Page 123 of House of Lies

But my toxic trait is that I think I can bludgeon my fucked up life into shape through sheer stubbornness.

“What about the note I found? The one with Ethan’s name on it? She had plans to meet him at Glenmont the night she disappeared.” I cross my arms over my chest, and Myles’s gaze drags down my throat, my breasts, and my belly before working their way back up to my eyes.

“He said he never met her.”

I swallow hard. “What if he’s lying?”

“Strange how you’re the only person who thinks he’s lying, cherry pie,” Myles says as he stands. “Sometimes people just don’t want to be found. You’ll drive yourself insane trying to figure out why.”

He walks over to the dry bar to pour himself a drink and Smith joins him a moment later. I turn to look at Richmond when he stays where he is, my shoulders drooping with disappointment.

“You think I’m crazy too?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer immediately, instead taking a long moment to study me as if considering whether I’m even worth the energy.

“You ever wonder why she’d want to meet with Ethan?”

I flinch when he takes Mom’s pendant and runs his thumb over the gemstone.

“My guess is she had something special to sell,” he says. “Everyone knows Ethan’s the best in the business. Finds the best buyers. Gets the best price. But even he can’t just snap his fingers and scare up a deal. It takes time. Weeks. Months. Maybe she got impatient, went to a pawnshop instead. She was obviously in a rush, and desperately needed the money.”

Rich gives me a bitter smile when he spots the shameful blush on my cheeks. “Think we wouldn’t check? She was drowning in debt.”

I stare down at the man’s hand, the way he’s caressing the jewel, as his words sink in. His story sounds so logical. It all fits neatly together—much better than the theories I’d concocted about Mom’s disappearance.

“Is this part of a set?” he asks.

“Yes, why?”

“It’s spectacular. Worth well over five hundred. Even more with the earrings.”

“Five hundred dollars?”

Rich scoffs. “Five hundred thousand.”

My face has gone cold. I’d been walking around with this necklace the whole time, and had no idea it was so valuable.

Mom never mentioned anything, either. But most of the jewelry she’d smuggled out of her house the night she eloped with my father was flawless gemstones set in platinum, or twenty-four carat gold.

She sold nearly everything to buy our first house, fund her lavish lifestyle, and pay off my father’s gambling debt.

I thought she’d taken everything valuable with her the night she disappeared, but I found the necklace hidden in the false bottom of one of her jewelry boxes, the one where she kept her costume jewelry. She loved the earrings, but hardly ever wore the necklace. Said it was too heavy. I guess the earrings were in one of her newer jewelry boxes, and she left in such a hurry that she forgot all about the necklace.

Or maybe, just maybe…she left it for me to find.

A parting gift.

I sit back, the necklace dragging through Richmond’s fingers until it thumps against my breastbone.

“Okay, fine.” I blurt out. “So she wanted to sell off the last of her jewelry. Do I have to go check all the pawn shops now? Or is there someone else in the city who would buy stuff like this?”

But Rich turns away without answering me, frowning as he mutters something about earrings under his breath.

It’s Myles who answers me as he heads back in my direction with a fresh drink. “That’s why we hired Ethan. We had a lot of stuff to fence, and no reliable people to take it off our hands. If anyone knows where to offload some gems, it’ll be Ethan or Angelo. That was their department.”

“But you don’t want to ask Ethan, do you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here,” Smith says.

I flinch and turn to face him. I was so focused on my conversation with Richmond, I didn’t realize he was sneaking up behind me.

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