LITMIR.BIZ

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because most folks in these parts don’t tend to shop on Fifth Avenue. And you see this brooch?”

      “The one with all those rhinestones and the strange peach stone shaped like a tongue?”

      The brooch in question was Bren’s, but Poppy leaned closer to get a look, too. It was almost as ugly as the stuff in her hoard. The weird pink stone really did look like an animal’s tongue hanging out.

      “That ain’t a tongue,” Ruby said. “It’s a conch pearl. And those rhinestones are diamonds. I need some time, but at first guess I believe that brooch is worth somewhere near a hundred grand.”

      “Excuse me?” Bren’s voice was as faint as a mile-away whisper.

      “A hundred thousand dollars.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “Then there are these long earrings here. The ones with the pink tourmaline and black gold and peridots and diamonds and all…” He held up the trashy, flashy things. “I can’t give you an exact price until I’ve studied ’em more, but off the cuff I’d say they’re worth in the ballpark of fifty grand.”

      “Excuse me?”

      Ruby said to Poppy, “You best get her a chair before she falls over.”

      Poppy went chasing after another stool. As an afterthought, she rolled a third stool over from the back of the store for herself.

      Bren plunked down on hers, looking as pale as if she’d been stung by a wasp and was experiencing the first waves of shock.

      “We’ll give her a minute to breathe,” Ruby said to Poppy and then started playing with her stash. “I can’t say I care for this particular pin. It’s as big as a padlock, for Pete’s sake. Just don’t know where a woman could wear it. But the platinum and diamonds are something else. I never seen anything like her. I’m not committing it to paper until I’ve studied it more, but don’t think there’s any question we’re talking around a hundred and fifty grand.”

      “Say what?” Poppy said.

      “And this cuff bracelet. Lots of those little stones are just chips, nothing that’s gonna save the farm, so to speak, but those two big stones at the end are kunzite. Good kunzite. Don’t know much about the stone, but anybody can see they’re really good quality. I’d throw out twenty-five thousand for an initial guess.”

      “Say what?”

      “The tanzanite beaded necklace, now, isn’t quite as good as you’d think—”

      “Trust me, Ruby, I’m not thinking.”

      “I’m just saying. People know of tanzanite being rare, so they generally assume it’s more valuable than it is, when tanzanite is too soft a stone for a lot of applications. This one’s in a protected setting, though. It’s all right. Good stones. An interesting piece, but I still have to say I don’t think it’ll be worth more than ten K.”

      “Say what?”

      “Look, ladies. I need time with pieces like this to give you a true appraisal. And I’m not too proud to admit, I may have to consult with some other jewelers, check the market. Not like I’m regularly exposed to pieces like this. But offhand I’m guessing you each have jewelry valued somewhere in the two-hundred-thousand-dollar price range.”

      CHAPTER 3

      Two hundred thousand dollars. Bren stood at the gas pump, filling the church van before she headed home. Typically almost everyone stopping for gas was a face she knew, so she waved and smiled and did some chitchat. But her mind was still roller coastering up and down the mental hills of two hundred thousand dollars. Two hundred thousand dollars. Two hundred thou. Two hundred K. Two hundred grand.

      Anyway you said it, it was beyond anything she’d imagined.

      As a child, she’d grown up safe financially. But that was the last time she remembered not worrying about every dime and every bill.

      “Hey, Mrs. Price, how you doing?” Joey greeted her when she plucked a few bills from her cracked wallet. He’d galloped out of the station to clean her windows the instant he’d seen the church van. She had to give him something.

      “Doing just fine, Joey. How’s your mom? Her foot any better?”

      There was no way to escape the conversation. She knew Joey and his sister, knew their mom, knew what a rough road the family had had ever since the mom had been laid up with foot surgery. She’d carted over dinners herself the first week. Charles had added prayers for them in his church sermon. People mattered more than money, so darn it, caring just couldn’t be rushed. But when Bren finally climbed back into the church van, she hoped God would forgive her—and the Virginia cops, too—because she sped out of town as fast as the old engine would let her.

      Giddy euphoria danced in her pulse. She couldn’t wait to tell Charles about their good fortune. She could picture the relief on his face. Picture them sharing a moment of joy together. Picture that harsh look of stress ease on his face for the first time in months.

      She wheeled through yellow lights at Willow, then Main, then wheeled left on Baker Road. She supposed it didn’t make too much sense to speed past the courthouse, then past the police and fire stations, as well. But there wasn’t a policeman in town who didn’t know her, so if one was going to do something wrong, Bren figured she might as well do it in plain sight. Past all that busy part of town, of course, was their Church of Peace.

      A little neighborhood of houses clustered around their church. Maybe someone thought the area would become a bedroom community of D.C. back in the fifties, but that kind of prosperity never discovered the area. People were hanging on, raising their kids, but this side of Righteous was visibly struggling.

      Their church looked as wilted as the rest of the structures. She was just a white frame building, long and narrow, with their house—the parsonage—just beyond the parking lot. Charles often used their home for different gatherings; so did she. The church basement was also huge, ample for events like bible readings and meals and craft sales and all that kind of thing. Even had an old, spotless kitchen down there. Bren had planted bushes and flowers when they could afford them, taken care that the church was always polished and spotlessly clean. So maybe it didn’t look like much on the outside, but inside it was safe and peaceful and had that warm-glow welcoming feeling.

      Or it used to. Before things got so tight.

      She parked at the house but hightailed it immediately toward the office at the back of the church, assuming she’d find Charles there. But no. She found nothing but dust motes dancing silently in the sunlight. The message light blinked on the answering machine. Charles’s jacket still hung on the old pine tree. A sermon in progress sat half-finished on the desk.

      He must have taken off for some reason, and she wanted to head straight for the house, to check there. But first she grabbed a pen and paper and took the messages. Whenever Charles came back, he’d want to know who had called and why, and often enough, she could field questions on her own, without bothering him.

      That done, she hustled toward the house, realizing with a half laugh that she was out of breath, had been probably since she’d left the jeweler’s. “Charles!” she called as she pushed open the screen door to the kitchen and then stopped abruptly.

      Charles had his white shirt rolled up, hands on his hips. He swiveled around abruptly when he heard the door open. She had the impression he’d been pacing. Her heart sank fifty-seven feet—and fast—when she saw the straight-lipped, tight-jawed expression on his face.

      “Where were you?” He asked it in that certain tone. The tone that claimed he had tons and tons and tons of patience and now was completely out.

      She tried to calm her panicky pulse, but that particular tone always rub-burned her nerves. She couldn’t think when he was irritated with her. And though she’d always valued honesty, she heard a half-truth babble from her

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