Page 70 of Edge of Ruin
He reached around and caressed my clit, tipping me over into a huge, wrenching climax. When I finally had the strength to prop myself up, he was still waiting for his own release, his face tight with self-control.
“I want to come inside you,” he said.
I thought about it for about half a second. “Go for it.”
His eyes widened. “You’re sure? You’re okay with that?”
“I want it all,” I blurted. “I want everything you have to give me.”
His eyes flashed, and he gave it to me, pumping deep and hard. One last shove, a shout, and he came, explosively.
I hung over the counter, limp and soft. Light as air, soft as a cloud. One thought floating in my mind in a perfect shining bubble of hope.
Of how much I would love to make a child with him.
Jack set the shower running and washed me with sensual thoroughness. That interlude ended as one might have expected, with myself pinned against the wet tile wall, legs draped over his elbows, sobbing with delight as he nailed me deep and hard.
Not a thought about bad moments in my past. No dread for the future. Not a thread of panic, of nausea. No “danger keep out” signs. My old phantoms were gone.
They could not withstand the bright light that was Jack Kendrick.
Afterward, glowing and relaxed, I sat naked on the bed and examined the three necklaces that I had retrieved from Ulf Haupt’s briefcase. I laid them out on the bed, fiddling with them. Studying the patterns of gold that decorated each pendant.
Something about them tickled my mind. The setting was different on each pendant. On my own, there were tiny open spaces in the coils of gold. On Nell’s, the lacework was flat, with a slight protrusion on each side. Nancy’s also had those protrusions.
It made me think of a sculpture I’d done back in art school, one of the pieces that had been mangled in Snake Eyes’s second break-in. Three female figures, made of motley chunks of glass, pebbles, and bits of plastic, all wired together. But their stylized hair swirled out like halos, hooking and tangling together, linking the three figures.
I had entitled it The Three Sisters. Lucia had loved it. She had displayed it proudly, right next to her priceless bronze Cellini satyr.
I placed the pendants side by side. Nancy, Nell, Vivi. I felt a strange, dreamlike feeling of being gently guided as I slipped the little protrusion of my own pendant into the open space in Nell’s. A push, and click, the openwork linked together, seamlessly.
My heart gave a heavy thud of excitement. “Jack,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “Look at this.”
He looked, and his eyes widened. “The other one? Does it fit, too?”
“Let’s see.” I slid the protruding part of Nancy’s pendant into the openwork of Nell’s. Click. The pieces were all united. Three pendants, side by side. Locked together.
Jack held out his hand, and I passed the pendants to him. He manipulated them delicately, putting pressure on every point. One of the protruding bits on Vivi’s pendant moved. At first, I cried out in dismay, thinking he’d broken it, but then I saw that it was a lever, moving smoothly down?—
Click, once again, and something snapped out of the bottom. Three fine, shining, miniature sheets of gold, flush to each other, as narrow and sharp as a blade.
We leaned closer. Something was written on them, in letters so small, I could not make them out.
Jack pulled out his phone. He held the thing up under his camera and zoomed in, magnifying the image. “Salve Regina Mater Misericordiae,” he read slowly. He turned it over and studied the back. “Primus Modus Doricus.” He looked up at me. “Latin, right? Can you make anything out of that?”
“No, but Nell could. She’s studied Latin.” My voice was high and shaky. I pressed my hand to my mouth, fighting to control my face. It was too soon for tears of joy. I had no idea what this might mean. It was by no means a triumphant win.
But it was something. Finally, a window had opened, letting in some light to illuminate our helpless confusion. We had a place to begin.
“This was the part of the puzzle that I was supposed to figure out,” I said.
Jack raised his eyebrows. “How do you figure?”
“In the draft of the letter we found, Lucia said it was our love of art, music, and literature that would solve the puzzle. I don’t know the first thing about music or literature.” I thought about The Three Sisters, and the pride that Lucia had taken in it, and tears sprang to my eyes. “But this part was just for me.”
I felt as if I had just received a tender message from beyond the grave. A wave of love and faith and encouragement from Lucia to her youngest adopted daughter.
“Oh, God. I’m losing it,” I whispered. “I miss her so much.”
