1 Dog Collar Crime (28 page)

“You probably don’t remember, but the Falcones went on a family trip to London that summer.”

“Did you ask him what the package would be?”

“No. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to make sure my children grew up with their mother. At the very least, your father would have made sure I never saw you and Joey. I couldn’t live with that. At that moment, I knew I’d do whatever necessary to keep you.”

“So, you accepted the package?”

“Yes. It was a shoebox, but it had some weight to it. I wanted to see what was so important that he’d threaten me with it.”

“You opened it?”

Mom nodded. “Yes.”

“Let me guess. The diamonds.”

“The box was filled with jewels. I panicked. I don’t know what I expected to see, but it wasn’t that. I should have known better than to open that damned package. It’s haunted me for years. Anyway, I sealed the box and turned it over to Al. He asked me if I’d opened it and I said no. I lied.”

“And that was the end of it? He took them out of the house?”

“Yes. Until three weeks ago when I saw them sitting on your work table.”

Lucie sat in a stunned state of hyper-analysis. Questions warped her mind.
How did they get there? When did they get there? Why now?
She mentally sorted the possibilities into manageable piles. That would be the only way to attack this. One element at a time. The diamonds had to be first.

“We can assume the diamonds are stolen,” she said. “Do you know from where?”

“No. Obviously England. I wasn’t supposed to know what was in the box. I never asked questions. Nor did I want answers. All I knew was my children were with me.”

“I don’t understand why, after all these years, Frankie’s father hid the stones here? Could Dad be involved? Maybe Mr. Falcone was hoping the feds would find them and blame him?”

Mom shook her head. “I doubt it. The FBI tore this house apart when your father was arrested. All the boxes in the attic had been overturned.”

Lucie remembered it. The place looked like a war zone after a bombing.

“I had to clean that mess. There were no diamonds. I think if the FBI had seen the stones they would have known they were real.”

A valid point. “The stones had to have been put there after Dad was arrested. Mr. Falcone, for whatever reason, suddenly needs a safe place to hide the jewels. He has an emergency key for the house so he goes into the attic, comes across my craft stuff and hides the jewels there. I haul the box down and start creating my accessories and wind up using one of the diamonds. He must have flipped when Frankie told him about my trunk shows. He probably came looking for the jewels, but I’d already cleared out what was in the attic. Why wouldn’t he have just taken them from my room?”

“I switched them with fakes. He probably came looking for the bag in your room, but only found what I’d put there.”

“So you have the real ones?”

“Yes.
I
took the real diamonds. I must have done it right after you used the one stone. I swear to you, Lucie, I didn’t know you’d used that stone. I never wanted you or Joey involved. You could be charged with a crime. I panicked. Then I got mad because that man still had power over me. I hid the real stones. For a change, I wanted
him
to panic. I wanted him to feel what I’ve been feeling. For once, in this crazy, misbegotten life, I’d have control.”

Mom played tough, holding her head high.

“You should have told me. I could have helped. Joey could have helped.”

“I couldn’t take the chance on something happening to either of you. It was my problem.”

“Yeah, but now it’s
our
problem and I need to figure a way out of it.”

Which probably includes telling Frankie his father blackmailed my mother
.

* * *

After spending an hour in her room searching the internet for London jewelry heists, Lucie entered the Coco Barknell headquarters, a.k.a. the dining room, and found her mother hand stitching a black leather coat adorned with a faux fur collar.

She cleared her throat as the pungent aroma of coffee smacked into her. Mom’s coffee made Mr. Atlas look weak. “Hi.”

Mom set the coat down, smoothed it against the table, and then brought her gaze to Lucie. “Hi.”

And there it was. The invisible barrier of a bag full of precious stones lodged between them.

Heaven help her. Lucie wrapped her hand around the back of her usual chair, pulled it from under the table and sat.

“Mom—”

“Lucie—”

She bit her bottom lip while Mom fiddled with a spool of inky black thread.

Lucie held out her hand. “You first.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the stones. If I had known what you were going through, I would have told you.”

Her mother had been the dependable parent for twenty-six years. Nothing would ever make Lucie believe otherwise. She reached across the expanse of the table. “I know.”

Mom gripped her hand, nearly breaking her fingers. “Ow,” Lucie cracked and her mother snorted a laugh.

Nothing like a little humor to lighten the tension.

“You okay?”

Not so much
.
No
. “I don’t think so. I lost my job, was forced to move back home and now I’m dealing in stolen jewelry. I can handle the job loss and moving home. The stolen jewelry has me hugging the edge.”

Check the penalties for unknowingly harboring stolen diamonds
.

Lucie couldn’t think about that. “Mom, I should be down at police headquarters trying to clear myself. I can’t do that though. Not with you being involved.”

“All I wanted was to protect you and Joey.”

“I know.” Telling her mother she was a fool would not help matters. Somewhere in her mother’s mind, she’d been able to justify helping Frankie’s father commit a crime. All to save herself and her children. Maybe Lucie would have done the same, she didn’t know.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Lucie said. “I just researched jewelry thefts. There was a big robbery at an English castle around the same time Frankie’s dad shipped you the package, but we need more information. Unfortunately, that’s going to require Frankie’s involvement.”

“No.”

“Sorry, Mom. He’s already involved and he’ll get suspicious if I suddenly shut him out. Plus, it’s his father. He has a right to know.”

“Lucie, please, don’t tell Frankie about the affair. Please.”

Did she have the right to let her mother’s secret out? Did it even matter anymore? Lucie jammed the heels of her hands into her gritty eyes. Her shoulders must have weighed a hundred pounds. She pulled her hands away. “I’ll do my best to keep the affair out of it, but hearing this about his father will be devastating. If it will help him to understand, I’ll tell him. He’s entitled.”

Her mother nodded.

“I need those stones, Mom.”

“No.”

Was that invisible barrier between them expanding? Had she ever argued with her mother? Really argued?

Probably not.

“I understand what you’re doing. Protecting us is who you are. But this time, there’s no way around me having those stones. Whoever is snatching my dogs thinks I have the diamonds. I can keep you and Joey out of it if they continue to think that.”

Manipulating her mother’s emotions might be the crummiest thing Lucie had ever done.

Call it collateral damage. Joey was already on the government’s radar, and any hint of a jewelry heist would intensify that interest. Her mother would sooner drop in front of a bus than have one of her children be accused of a crime they didn’t commit.

Four, three, two, one…

“Fine. I’ll tell you where they are, but if you want them, I’ll get them for you.”

One thing was obvious. They weren’t in the house.

“Where are they?”

“At the bank. Aunt Tillie’s safe deposit box. I didn’t know where else to put them.”

The
bank
. Lucie hesitated, let the idea sink in. She and her mother had both hidden diamonds in safe deposit boxes. Great minds? Possibly. At least the dognappers couldn’t get to them. Not unless they robbed the bank. Even if that happened, they’d need the box keys. Well, they could break into the house, trash the place, find the keys and
then
rob the bank.

Wow.
What was up with Lucie’s imagination?

She shook it off. “At least I know where they are. We can work with that.”

For now.

* * *

Dead tired from her mother’s recent revelations, Lucie walked through Frankie’s front door prepared to tell him about a castle in England. A banner day all around.

She found him at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. He wore a stark white undershirt, his favorite blue basketball shorts and his coffee brown hair zigzagged into a wonderful mess.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I had a headache. Came home early and napped. What’s up?”

He shifted sideways to face her and Lucie took a moment to savor the crazy hair, the sleepy eyes, the crease from the sheet running down his left cheek. The simplicity of it calmed her, but now it was time to break his heart.

“We need to talk.”

He blew air through his lips. “That’s never a good sign.”

She slid into the chair next to him. A good way to do this didn’t exist. She dug her fingers into her forehead until the pressure penetrated her skull.

“Luce?” Frankie pointed at the sheet of paper in her hand. “What do you have there?”

“An article I found on the web.”

“About?”

“A jewelry heist in London.”

“
O
-kay.”

He held his hand out and Lucie contemplated crumpling the page, forgetting the whole thing and finding another way. This piece of paper might as well be a guillotine slicing through their relationship. The world’s largest paper cut.

Too late. She could see Frankie gliding his shoulders into the ready position.

“Let me have it,” he said.

He had no idea what she was holding and the stillness saturated the space between them.
Forget the whole thing
. And yet, she couldn’t. Even if Frankie would never know,
she
would.

And that was enough to destroy them.

She handed him the article. When he began to read, she went in search of the photo taped to his bedroom mirror. By the time she returned, he had finished skimming the article and she set the photo on the table. His eyes flicked to it before looking up at her.

“And what?”

She gestured to the photo. The one of Frankie and his family standing in front of a church in London. The day before the castle was robbed. “Did you see the date on the photo?”

“No, Luce. Just because you pull a story off the web doesn’t mean my father had something to do with it. That’s crazy. He loves you. He loves your father.”

Not enough
.

“You think this is a coincidence?”

He stared at her. She stared back. Finally, he flicked his finger against the page. “This article says two men on a tour of the castle hung back from the group and when they were alone in the gallery, they overpowered the guard and escaped with three million dollars’ worth of stones.”

“Yes. I researched other similar thefts. At the time, inadequate security made this common with privately owned castles that were turned into museums. Realistically, any average person with enough nerve could have pulled this off.”

“Meaning it would have been easy for my father, with his vast criminal background, to do.”

Deep breath
. “I’m telling you what I know.” She jabbed at the article. “This is what I know. I came here to share it with you so we could get to the bottom of it.”

“You have one diamond. We can’t find the rest. You think my dad snuck into your father’s house, hid one diamond and not the rest?” He laughed, but the sarcasm of it could be felt in the next state. “He’s not that stupid. Even if he was, where are the rest of the stones?”

“My mother has them.”

Frankie shot from his chair, sent it flying backward against the cabinets and Lucie flinched.

“How the hell did
she
get them? Is she telling you they’re my father’s?”

“She found them in my craft stuff and, not knowing that I had used one, switched them with fakes. She didn’t want me to get caught with them.”

Frankie crossed his arms. “She admitted this to you? Out of nowhere?”

“Of course not. O’Brien stopped by the house to give me an update and my mother figured something was wrong. I had to tell her about the dognappings. I could tell by her reaction she knew something.”

“And?”

“And she told me she had the real ones.”

“Where did they come from?”

She pressed her lips tight.

“Come on, Luce. How does she know they’re his?”

“I can’t say.”

Apparently, that answer wasn’t flying. Frankie slammed his hands on the table and sent the leftover pop in his glass splattering. His hands stayed connected to the table, and he flexed and unflexed his fingers.