Page 34 of Trouble Comes in Threes

“What was she wearing?”

I closed my eyes as I tried to remember. “I don’t know. Jeans, I think. Maybe a black shirt?”

“Lady in Black clothes?” she muttered under her breath.

The clothes I’d worn when I’d used that alter ego.

“I don’t remember seeing a hat,” I said. “And she wasn’t wearing a dress.”

“But at the end, you gave that up. The people who mattered knew you were her, and you stopped wearing the hat and the dress.” She paused. “But sometimes you still wore black.”

Had the dead woman been me?

“We’re looking for the owner of a wooden box!” I cried out in dismay. “How could that get me killed?”

“Maybe there’s something else going on,” she said.

I dropped my hand. “You think there might be something dangerous in the box?”

“Maybe, but what if it has nothing to do with the box?”

“Okay…” She had a point. The box had been buried for who knew how long. Still, it wasn’t like I was doing anything else liable to get me killed. “I don’t see how it could be anything but the box. I haven’t been involved in the criminal world for nearly three years, and when the Hardshaw Group was arrested and disbanded and James left, Dermot took over. Everything’s been quiet ever since.” I mulled it over a few seconds more. “The box is the only thing that makes sense.”

She was silent as she turned to glance at her car. “We should open it. If whatever’s in it is the cause of what happened to the woman you saw?—”

“The dead woman I saw?—”

“Then maybe it’ll help us understand what we’re dealing with.”

I considered it. “No. We need to stop looking for the owner of the box.”

“Rose,” she said insistently. “We may not know what’s inside that carved box, but we’ve opened a box nonetheless. Pandora’s box. If this is related to the box, someone out there might know we’re looking for the owners.” She leaned closer and lowered her breath. “Just knowing about it might get us into trouble.”

I took a step back, my heart beginning to race. “No. I can’t do this again! When we did this stuff before, it was just me and Muffy. I was the only person I needed to worry about, Neely Kate. But I have four kids!” My panic began building. “I said nothing dangerous!”

“I know, Rose. I know,” she said, reaching out to stroke my arm. “We’ll stop.”

Tears stung my eyes. “Thank you.”

“But we still need to open the box. We need to know what’s inside in case someone dangerous really is looking for it.”

I took several breaths before I said, “Yeah. You’re right.”

She looked relieved. “We’ll have to figure out how to get it open without damaging whatever’s inside. Jed and Witt can probably do it.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling a sudden need to see and hug my kids. “Are you okay with doing that on your own? I want to take off early. I need to hold my babies.”

“Yeah,” she said, pulling me into a hug. “Of course.” She squeezed me tightly, then released me. “I never meant to stir up any trouble, Rose. I swear.”

“I know,” I said insistently. “I never would have agreed to this if I’d thought it was dangerous.”

“You have to know the last thing I want to do is put you in harm’s way,” Neely Kate said, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“I know,” I said, offering her a half-smile. “This isn’t on you, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong, but now we need to stop.”

I expected her to put up more of a fight, but we got inside her car and headed downtown to the office, both of us quiet for a few minutes.

“Do you want me to go to your consultation with you?” I asked. “If the vision was yours, then you’re in danger too.”

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