The Heirloom Murders - Kathleen Ernst [114]
“You stole all the Eagle Diamond materials?” Chloe demanded. “Not Alex?”
“I borrowed them,” Sonia insisted, her gaze darting everywhere but Chloe’s face. “If Dellyn hadn’t changed the locks, I could have put the box right back where it belonged. Her father never had time to write his book, you see, and I—well, I thought maybe Dellyn and I could work on it together.”
Chloe pinned her with a hard stare. “That makes no sense, Sonia. If you were interested in working with Dellyn, why not just talk to her about it? Why steal her dad’s notes? Why sneak back over here to deposit them the moment you discovered she couldn’t possibly come home and find you trespassing inside her house?”
For a moment Sonia’s mouth worked soundlessly. Then her face crumpled and she began to sob. “Loretta w-wouldn’t have m-minded! She knew how hard I struggled.”
“Struggled with what?”
“You could never understand!” Sonia wept. “I was a widow at twenty-four. I cleaned other people’s houses to keep food on the table.” She scrabbled in the pocket of her jogging suit and found a tissue. “Am I supposed to trust Alex to take care of me as I grow old? What comfort do I have?”
Chloe remembered what Roelke had told her about Alex Padopolous, and felt some sympathy. “Even so—”
“And it was Dellyn’s fault he ended up on a bad road. If she hadn’t …”
“Hadn’t what?” Chloe asked sharply. The sympathy vanished.
“The first time Alex ever got in real trouble was when she accused him of—of, well, practically stalking her. Her childhood friend! How could she do that to him?”
Chloe sighed. There was surely nothing she could say to change this aggrieved mother’s mind. “None of that gives you the right to steal things from Dellyn’s house. And it was stealing. And—geez Louise, Sonia, did you really think you’d find the Eagle Diamond?”
“Walt and Loretta had all kinds of things tucked away,” Sonia snuffled defensively. “There was no harm in thinking about it, was there? In looking for it?”
“Yes!” Chloe cried. She wanted to grab the silly woman’s shoulders and shake her. “Nothing in that house belongs to you!”
“Loretta would have understood,” Sonia said. “We were like sisters. She used to say, ‘Don’t worry, Sonia. We would never let anything happen to you.’ I always thought that maybe … well, if Walt had died first, maybe I’d sell my place and just move in with Loretta. She was my only real friend. And now she’s gone.”
Chloe rubbed her forehead. A century after its discovery, the Eagle Diamond still had the power to beguile.
Sonia blew her nose. “You’re going to tell Dellyn what I did, aren’t you.” Her words were flat. Her shoulders were bowed.
“No,” Chloe said. “As soon as Dellyn is strong enough, you are going to tell her.”
On Sunday, Roelke wondered if he should give Chloe the chance to back out of attending Justin’s pee-wee soccer game. He dreaded being with her, knowing she and Meili had rekindled their romance. But he dreaded even more the idea of not seeing her, ever.
He picked her up at eleven. She greeted him with a wan smile as she climbed into the truck. Neither one found much to say as he drove toward the school field where Justin was playing.
Finally the silence grew so painful that Roelke felt compelled to break it. “So, I was at this county park yesterday.”
“Yeah?” she asked politely.
“Over by Lake Michigan.” He didn’t add that he hadn’t planned to go to the lakeshore. He’d taken Peggy to lunch, where he ate his burger with more humble pie as she chattered about her upcoming wedding. Then the plan had been to visit his brother Patrick. Roelke had gotten as far as the prison parking lot before bolting.
“Oh.”
“Anyway, here.” Roelke pulled a beach stone from his pocket and handed it to her.
She looked confused. “You brought this back for me?”
“Yeah.” He felt like an idiot. It wasn’t even pretty, just a gray egg-shaped stone. Granite, maybe. It had felt good in his palm.
Chloe closed her eyes. One tear trickled down her cheek.
Roelke felt a sinking sensation in his chest.