Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“Is there anything else you can tell us about my father? Did he say why he was selling the piece? You said he seemed desperate. Did he say why?” Noelle asked.
Mr. Baudelaire shook his head. Of course not. No such luck. “He needed money in a hurry, I assume. I can’t think of another reason. But if there was one, he didn’t provide it to me.”
Noelle gave the ring one last look. Evan saw the longing in her eyes. It was being sold for over fifteen thousand dollars, however, and it appeared to Evan, who knew very little about antique jewelry, that it was well worth the price if the stone had been properly appraised. And if the longevity of his business spoke to Mr. Baudelaire doing things by the book, then it most definitely had been. What it came down to, though, was that he doubted Noelle had that kind of money. She lived in a small cottage and had been raising a daughter alone. If he’d still had access to the Sinclair fortune, he would have written a check right that moment and gifted it to her. As it stood, he only had his PI salary and a trust that may or may not still be his when he turned thirty. If his father’s dissatisfaction with his life’s choices were any indication, he wasn’t going to count on it.
“We appreciate your time, sir,” Evan said, pulling a card out of his wallet, even though he’d already given one to his son. “If you think of anything else about your transaction with Mr. Meyer, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, will you give me a call?”
“Certainly.”
The door tinkled again as they stepped outside. They walked in silence down the block, and he pulled the door of his car open so she could climb inside. He got in the driver’s seat, turning the ignition and blasting the AC but not pulling away from the curb.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I didn’t know my father still had that ring,” she said. “I never asked him, but . . . I just assumed it went the way of the other items he sold to pay off bills.” Bills associated with his lawyer’s fees and court costs from suing my father and losing. She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. A small knot formed in his gut. He didn’t feel guilty . . . exactly. But the reminder that what had happened between their fathers would always be between them made him feel sort of mad and sort of sad, and God, he wished he could snap his fingers and make it go away. But he couldn’t.
He’d have snapped his fingers and made a lot go away if he could.
“So he hadn’t sold it, even though at the time he’d very much needed the money. But then he did sell it eight years ago.”
She nodded. “Mr. Baudelaire’s assessment had to be correct. He needed money badly. But why? What made him even more desperate for money than he’d been after my mother died? Because from what I witnessed, that was level-ten desperation.”
“I’d say an even higher level of desperation made sense if he knew you were missing. Maybe he’d think he needed ransom money or something like that. But he didn’t know you’d been abducted at the time he sold the ring. No one did.”
She sighed, adjusting the vent so the air blew more directly at her face, lifting the tendrils escaping from her braid. “It had to be something to do with Dow, then,” she said. She chewed at her lip for a moment. “I’m not saying Dow wasn’t a decent guy and a longtime friend, but . . . I don’t know, I don’t see my dad desperate about him being potentially missing. For one, like I said, you couldn’t exactly set your watch by the guy, and for two, they just weren’t that close. And it was only a couple of days until the police found his body anyway. My father would not have panicked over two or even three days. Hell, I can’t even imagine him panicking over Dow not returning his calls for a few weeks.”
No, it didn’t make sense. Evan tapped on the steering wheel, thinking. “Okay. Is it possible that Dow’s disappearance had something to do with yours?”
She seemed to think about that for a minute. “If it did, why didn’t he call to check on me? There were no voice mails on my phone later. I hoped there would be . . . just to hear his voice at that time would have been . . .” She sighed, leaving the rest of that thought unspoken. “But he hadn’t called my work, either, to find out if I’d been showing up. And Paula said that when she called him he sounded horror stricken. From what we can piece together, time wise, he died very soon after that phone call. I’ve even wondered if the news itself was what caused his heart attack.”