“Did ye get a good look at the driver?”
She shook her head. “Only in the rearview mirror, but their headlights were in my eyes and it was pitch dark.”
“If ye saw them again?”
“I don’t know.”
“But ye remember someone leanin’ over ye in the car? Do ye remember him speakin’ to ye? Sayin’ anything?”
“Not…I can’t really remember that. I couldn’t make out their face, but something was in my eyes. Blood, I suppose.” She shook her head. “That’s all until everything went black. The next thing I knew, I was standing on that hillside in the rain. It was like I was…feeling so separate from the woman in the car. From me. And everything was…blank.”
Connor nodded, remembering. “So, we’re no closer.”
“The detective was right. It was an SUV. But that doesn’t help things, does it?” She glanced around the waiting room, at Aubrey and Jacob, huddled together on the couch waiting for word of her surgery. “If Jacob is right about the necklace…if that’s what they want, which I can’t imagine, maybe it’s somehow tied into Lizzy and Daniel’s world. Their deaths? That old necklace was just a piece of costume jewelry from Lizzy. She’s worn it since college, I think.”
Connor pulled the necklace from his pocket where he’d stuffed it after finding it at the scene of the accident.
“You kept it?” she asked, reaching for the necklace. But of course, she couldn’t hold it. Frustrated, she flopped down onto a lounge sofa, sprawling backward. “Ugh. This is impossible.”
He fingered the green jewel set in the bottom of the peace symbol. It was a large, almost gaudy piece of green glass, cut like a teardrop that fit perfectly into the bottom third of the peace symbol. “What about this piece of—is it cut glass?”
“Probably. I don’t remember it specifically from back in the day. But an emerald was Lizzy’s birthstone—May—so she must have added that at some point. I mean, obviously, it’s fake, but—”
“What if it’s not?”
Emma frowned. “It’s…huge. It couldn’t be real. We always assumed—”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Emma sat up. “Do you think it could be—?”
“They were treasure hunters, you said, your sister and brother-in-law. What do you know about their passing?”
Emma seemed unable to shutter the pain in her expression. “Only that their boat was found abandoned, like a ghost ship, off the coast of Florida. It was found floating somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. We were never sure what happened to them. Whether they were pirated and murdered or what happened. They were veteran sailors. But we’ll never know.”
Connor stared at the square of sunlight pouring through the window at the end of the hall. “We might be able to find out.”
“What? How?”
He pocketed the necklace again, nodding toward the pair of detectives and an officer in uniform walking toward Aubrey and Jacob, just as the surgeon from Emma’s surgery walked into the waiting room from the other door.
Ignoring the officers, Aubrey jumped up to talk to the surgeon. “Is she—?”
“She did well. As well as could be expected,” said the surgeon, who’d only minutes ago been joking about his nurse’s wedding. Emma had to admit, without his mask, he was quite handsome. “We set her leg, inserting plates and screws to secure the bone. It should heal well. And if—whenshe wakes up, she’ll have to go through some rehab for it. But I’ve seen worse.”
Aubrey brushed away a tear. “Thank you for saying that. Thank you for believing she will wake up and walk again.”
“I always have hope for my patients. Your aunt is young and strong. She’s made it this far. She’ll be in recovery for a bit, then you can see her again.” He patted Aubrey’s hand, and she thanked him.
She hugged Jacob, relief evident in her tears. “You should go,” she told him. “I’ll stay here. You can’t miss any more work.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m surrounded by people here. Nothing will happen. You can’t lose your job over this. Please. Go.”
Jacob checked his phone and the list of missed calls. “Only if you promise to stay here. At the hospital. I’ll come get you later when I’m finished at work. They’re getting slammed on the Trinity case.”
“I know. Go. I’ll stay here. Promise,” Aubrey told him.
