
Frantic, she twisted the key in the ignition and jerked the gear shifter into Reverse, stomping the accelerator to the floor, the engine roaring, tires squealing, burning rubber, as the BMW flew out of the garage. She grit her teeth without a glimpse at the rearview mirror, focused only on clearing the house.
The rear bumper slammed into her parked Saab and her head whipped back, bouncing off the headrest and rattling her teeth.
BOOM.
The explosion pitched her sideways, shattering her window, glass raining like needles against her cheek, as shrapnel pelted the windshield and the hood.
Stunned, terrified, her head pounding with the swell of a concussion, she straightened up in her seat, her eyes widening at the sight of it—orange flames crackling and licking the side of the house where the garage used to be.
Whatever their motive for killing Rose and Benjamin, for taking Tucker; Holly was also on their list.
And she didn’t have a fucking clue as to why.
Chapter Fourteen
Clutching her revolver and standing in the snowy driveway, Holly watched flames devour the garage. Flurries fluttered down all around her in innocent contrast to the danger she sensed.
There wasn’t a soul in sight, but she didn’t trust that the killer wasn’t lurking in the wintery forest.
She had called 911, cursing when the operator hung up after taking the address. She would’ve preferred staying on the line until help arrived.
Dazed—what if she had closed the garage door, stepped out of the BMW? She would’ve been obliterated—she had the impulse to run into the house and snatch Rose’s necklace from the vanity upstairs. What if the fire got to it before firefighters could save the second floor? What if every last shred of her sister was incinerated?
She started for the entrance, but turned at the sound of a growling engine. A Ford Focus was hurling up the driveway, zigzagging through the drift as though there was no other way to conquer the incline.
Quickly, she jammed her revolver into her coat pocket.
When the vehicle rolled to a stop, parking at an awkward angle next to her sister’s totaled BMW, Lucas jumped out and rushed to her with such urgency that he left his car door open.
Taking her by the shoulders, he demanded, “Are you alright?”
He was gripping her too tightly, his eyes searching hers invasively, his concern seeming too intense.
“I’m fine,” she said, bewildered. “Where is everyone?” When he narrowed his eyes, she clarified, “I called the police. Where’s the fire truck?”
Loosening his grip, his hands slid down her arms as if warming her up, and he shook his head, staring at the raging fire. “Dispatch didn’t call me,” he admitted, which had her momentarily thrown.
“You were nearby?”
“I was on my way to ask you about a few things and heard the explosion” he said, but when she looked at him expectantly, he didn’t address what those things were. Instead, he eyed the scene—the garage in flames, the BMW’s damage, the stunned grimace on Holly’s face. “Did you see anyone?”
“No.” She studied his expression for a beat and tried not to get distracted by his obvious appeal—the straight mouth, his pale lips, the lower slightly thicker than the upper, the crisp quality of his blue eyes, the light dusting of stubble along his jaw. Did he have any idea what the hell was going on? She couldn’t get a solid read on him. “I need to get into the house.”
“What? No, you can’t. It’s not safe.”
“The house isn’t on fire,” she countered.
“It will be.”
She pointed to one of the second floor windows, explaining, “I need to get into that room up there. I’ll have time if I go now.”
“What do you need?” he asked quickly. “I’ll get it for you.”
But it was too late. A fire truck followed by two police cruisers was flying along Newman, their sirens wailing and lights blazing.
As soon as the vehicles began plowing up the driveway, Lucas told her that Rose’s BMW was in the way, the fire truck wouldn’t be able to get close enough to the garage.
He jogged to his Ford, asking her over his shoulder, “Can you move the car? Will it drive?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but jumped into his vehicle, which was blocking hers, and drove through fresh snow towards the woods, clearing the way for Holly to move the BMW.
She hopped into it and, following his cue, drove her sister’s car next to the detective’s and then joined Lucas at the wayside.
The fire truck immediately pulled forward and firefighters began jumping off. They didn’t leap to action, but rather waited for their Chief to give the order. The Chief eyed the fire, the damage, as he gathered his men. A moment later, he stalked through the snow towards them, shouting, “What set it off?”
She quickly supplied, “I heard a clicking noise.”
He didn’t seem satisfied with that. “Like a bomb?”
“I think when I drove into the garage, I tripped something,” she explained.
The Fire Chief seemed to mull that over then stomped off towards his team, shouting directives. Without hesitation the firefighters sprang to action, tearing a hose from its coil at the side of the truck and angling the spigot at the base of the flames. It took two men to control the spray once the water was blasting.
“Did Ron do this?” she asked, but Lucas only clenched his jaw, watching firefighters battle the flames. “It has to be him, doesn’t it? First he killed Rose and then Benji, because, I don’t know because maybe Benji threatened him? And he took Tucker then blew up the garage, because I went to Diamonds and stuck my nose where it didn’t belong? Did you guys talk to him yet?”
Meeting her gaze, he said, “Cody did.”
“And?”
“And... I haven’t connected with him since.” He seemed guarded, but before she could ask if Cody had gotten anywhere with Ron, he added, “For the time being you need a safe place to live.”
Holly stuffed her hands in her pockets, balling her fists for warmth. She could barely feel her fingers and her toes were no better. “I’ve got my house on the lake.”
“Is it listed?”
“I’m not sure... probably-”
“Then it’s not safe.”
/> The way he was looking at her, she thought he might suggest that she stay at his place and the notion strangely comforted her.
“Maybe a motel,” he said instead. “Pay with cash, don’t give your real name.”
Warren’s offer came to mind, though she doubted she would be comfortable around Sarah.
“Okay,” she said.
Another vehicle was rolling up the drive, but it wasn’t a police cruiser, rather a truck. Lucas’s mood seemed to darken, as the truck pulled to a stop at a healthy distance behind the fire truck.
Holly caught sight of the driver—Cody McAlister—and her stomach dropped. She didn’t have another lengthy interrogation in her.
“Can you drive me?” she asked, grabbing Lucas’s arm with a sense of urgency. “Now?” When he cocked his head, she leveled with him, “I can’t do an hour of questions, I just can’t.”
“Yeah,” he said understandingly. “Sure.”
Wasting no time, she immediately ducked into the passenger’s seat of the Ford, dodging Cody just as he was climbing out of his truck. In the side view mirror, she spied him nearing the Fire Chief, as police officers hurried over. Soon the men were huddled in what appeared to be some kind of briefing, which apparently didn’t require Lucas’s attendance. He was settling in behind the steering wheel and twisting the key in the ignition.
As Lucas backed out, swinging the Ford around, Cody caught sight of them and began jogging over, but Lucas threw the gear shifter into First, keen to avoid his partner for Holly’s sake.
They weren’t so lucky.
“Whoa!” shouted Cody, giving his partner no choice but to squeeze the brakes.
“Taking Holly to a motel,” he explained.
Stooping so that he could look Holly in the eye, Cody asked, “You don’t need to go to the hospital?”
“No, I’m fine.”