Page 82 of Five Stolen Rings

“How did she even get the door to open on its own?” I mutter, looking at the front door as I push it closed. “Do you think we could rig something like that?” It would be a cool party trick.

“Focus, please,” Jack says, and I roll my eyes.

Can’t a girl distract herself with side tangents every now and then?

“Maude Ellery,” I say, my voice dampened in the heavy atmosphere that always seems to loom in this house. “Hi. It’s Stella, the person who took care of your animals while you were gone.” I clear my throat. “I hope you found them fed to your liking. I watered your plants too, and I aired out the rooms, so your allergies wouldn’t act up.”

Jack shoots me a look that plainly saysWhat the heck are you doing?

“I’m introducing myself,” I hiss. “Someone needs to make some headway here.” Then, after clearing my throat again, I go on, “We’re going to come into the living room, okay? And we can all talk.”

Great. Now I sound like a hostage negotiator. But honestly…what is this, if not a negotiation of sorts?

Even though I see Jack shaking his head out of the corner of my eye, he follows me under the wing of the split staircase and into the living room. It only takes two seconds of looking around to find his stepmother.

She’s seated in a wing-backed chair, posture impeccable, an intimidating frown on her face. She’s draped in a glittery purple dress, and there are actual high heels on her feet.

That has to be a scare tactic, right? Does a woman in her sixties wear high heels in her own home?

“Hi,” I say, bobbing my head at her. I shift uncomfortably. “Uh, do you by any chance have a tampon?”

It seems foolish not to at least ask.

But Maude just eyes me, looking utterly disdainful. “Certainly not,” she says. “I’m well into my menopausal years.” She hesitates, sniffing, and then goes on, “But incontinence is not uncommon for women my age. I do have some panty liners, if you?—”

“Yes, please,” I cut her off.

She does not appreciate being interrupted—the look she shoots me is part irritated, part disapproving—but she nods all the same, waving one spindly hand toward the hallway off the kitchen.

“In the cupboard beneath the bathroom sink,” she says. “I’m surprised you don’t already know that, considering how much you’ve poked around.”

I wince at this—she’s not wrong—and then hurry to the bathroom. I reemerge a few minutes later feeling significantly better.

Of course, the scene I find when I come back is enough to send me running for the proverbial hills: Maude Ellery,sitting in the chair beneath the scantily-clad portrait of herself, looking significantly haughtier than she does in the painting.

That woman canglower.

“Sit,” she barks at me when I appear, and I scurry over to the couch, plopping down next to Jack, who seems to be handling the situation better than I am. He’s observing Maude with cool indifference—though I’m not sure he has any legs to stand on, since she literally has video footage of him breaking into her house.

Maude’s nostrils flare as she looks back and forth between the two of us, but she doesn’t speak. Neither does Jack; there seems to be some sort of staring contest going on, or maybe a battle of wills to which I was not invited. The silence expands and mutates in horrible ways until I’m ready to say something just to end it.

But Maude apparently reaches that point at the same time I do, because just as I’m opening my mouth to say something undoubtedly idiotic, she speaks again.

“Explain,” she says, arching her eyebrows imperiously.

And look. I am ashamed to be in this situation. But I’d rather explain what happened than have to come up with something to fill the silence.

I am not a dumb woman. I am intelligent and strong. Butpleasedo not ask me to fill an awkward pause. It will go very poorly.

“So,” I begin, my hands clasped tightly in my lap. “Yes. So. What happened was?—”

“I broke in to your house, without Stella’s approval,” Jack cuts in, his voice smooth. “I resisted all her attempts to get me to leave. She’s not at fault here.”

Maude’s spidery brows inch impossibly higher, and Jacknods. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and inhales deeply; then he spits out the accusation he’s probably been holding for years.

“You took my mother’s rings.”

Maude’s eyes glint with something like satisfaction. She crosses her bony legs and leans back in her chair, lounging very similarly to the way she does in the portrait on the wall behind her.

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