Page 80 of Meet Me at Christmas
Stella shushed everyone and put her phone on the table on speaker. “You’ve found out something about the necklace?” Stella closed her eyes to focus on the officer’s voice as Lily quietly filled in Mr. Ferguson on what she’d been told about the necklace.
“Yes. I thought it was a pretty fitting Christmas present.”
Stella leaned in. “What do you mean?”
“We did some digging, and the last owner is deceased. The stone wasn’t registered or insured after that owner, at least not that we can find.”
“Well someone had to lose it in the airport,” Stella countered. “Maybe it belongs to a family member of that person.”
“We figured the same. The previous owner is actually from Tennessee. Isn’t that where you are?”
“Yes,” Stella replied. “Am I allowed to ask the person’s name? Maybe we can find out if it belongs to anyone in the family, and I can get it to them.”
“Well, you see, the woman who had insured it last had a receipt of sale from 1968 from an antique jewelry dealer in Nashville. Someone by the name of Florence Elizabeth Fisher of Maury County.”
Mama gasped, her eyes wide, her face white, and Lily’s mouth dropped open.
“That’s my grandmother’s name,” Stella said, stunned.
Mr. Ferguson’s brows pulled together. “Your grandmother?”
Lily leaned over to him. “My pop’s mom.”
Stella began to recount the collision with the woman in the airport. How on earth…
“Well, it looks like it’s yours now,” the officer cut in. “Merry Christmas.”
“Oh, Merry Christmas,” Stella said.
When she hung up the phone, they all sat silent, everyone clearly trying to figure out how Stella had managed to get her grandmother’s necklace.
“Could someone have been bringing it to you?” Lily asked.
Stella shook her head. “No. It was just me and that stranger who bumped into me. And she didn’t seem to recognize it. She thought it was mine already.”
“Could your grandma have sold it or given it to someone else and it’s just a crazy coincidence that you ended up with it?” Mama asked.
“It seems too crazy.” Stella racked her brain for any ideas, combing back through the events that day and leading up to it. Then something came to her. “I’ve had that carry-on bag since I left for college,” Stella said. “I only took it with me to London as an extra bag in case I bought things to bring back. When you called for me to come home, I just grabbed it… Do you think the necklace was somehow inside all this time?”
“Who would’ve put it in there?” Henry piped up. His phone rang and he stepped away to answer it.
“It’s the bag with the flowers, Mama. Remember it?” Stella continued.
“Oh, yes. We’ve had that bag for ages. I can’t even remember how we ended up with it.”
“Could it have been Grandma’s?” Stella asked.
“Maybe,” Mama said with a nod.
“Perhaps she put the necklace in it years ago, and it was jostled loose when that woman spilled her coffee on me?”
“It’s a definite possibility,” Mama said through her fingers as she covered her mouth, still in shock. Then she sat up straighter. “It could be the something old, something borrowed, and something blue for one of you. But who should wear it?”
Lily was the first to answer. “Stella should definitely wear it since she found it.”
Stella shook her head. “No, no. I wouldn’t want to single one of us out. Neither of us should wear it.”
Then Mama added, “I’ll loan you each my sets of pearl earrings as your something borrowed.”
