I asked Josiah, “Do you care about any of those?”
He shook his head. “Mom never wore them. She probably didn’t like them.”
I spoke to him over the top of some comment from Heidi. “Would they be in her jewelry box?”
“Probably. I guess. It’s on her dresser.”
“Are you okay if I go in and get them?”
“Sure.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t care.”
Heidi said, “If you don’t care?—”
“No.” Josiah glared at her. “I don’t want you in there. You never liked Dad, and his stuff is still there.”
“Okay,” I said. “How about you head on downstairs, Heidi? I’ll bring those things down to you. Josiah, maybe wipe the grot off the front of that sweatshirt in the bathroom, if you don’t want to change.”
“I like it the way it is!” He stomped off down the hall to his room and slammed the door behind him.
Heidi watched him go, then raised an eyebrow at me. “That child is out of control. Now he’s gone, why don’t you let me look through Krystal’s things?” She gestured at the door.
“No.” Nothing would break Josiah’s fragile trust sooner than letting Heidi through that doorway, and I wasn’t inclined to do the Thompsons any favours. “I’ll get the jewelry.”
I let myself into the bedroom and closed the door firmly behind me against her prying eyes, locking it when I heard her turn the handle. For a moment, I stared at the wood grain of the door, before pivoting. Not coming into this room hadn’t been about respect or grief for Krystal, or sparing Josiah’s feelings, since he hadn’t tried to keep me out. It was solely about the fact that I hadn’t been in here for seven years, since Dad died.
My first surprise was how little had changed. The bed was still made with dark-blue sheets and the patchwork comforter our paternal grandmother had made. Same curtains, same rug on the floor, same pictures hanging on the walls. Dad’s narrow dresser was polished to a shine, the surface clear of everything except his small accessories box, but he’d been a military man and kept it that way in life as well.
The scent was different, though. I couldn’t put my finger on it, because Dad never wore cologne or aftershave, but something had changed, just enough for the room to feel alien.
I ignored the closed closet and drawers, not wanting to see what of Dad’s was or was not still there. Eventually, we’d have to tackle everything in here, but I had no urgent need to invadeDad’s space. I’d taken back my childhood bedroom in the third-floor attic, and I was good with its familiar spaces.
Krystal had kept a big jewelry box on her dresser under the mirror. I went over to tip the lid, and was caught by my own reflection. My hair was still growing out from the shaved head I’d sported as part of my undercover persona. At this point, it all stood on end a centimetre long, like a dark-brown chia pet. Not a flattering look. Maybe I could see if a stylist could do anything with it. My jaw was cleanshaven, losing the bushy undercover beard to expose my slab-sided cheeks and the small, thick scar on my chin. Part of the point of the beard had been to conceal that identifying feature, but I wasn’t ever going undercover again so it didn’t matter.
Never again.I closed my eyes for a second, then met my own gaze. I saw green eyes I’d turned ordinary brown with contacts, less bruise-circled than at the end of that long nightmare case. Thick brows and a high forehead contributing to my long narrow face. I was decent looking, no more, and the scar was ugly, but I was beyond glad to see my real self looking back out of mirrors at me, not Unger, the cruel man I’d pretended to be.
Stay out of my head, Unger.I’d had a month after the department made the first sweep of arrests and pulled me and the detective out of our roles, while the case wound down, to try to scrub that persona from my brain. A month of writing reports and helping with the occasional interrogation, grinning when the slimeballs saw “Unger” was not their friend. A month of being Officer Evans, going to mandatory psych counseling and debriefing, purging “bitch” and “fag” and every racist slur from my automatic vocabulary. Relearning not to respond to a casual touch with a nasty punch, not to sneer at kindness. Thank God I’d had that time, before I had to deal with Josiah.
Then the last arrests were made, the last reports written, and my bosses said, “You did good. Take a vacation.” And here I was in my father’s room, wondering who Zeke Evans was now.
Well, a big brother, first and foremost. With a job to do.
I tore my gaze away and opened the jewelry box. There was a lot in there. Krystal liked accessories and Dad liked to indulge her. Mostly costume pieces, no doubt. Inheriting the house from Grandma had meant no rent to pay, a huge cost-of-living bonus, but still they’d been living on Dad’s military pay and Krystal’s income as a law firm receptionist. That didn’t run to diamonds.
When I picked through the box, the cameo pendant and the locket were obvious. I opened the locket out of curiosity, and found that photos of my dad and toddler Josiah had been inserted in place of whatever used to be there. I didn’t want Heidi to have those, so I pried the little images out of the setting and slipped them in my shirt pocket, tapping the side of my head as a mnemonic to remember them and not send them through the wash. Then I snapped the cover shut.
The bracelet was a different story. I picked through the assortment, not seeing anything with six different gems on it, and in the end, took the two closest options and closed the box.
Heidi was waiting outside the door. I handed over the necklaces and she opened the locket and frowned. “Where are the photos?”
“The originals? No clue.” I didn’t add any further comment and after a moment she slid both items into her purse.
“And the bracelet?”
I held out my hand with the probably-fake-diamond tennis bracelet and a twisted gold one with three green stones. “This was all I found.”
She looked down her nose at them. “If you bring out the box, I can look through it myself.”
I shook my head. “I’ll try again another time, and if I find something like that, I’ll ship it to you.” She wanted to protest, but I held out the bracelets. “Here, take these as new mementos of Krystal, in case the other one never turns up. For now, we’re going to stay out of that bedroom.” I let my glare harden to the one I used for junkies who claimed“that’s not mine”about the stash I’d found in their pocket. “Do you hear me?”
