Page 5 of Family Jewels

I held up my hand, blocking the exit. “Hold up. We’re not going anywhere just yet.”

“But Anna’s coming to clean up, which means we can go.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“I’m really sorry about Marci,” Neely Kate said with a sigh.

“Everyone deserves a chance. I’m sorry if you’re in trouble with your aunt for firing her.” It was hard to hold this against my best friend. I’d met her aunt. I probably would have hired Marci too.

She waved it off. “I might get stuck with the burnt ends of Aunt Jackie’s raccoon roast next Christmas, but I’ll manage.”

I almost blurted out,Raccoon roast?But I wisely kept my mouth shut. Neely Kate’s family was one of a kind.

She shuffled her feet and shifted her weight before giving me a hopeful look. “I checked the weather on my phone, and it looks like the rain won’t clear off until this afternoon . . . which means we have some time to talk to Raddy Dyer.”

And there it was.

I sighed. “Neely Kate—”

“Now, before you say no, let me plead my case.”

“Funny choice of words,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m listening.”

Excitement filled her eyes. “You and I have solved cases before—”

I started to protest, but she held up her hand.

“—let me finish.”

“Okay.”

“I know we accidentally stumbled into some bigger things last fall and winter, but we got out of all of them, right?”

Stumbled into some bigger thingswas an understatement. Our last off-the-books investigation had landed us in the web of J.R. Simmons, a man of wealth and prestige who’d considered himself above the law. For a long time, he had been. He’d gotten away with murder—literally—because he’d had the connections, money, and deviousness to cover his tracks. I had banded together with James Malcolm, the king of the Fenton County underworld, to bring J.R. down, and Neely Kate hadn’t hesitated to join us. J.R. was dead now—destroyed by his own evil doings rather than by us—but nothing had gone as planned. People had died; lives had been changed in an instant. After last February, I’d vowed to leave danger behind and live a quiet life.

Only Neely Kate was bound and determined to make me live boldly.

“Neely Kate . . .”

She held up her hands. “You said you’d listen.” When I didn’t answer, she lifted her eyebrows. “Over the last four months, we’ve solved some mysteries that had nothin’ to do with us. Not to mention they were completely harmless.”

“We found a missing garden gnome, a lost dog, and figured out a dispute between two neighbors.” And I couldn’t deny I’d loved every minute of it.

“So why won’t you consider this?” she asked in frustration.

“This is different. From what Marci said, this man thinks his ex-wife is holding his grandmother’s jewelry hostage. It’s not a mystery. It’s a hostage negotiation. You should tell Carter Hale,” I said, referring to our defense attorney friend. “It seems more like a situation for a law shark than for two landscapers.”

“We’re not just two landscapers. We’ve solved mysteries before. You’ve worked with the crime lord of Fenton County, for Pete’s sake. Missing jewelry should be a piece of cake.”

“Neely Kate . . .”

“Let’s just talk to the guy, okay?” she asked, hope filling her eyes. “We can find out what he wants.”

“He wants us to get his jewelry back. His ex-wife has it. Where’s the investigation? Maybe he expects us to beat the jewelry out of her with our shovels.”

“Please?” She gave me a pout; then her eyes widened. “If it makes you feel better, you can have a vision. See how the meeting goes.”

She had to be really desperate to ask me that.

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