“I didn’t know you thought so little of him.”
“Are you kidding? I worship at Elliott’s feet. He’s brilliant when it comes to business, but this is an emotional issue. Lawrence is his grandson. I’ve heard plenty of stories about his father, grandfather, and even his great-grandfather, not to be alarmed over what he’ll do to protect his own. I don’t want you to be a casualty.”
She considered it, pursing her lips the way he’d seen her do hundreds of times, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t have the energy right now.”
“I’m calling bullshit on you. Six hours post-surgery from a gunshot that nearly killed you, you were dictating your report. You insisted on being included in wrapping up the investigation. So don’t tell me you don’t have the energy to manage your son’s care.
“Sure, you’re down right now, but I bet it’s because you don’t understand what’s happening. Elliott doesn’t either, but he’s up there learning, talking to doctors and other staff. He’s talking to parents of preemies, he’s gathering information, and you should be educating yourself, too. Or he and Kevin will develop a rhythm and you’ll be left out.”
“How do you know all this? And Kevin wouldn’t leave me out,” she huffed. “You’re wrong.”
He lapsed into thought, then said, “Could be, but lucky for you, as I told you years ago, I’ll always have your back.”
“You’ve never sugarcoated anything. Kevin tries, but I call him out when he does.” She straightened in the bed, grimacing. “Ouch.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. It just hurts to move, but as long as the pain is bearable, I don’t want to take any more pain meds.”
“Well, Kevin thinks he’s protecting you, but it’s the wrong way. I learned years ago not to leave you out in the cold, and if anyone does, they do so at their peril. When you gave up your guns to keep him, you surrendered more than your weapons. You lost your balls.”
She pulled her lower lip through her teeth, but when he didn’t take his eyes off her, she stopped. “Let’s change the subject. My brain needs a break. How was Italy?”
The discussion was over, but Pete knew how her brain worked. He didn’t feel bad about taking advantage of her weakened state to manipulate her. But somebody had to kick her in the ass, and since it had fallen at his feet dozens of times before, it naturally fell there again.
With two strong personalities like Kevin and Elliott, they’d leave her behind if she didn’t step up. He could see it in her eyes now. She might be rubbing her butt from the swift kick, but she knew it was necessary. What happened next was up to her.
Pete laced his fingers behind his head. “The trip was too short. I left before Gabe and I could set up a schedule to update the security system and bring the new vineyard online.”
“You didn’t have to leave, but I can’t say I’m sorry you did. We made a deal when we first partnered up. Always the truth. Always have each other’s back. And that’ll never change. So did you at least get to eat any good food?”
He chuckled. “With Maria cooking the best Italian food in the world, we don’t have to leave MacKlenna Farm anymore. Oh, and by the way, she’s cooking at the plantation right now. Amber’s going to freeze-dry the meals so you can have gourmet Italian food whenever you’re hungry.”
“They’re so sweet. Kevin said Elliott booked two suites at the hotel across the street, so we’ll have a place to stay when they kick me out of here. It’ll be nice to have healthy meals we can fix quickly.”
After a beat he said, “I did go to Osteria Toscanella for dinner. Their food is on par with Maria’s, but don’t tell her I said so.” He cranked the recliner back as far as it would go until he was almost horizontal. “Gabe was supposed to meet me there but got hung up at the winery over some dispute with a vendor.”
“I love that street. Kevin and I have strolled across the Ponte Vecchio and walked the side streets to get the best gelato in Florence at the Gelateria Della Passera. It’s not far from that restaurant. But there’s also the coolest little shop named Il Papiro. They sell books, diaries, frames, and photo albums with covers of handmade, marbleized paper.”
Pete avoided looking at JL for fear she’d read his mind and ask him if he found anything else interesting there. His eyes settled on his boots, their shine dulled by a layer of dust.
“What’s so interesting about your boots?” she asked.
“My boots? Interesting?”
She gave him a rueful smile. “You’ve got something on your mind.” Her tone shifted, becoming ever-so-slightly—for a ragazza tosta—coaxing and sympathetic.
He puffed his cheeks and blew out a long breath. “A woman.” As much as he wanted to keep his own counsel, he also knew he had to tell JL about Sophia. After the lecture he just gave, how could he not?
“You don’t have to say anything else. I know this year would have been your twentieth wedding anniversary. I’m so sorry.”
Although surprised JL remembered, he kept his expression blank. “Don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough on your mind.”
“Of course, I’m going to worry. That’s what friends do. And it’s also what partners do.” She lowered her bed and rested her arm over her belly as she reclined. “I can read your moods. Something else is going on with you. So fess up. What is it?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” He sat up and dry-washed his face before he fell asleep. “Tell me about Lawrence. Who does he look like?”
“He looks like Kevin, but you’re not getting off the hook so easily. Connor will get it out of you, and if you tell him before you tell me, there’ll be hell to pay.”
He tilted his chin up to stare at the ceiling, boxed in by her demand. Any other time he’d tell her exactly what was going on but dumping his problems on her now wasn’t fair. Not when she was coping with her son’s tenacious hold on life.
He tried to back off. “It can wait until Lawrence is out of danger.”
What did it matter if he waited five months before discussing it with the family? Wherever Sophia had time-traveled to was in the past. It wouldn’t matter if he waited a month or five months to go after her. The diamond brooch would take him exactly where he needed to be. But what about Sophia’s life in the present?
He considered Ivan Bianchi, Sophia’s client. Ivan might go to the police if she didn’t come back soon, and he’d hire a lawyer to get possession of his painting, which could get complicated and messy. Sort of like what happened to Amy Spalding Mallory when she went back to 1909 and left behind a boyfriend who ended up being charged with her murder.
An easy solution would be to call Gabe and help him break into Sophia’s studio to grab the Mona Lisa. Then Pete could call Ivan and arrange a meeting to transfer the painting.
JL turned her head, squinted her eyes, and gave him an X-ray-eye look. “Lawrence might not be out of danger until Christmas. And I have a feeling whatever you’re holding back won’t wait that long.”
“You’re right. It won’t, but you don’t need to worry about it today. You need to focus your energy and attention on your son.”
“What?” She emphasized the t, turning the word into a demand. She rolled her head back to face the ceiling and closed her eyes. “Now you’re doing the same goddamned thing Kevin was doing to me, and you promised you wouldn’t.”
“Calm down. That’s why I don’t want to tell you. You’ll just get—”
“Damn it, Pete. You know me. I function better when I have a problem to solve. I can’t fix Lawrence. I can hold him, love him, talk to him, but I can’t fix him. Give me a problem to mull over, to focus on so I won’t cry the whole freaking day.”
“You’re not going to cry all day. Your hormones are screwed up right now, but they’ll settle down. I’ll tell you what’s going on, but only if you agree to take charge of your baby’s care before it’s taken away from you and you’re shut out as a decision-maker. You know those two stubborn Scots will do it, too. With the best of intentions, b
ut they’ll still do it.”
She held up her right hand as if pledging to tell the truth. “So help me God. Now, tell me. Then you can wheel me to the NICU, and I’ll send Elliott home.”
That was exactly the pledge he wanted from her. “Sophia has a brooch.”
JL’s head jerked in his direction. “What? Damn. Say it ain’t so, Joe.”
“It’s so. And this situation is different from the others, making it harder to figure out where she’s gone.”
“None of them have been easy, but David’s always been able to narrow adventures down to year and location.”
“This trip could be anywhere from the 1400s until now. Hell, she could have gone into the future for all I know.”
“David will figure it out. He’ll find a clue in her emails, books on a shelf. Maybe even the wine she drinks. There’s a clue somewhere. What do you know so far?”
Pete lowered the chair and flipped through the pictures on his phone until he came to one showing the five portraits of Sophia. He handed the device to JL.
“She’s gorgeous. The only picture you’ve ever shown me is the one from high school.”
His brain froze for a moment, then quickly thawed. “But you met her.”
“No. I didn’t. You never brought her around. Since I lived in Pearl River and she was in the city, we ran in different crowds. By the time you and I were partners, she’d been out of your life for years, and mentioning her name was almost a hanging offense.”
“You met… Uhhhh… It was around the time you went away to the”—he made air quotes—“performing arts school.”
“Well, no wonder I don’t remember. That was when I was gone for six months to have Austin in secret.” She stretched the pictures on his phone to study Sophia’s face. “These paintings are extraordinary. Who painted them?”
“They’re signed by Picasso, da Vinci, Donatello, Rubens, and Degas.”
Her fingers, manipulating the picture on the phone, went rigid, her jaw dropped, and her head turned toward him in slow motion. “Da Vinci? Like…Leonardo da Vinci?”
“And Rubens, Picasso, Donatello, Degas.”
“She’s gone back five times!”
“Looks like it.”
“Then…where’s her soul mate?”
It was just like JL to zero in on the one question that had gnawed on him almost constantly since discovering Sophia had a brooch. He gave an uneasy roll of his shoulders. For over twenty years, he’d never stopped believing he was her soul mate. “As far as I can tell, she doesn’t have one. Or, rather…she hasn’t found another one.”
“Did you tell Elliott?”
“We talked briefly during the flight over. He said he sensed a brooch was active, but he couldn’t do anything about it until you and his grandson were out of danger.”
“Then talk to David. Elliott might not approve an adventure, but at least you can put a plan in place.”
“No can do. Elliott said it had to wait. If I go behind his back, he’ll be pissed as hell.”
Meredith entered the room with two cups of coffee and handed one to Pete. “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but as red as your eyes are, I doubt you’ve had more than a couple of hours of sleep.” She dropped her purse on the counter. “So did you tell JL?”
“Tell me what?” JL asked.
Meredith looked at Pete with her patented laser focus, and he almost melted under her intense scrutiny. Next to Elliott, she had the most highly developed sixth sense of anyone he’d ever met. Although JL’s was highly tuned, it was only about ninety percent of theirs.
“Yeah, I told her. JL doesn’t need to read tea leaves to discern what’s going on around her. She’s intuitive enough to figure it out.”
“If Elliott doesn’t want to deal with another brooch right now, fine,” JL said. “But David needs to know about it. The family can wait for Elliott to pull the switch, but the trip needs to be on the table for discussion and planning.”
Kevin entered the room and glanced from one person to the other until his eyes lingered on JL. “Planning what?”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, it’s time to take me up to the NICU.” JL pushed back the covers and eased her legs over the side of the bed.
Pete set his cup on the bedside table, lowered his chair, and pushed to his feet. “Crap, JL. Hold up a minute.” He put his arm around her as she stood. Kevin pushed the wheelchair to the side of the bed, and together they eased her into the seat. Pete unhooked her IV and hung it on the pole attached to the chair.
“Are you sticking around?” she asked.
He yawned. “I’ll be here, maybe catch a few winks while you’re gone.”
“Meredith, I’ll send Elliott down. Would you two please go home and play with Blane? I know he’s with his cousins, but he’ll miss us eventually, and Elliott has a wonderful way of calming him down when Kevin and I are away.”
Meredith hugged her. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
“Take Elliott home. It’ll make Charlotte happier too. She doesn’t want another family member up here as a patient.”
“I just talked to her downstairs,” Meredith said. “She asked me to do the same thing. He’s been up here for almost twenty-four hours.”
“I’ll send him right down,” Kevin said as he wheeled JL from the room.
Meredith sank into a nearby chair, set her cup of coffee on a small table, and propped her flawless and ageless chin on her flawless and ageless fingers. “I don’t know what you told JL, but whatever it was, it sparked a fire and empowered her. And she needed it…badly. When I left the room for coffee, she was as low as I’ve ever seen her, including the time she came home after she and Kevin broke their engagement.”
Pete returned to the recliner. “JL needs to believe she’s in control even if she isn’t. She can’t do much for Lawrence right now except be there, talk to him, touch him, but her mind will settle if she has a mystery to solve. It doesn’t mean she’ll worry less, but her brain will be able to switch gears, keep her balanced.”
“Sorry, but she can’t worry about her son and a brooch, too. She’s liable to have a breakdown.”
“Nah. You’re wrong. Her brain needs an escape. My folks announced when I was a teenager that they weren’t going to stay awake at night and worry about me when I was out with my friends. I thought they were weird. I knew everybody else’s parents stayed up watching the clock until their kid came through the door. My mom said if anything happened to me, she’d need to be rested to handle the crisis. So she went right to sleep.
“That’s how I see JL. When she’s sitting in the NICU holding Lawrence for hours at a time, her brain will need somewhere to go. Like my mom went to sleep, JL will mentally escape the confines of the NICU.”
“Frankly, it doesn’t make much sense to me, but if you say so…” Meredith sipped her coffee. “Now tell me what you know.”
There was a knock on the door and a woman in green scrubs peeked in. “I have the coffee pods you requested.”
Pete swung out of the recliner and accepted the box. “Thanks.” He set the pods on the counter and returned to the chair. “I assume you’ve heard of Sophia Orsini, the girl I married the night she graduated from high school.”
“I’ve heard there was a girl who’s never been replaced in your heart, but I’m not sure I ever knew her name.”
“Right before Connor called me about the plane crash, I stumbled upon Sophia’s art studio in Florence. Based on what I heard from a client of hers, I got suspicious, so I broke into her studio and upstairs apartment, where I found a hidden vault with five paintings of her.” Pete handed Meredith his phone. “Those portraits are signed by da Vinci, Picasso, Donatello, Rubens, and Degas.”
Meredith’s jaw dropped. “That’s impossible. They have to be forgeries.”
“If so, why hide them in a vault secured by a state-of-the-art security system? Why not have them on display? The client I met commissioned her to paint the Mona Li
sa, and Sophia left that painting sitting out in the middle of her studio. Granted, the alarm was on, but it wasn’t locked in a hidden room like the others.”
“If da Vinci really painted her portrait, it wouldn’t have the age of a six-hundred-year-old painting because she brought it directly to the future. It would never pass as an original. A good copy, yes, but not an original da Vinci,” Meredith said.
“Exactly. So back to my question. Why not display them?”
Meredith gazed off, looking far beyond the walls of the room, shaking her head. “If the paintings are originals, they have enormous value. They deserve to be well protected. I’d lock them up too. Then when I wanted to enjoy them, I’d go into my secret room with a glass of wine and relive my time with each artist.”
He waited a beat or two to let the idea of the paintings sink in before he exploded his next little bombshell. “I found something else while I was searching her apartment.”
Meredith emptied her coffee cup and pitched it into the trashcan. “Owning paintings by da Vinci and Rubens is quite enough. Nothing could be the cherry on top of that sundae.”
“Well, there’s whipped cream and a big, fat, red cherry. While searching Sophia’s apartment”—he decided to skip the breaking into a safe part so she’d have deniability—“I found a wooden jewelry box lined with velvet and embroidered with four brooches: sapphire, emerald, diamond, and pearl.”
“Seriously? We already knew the sapphire, emerald, and diamond came from Solicitor Digby. Now we know he also had possession of a fourth brooch. So how is Sophia connected to him?”
“Her grandfather was a Digby, which I just discovered. I don’t know yet if he’s our Mr. Digby, but her having possession of the jewelry box certainly points to that possibility.”
“Kenzie needs to see the paintings. If Sophia is as clever as I think she is, there’s a pattern there somewhere. Kenzie will spot it, and when she does, you’ll have an idea of where Sophia has gone.”
“There’s one more thing,” Pete said. “There’s a parchment in the box written in Gaelic by James MacKlenna in 1625.”
The Pearl Brooch Page 25