“I promise I’m still listening.”
“Good enough.” Kate smiled. “What are the odds I might be able to talk you into finding me some ice cream?”
“Decent, assuming I can move to get out of this chair.”
“You really look like someone bopped you one.”
“It’s been too long since I was in a street fight.” Stephen pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll get you some ice cream and myself an ice pack. I’m glad you came, Kate.”
“So am I.”
Stephen followed Kate and Dave to the bed-and-breakfast where they were staying, lifted a hand in farewell, and drove to the pharmacy. He didn’t immediately need the bottle of aspirin and new ice packs he bought, but it gave him an excuse to come into town.
He drove by the jewelry store to check that all was quiet, and then he went around an extra block to check on Meghan’s place. He was surprised to see her lights still on and Blackie sitting on the front porch. Stephen pulled over to the curb and stopped.
He walked up the sidewalk. Stephen held out his hand to Blackie, rubbed the dog’s head, and leaned past him to knock on the door. “Meghan, it’s Stephen,” he called, wanting to avoid her worrying about who was knocking on her door at this time of night.
“Stephen?” He heard movement inside, then the door opened. “Is something wrong?”
“Everything’s fine. I happened to be in town and saw your lights were still on.”
“I was just listening to a book on tape. Would you like to come in?”
He wanted her advice on what he was thinking about Kate’s comments. He knew Meghan would listen and not take offense if he asked some tough questions. He shifted his hands in his pockets. “It’s a pretty night. Why don’t you get a jacket and sit out on the porch with me.”
She hesitated and then nodded. “Give me a minute.”
Stephen settled on the top step of the porch. Blackie moved over to join him.
Meghan sat beside him a few minutes later, offering a cup of coffee. “I don’t want you getting chilled sitting out here this time of night.”
“Thanks. The moon is about half full right now, very white, and hanging low in the eastern sky.”
She closed her eyes and smiled. “I can see it.” She took a sip of tea. “Did you have a good evening with Dave and Kate?”
“I always have a good time with them,” Stephen said, switching the mug to warm both hands. “Kate’s happy. When they got married I wondered how smoothly she could make the adjustment to being half of a couple. Dave’s good with her—he’s figured out the right mix of giving her space and taking care of her without being smothering.”
“She’s trying hard to put on a good front, but she’s nervous about the idea of being a mom.”
“Kate gets very quiet when she’s trying to figure out an unknown. She never had a mom around as a role model. I figure her confidence will go through the roof and she’ll get a bit smug after she’s figured out what she’s doing. Kate feeling smug—it just begs for me to tease her a bit.”
Meghan laughed. “Still glad you’re going to be an uncle?”
“The idea of a child trailing me around expecting me to know answers to life’s questions—like why caterpillars crawl, the sunset turns color, and raindrops don’t collide with each other— I’m going to enjoy it.” Just thinking about it caused him to relax. “There’s going to be a second generation of O’Malleys. That’s a good feeling.” He set down his coffee mug. “The conversation tonight turned serious with Kate. She pretty much gave me both barrels about why I push away God.”
Meghan rested her chin on her up-drawn knees. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. We dance around the subject of religion every few months. I should have predicted the conversation.” He sighed and nudged back Blackie so he could rest his hands behind him on the porch to take his weight. “I don’t know if I’ll ever believe, Meg. I wish I could say it would be different, but I may never make that step my family has.” The reality of that decision was hurting him and his family. It was why they were after him, why Jennifer had left the gift she had. He didn’t know what to do.
“I know Jennifer’s primary goal near the end of her life was to help each of you come to believe. I hope her death hasn’t been a stumbling block.”
“I miss her, and it is part of this. Jennifer’s Bible is marked up with underlines and dates and scribbled-in notes.”
“Mine is too; those underlined verses and notes are memories of conversations.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Bible is a living book, and her notes are records of an ongoing dialogue between her and the Lord. She’d start reading having a question or with something going on in her life that concerned her, then as she read, verses would stand out that brought answers, comfort, or insight. It’s a friendship. God provides His side of the conversation through His written words. I know God enjoys my company and I enjoy His. That’s what Jennifer found too.”
“You talk as if it’s a day-to-day friendship. I don’t understand how you get to that point. I’ve read parts of the Bible, and it’s like reading history and a kind of daily journal of Jesus as He traveled through towns around Jerusalem.”
Her expression softened. “You keep reading. You listen. You hold onto what you do understand and continue to pursue what’s still confusing. God then steps in and makes that dialogue alive. There’s no secret; it’s not intended to be hard. The Bible reassures us on that point—those who seek God will find Him.” She reached over and touched his knee. “Why don’t you want Jesus as a friend?”
She was breaking his heart pushing against that question. “He’s not always there, Meg. Not when you really need Him.”
“Yes, He is,” she whispered. “He was there when Jennifer died, when Peg died, when they came to tell you your parents had been killed. Jesus was there.” He looked over and caught a glimpse of deep emotion before her expression became calm. “Just like He was there the night I went blind. I know He’s good and that He loves me. He didn’t give me back my sight, but He gave me something more precious—a full and joyous life in the midst of this. I would have chosen my sight, but that decision was His to make. I trust Him, even in this.”
“I wish I had that peace in spite of circumstances.”
“You can’t find the happiness you want and the peace you seek by borrowing from mine. It doesn’t work that way. As much as you know about Jesus, you’ve never let yourself accept Him. Please, stop hiding behind the fear that you might be let down. You won’t be.”
She pushed her hands into her pockets. “I’ll always be your friend, Stephen. Whether you believe or not, that isn’t going to change. But if you don’t believe, you limit our relationship to friends only. And I’ll be forced to spend eternity without you. That grieves me.”
“I know it does. I often wonder what I’m holding out for, but I’m not sure.”
“When you can answer that, you’ll have this resolved.” She smiled at him. “Let it go for tonight.”
Stephen smiled back. “For a day or two.” He nudged Blackie away from his coffee cup. “Would you like to come out to the farm this week? Maybe Wednesday, after we do another round of searching the jewelry store? I have something to show you.”
“I’d enjoy that.”
“I think I’ll invite JoAnne and Ken, whichever O’Malley’s can make it, your parents and have my first open house.”
“Oh, this sounds like fun. Let me know if I can help with food or such.”
“You got it.”
Neil had turned the second bedroom in the apartment into a storage room. Stephen steadied a stack of boxes and lifted off the top three. He carried the boxes into the living room where Dave had set up a worktable. Neil could have hidden jewelry in practically anything from the flour canister to a box buried behind dozens of other boxes. The only way to make sure they didn’t miss something was to look through everything.
“If Neil was deep
ly involved in these thefts, he’d have pictures of the pieces he was duplicating, someplace to store the stolen jewels until they cooled off, and a buyer. Can we also work this problem by figuring out if he traveled? Who his regular customers were?”
“When did he have his first stroke?” Dave asked.
“A little over a year ago. I know the paralysis he was suffering on his left side made it difficult for him to do the jewelry repair work any longer.”
“So that first stroke would have basically ended the creation of fakes. If Neil was dealing with stolen gems, he had a year to plan how he would close it down.”
“We still don’t know if Neil ever took more than the one piece I found in the barn, Dave.”
“We know that diamond ring was stolen and replaced with a high-quality fake. And we know the guy who blackened your eye had an idea something was there to find. That’s enough to suggest we’re on the right track.”
Stephen looked around the room. “He’s had a stroke, he has decided he’s going to move, and he knows he basically wants to shut down whatever he’d been involved with. He could either sell the stolen pieces at a big discount and move them all on to buyers or wrap them up and put them away somewhere he would consider safe.”
“He didn’t need money,” Dave said. “What if he decided to keep the last pieces rather than sell them? His wife is dead, his health is fading, and he’s got one interest left in his life: the jewelry. If he decided to keep them just because they were beautiful pieces, he’s going to keep them somewhere he can see them occasionally.”
“If he went to the trouble of making a final place to hide them, he’d design it to be exactly what he needed.”
Dave stopped his search. “If he’s got several pieces, he’d have them stored together.”
“It’s what I would do.”
Dave sighed. “I agree with you. I’m just not sure what we do next. Searching in boxes, cupboards, behind furniture, and in walls is doable. Getting inside Neil’s head is not.”
Stephen circled the room. “How many pieces of jewelry would you suspect might be stashed?”
“Rings, bracelets, a couple necklaces, maybe a few really expensive pieces like he had in the vault.”
“So they could fit in something about the size of a shoebox? Maybe flatter and longer?”
“That sounds about right.”
“Maybe inside a piece of furniture then.” Stephen picked up cushions from the couch. He tipped up the couch to check the framing to see if it looked like anything had been modified. Stephen turned over the chair by the window. The fabric had been taped to the frame in a couple places. He pulled aside the tape and used his small pocketknife to pry up a couple staples holding the fabric. “It’s got to be inside something.”
“Try this one,” Dave tossed over his pocketknife.
“What is this, the Boy Scout special deluxe model?”
“You never know with Kate what you’re going to need.”
Stephen thought about that a moment and laughed. “You’re right.” He used the pinchers to tug up the edge of the cushion. “This works.” He didn’t find the box he sought, but he picked up a penny. “Nineteen forty-two. It’s still got a shine. Meghan loves old coins.”
“Does she?”
“Something about the idea of holding something really old.” Stephen tucked the penny in his pocket. “I’m having a gathering out at the farm Wednesday afternoon, a kind of house warming party. Could you and Kate stay over another night and come?”
“We’ll be there. I’m worried her blood pressure is a little high, and that job of hers isn’t helping. She could use another day or two here.”
“What’s going on? I thought it was a pretty low-key job.”
“She’s not in control anymore. She hears her friends on the SWAT team and the emergency response group are out on a tough call and she’s listening to hear if they’re okay. I think it would be easier on her to be at the scene in the communication van making suggestions than being so far out of the loop.”
“They’re comrades on the front line and it feels like she’s abandoned them.”
“Something like that. She doesn’t want an emergency response job and those risks now that we’re having a family, but I don’t think either one of us thought through the ramifications of it.”
“She’s trying for homicide.”
“I know.” Dave sighed. “I’m praying she doesn’t get it, Stephen, and you may not tell her that. She was a great hostage negotiator because she walked right up to the line between life and death and put herself between death and the innocents caught up in events. She survived her job because she won and people walked out alive. For Kate to be working homicides—I’d give her about six months before she brought the job home with her, unable to shut it off.”
Dave shook his head. “I don’t know what might be best right now. Robbery is burying her in bureaucracy and cases so old and numerous that she can’t solve enough of them to feel like she is successful and contributing something worthwhile.”
Stephen tipped over another chair. “She isn’t supervisor material.”
“What she is, is one of the best hostage negotiators I’ve ever seen. I think she would make a brilliant teacher. I want her working at FBI and teaching at Quantico.”
Stephen burst out laughing. “Kate, a Fed?”
“I haven’t figured out how to approach her with the idea.”
“My suggestion: stand far across the room when you do.”
“She’s not going to like the idea of working for a federal bureaucracy?” Dave teased.
“It will never happen. She’s not good at working according to anyone else’s script.”
“Well Kate and I have got to figure out a solution.”
Stephen moved from inspecting the furniture to checking the walls for any signs of construction in the last few years. He lifted down the wall clock. “We need to find at least one more hidden gem; then you’ll have part of your solution. Kate can stay here a few more days to give you more time to think.”
“How about four square diamonds and three emeralds set in a silver and gold starburst brooch?”
Stephen turned.
Dave had a piece of jewelry about the size of a small sand dollar resting in the palm of his hand.
“He had it wrapped in velvet and slid into a closed case along with his wife’s diary. This one was sentimental.”
Twenty-one
Stephen watched from his hammock as Meghan walked the path from her parents’ home toward the pond and the path that led to his house. He reached down and lazily moved a piece on the chessboard resting on an overturned shipping case. “Check.”
Jack scowled.
“It’s the bishops. You keep forgetting I like to go deep,” Stephen remarked. “We’re over this direction, Meg.”
She paused Blackie.
“I hung a hammock under the oak trees beside the pond.”
Blackie led her toward them.
“Do you have a fishing line in the water?” she asked, drawing closer.
He glanced over at the pond. “The bobber is getting poked a few times as baby fish check out my worm. I can cast while lying in my hammock. It doesn’t get better than this.” He nudged his fishing pole a little more upright in the holder driven into the ground to tighten the slack in the line created by the light breeze.
“This is going to be his hiding place, or so he says,” Jack added, moving his rook.
Stephen looked at the board. “Do you really want to do that?”
“Just move.”
Stephen moved his pawn. “Checkmate.”
Jack sat back and studied the board. “I’m not playing you again until we figure out an adequate handicap.”
“Hey, I gave you a queen.”
“And decimated me before I could ever use mine,” Jack replied.
Blackie stopped to check out the board. “Am I early? Or are the party plans already done?” Meghan asked.
Stephen smiled. “I’ve got the grill ready, the chicken marinating, the salad, rolls, and pies from the restaurant now in the refrigerator. I know how to arrange a party in an hour.”
“I’m impressed.”
“There are two chairs about three feet straight ahead, and a blanket spread out on the bank of the pond. Take your pick.”
“I smell freshly cut grass.” She took a seat on the blanket and unclipped Blackie’s harness to let him go off duty.
“Jack helped me get the big mower going. We only managed to knock over a couple posts and about five feet of fencing while we figured out how to execute turns.” Stephen touched her shoulder and offered her a soda from the cooler. “We’re relaxing after hard labor.”
“Sweaty hard labor,” Jack added, greeting Blackie.
“I’m glad you came over, Jack.”
“Cassie and I had a rare scheduling agreement to have the same day off. And I’m for starting up that grill. I’m getting hungry.”
Stephen checked his watch. “Yes, it would be good to at least head that direction.” He reeled in his fishing line.
“I’ll take the chairs back to the house.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
Meghan folded up the blanket. “We’re going to have to break in that chess set you made for me. I’ve been practicing with Dad.”
“I’d like that. If you want to take my arm, Blackie can keep wandering.” She complied and he led her to the house.
“Do you know if Kate heard anything yet about the brooch Dave found?” Meghan asked.
“She hasn’t mentioned anything.”
“I hope it’s not stolen.”
“It could have been a gift Neil made for his wife, Meg. Don’t borrow trouble until we know something for sure.”