Page 54 of Out of the Shadows
She took it, then said, “I’m not keeping it. I’m giving it back to the lawyer’s family. They didn’t even know it was in the locker. Where’s the other piece?”
“What other piece?”
“I know about the antique jewelry box. There were two pieces inside. This and a ruby.”
“There’s no ruby.”
“Where is the box?” she said, exasperated.
“In my truck.”
She turned and walked out, even over his protest. She headed out of the house, noticed that Jack immediately jumped up and followed her.
“What’s going on?” he said, eyes everywhere but on her as he looked around the yard.
“Charlie left the box in his car.”
She opened the door—he hadn’t even locked it—and the box was sitting on the passenger seat. She picked it up, opened it. It was empty.
Then she gently pushed the bottom corners, and just like Margo had said, the spring clicked, then released.
Nestled in a white satin bed was the deepest red ruby she had ever seen.
“Oh. My. God,” she said. “It’s real.”
Chapter Nineteen
Tess was her usual brilliant self and located the hotel Jerry Aberdeen was staying at, not far from the storage locker.
Margo grabbed her keys and was heading out the door when her mom stepped out and said, “Margo.”
She stopped, antsy to get going. “I’ll call Jack for backup.”
“Of course you will. You also need to know that Jerry Aberdeen has a lengthy record in California. Assault, battery, theft, going back to when he was nineteen. Most charges were dropped or reduced, but he spent eighteen months in prison for assault with a deadly weapon. The last five years he has apparently been clean.”
“Or just got better at not being caught,” Margo mumbled.
“And,” Tess said, “I found a gossip column that says Jerry had a very public falling-out with his mother after his grandmother’s funeral when he learned she left him a million dollars in her will. He’s quoted as saying, ‘The bitch was worth hundreds of millions and she leaves me only one.’”
“Only a million,” Ava said, shaking her head.
“He must have known her godson, not even a blood relative, received a two-million-dollar ruby,” Margo guessed. “I’ll give Jack the heads-up and he’ll meet me there. Thanks.”
Margo called Jack as soon as she was on the road.
“I need backup,” she said. “We found where Jerry Aberdeen is staying.” She told him everything Tess and their mom had said.
“Send me the address,” Jack said. “Charlie’s here.”
“Told you he’d show up there.”
“I didn’t doubt you. And you were right about the ruby—he hadn’t found it.”
“So, do you think he’ll give it to the Thornton family?”
“I don’t know.”
“He should. I mean,legallyit’s his, but they didn’t even know it was in there,” Margo said. “The timing is too tight—Thornton probably died before he received the package from the lawyer.”
