Page 118 of The Seven Rings
“Yeah, that sounds…” Shaking her head, she stiffened her spine. “No. Damn it, no. You know what? I came up here to do what I want to do, what I need to do, and I’m going to do it. I’m not giving up.”
“Son, it’s not giving up to sit down and recover.”
Fury burned through the cold as she set her shoulders, balled her fists.
“The hell with that. I don’t need to recover. She’s done for now. She pulled out a lot of stops, and they didn’t work. Again. So she’s done for now. I’m going to do what I came up here to do. But I have to find my phone.”
Clover used Bon Jovi to give the location with “It’s My Life.”
“That’s right. Damn right. And I am going to live while I’m alive. Right here inmyhouse.”
“You’re rubbing your hip.”
“Oh, she shoved something at me. Maybe that stand there.”
“Let’s see.” In the way of forever friends, Cleo just yanked down Sonya’s shorts. “Ouch. You got a solid bruise.”
“Yeah, and I feel it, but bruises fade. And she’s the one who left the field. See that display cabinet? She tried to push it over on me.”
“Well, shitfire! It’s big, and it’s heavy. You’d have more than a bruise.”
“But I don’t. And when we kick her crazy ass out of here, that’s going in the Gold Room to display Poole mementoes.”
“Okay, all right. It’ll be perfect. But, Son—”
“You text Owen, and I’ll text Trey. So they know where we are. Then how about picking a spot? We’ll start the hunt, and I’ll tell you what happened all the way through to the incredibly happy ending.”
She tossed off a cloth, opened a drawer of a bureau at random.
“Oh, and look, look, right off the bat.” She pulled out a long necklace, a rainbow of beads with white stars and crescent moons scattered in.
“How sweet is that? Love beads, right?”
Slowly, carefully, Sonya ran them through her fingers. “I guess. They’re hand-strung. Clover’s. I know it because she was wearing them.”
“When?”
“I’ll tell you,” Sonya promised. “I think, I’m pretty sure this was hanging in the room—my room—where she had my dad and Collin. I didn’t pay as much attention because—”
“You were focused on her, and what was happening.”
“Trey’s right, Patricia would have ordered whoever she sent up here to get rid of Clover’s things. But they missed this. Just didn’t find it. But she saved it for me.”
Her phone played Annie Lennox and “The Gift.”
“One I’ll treasure.” Sonya put it on. “Let me start at the beginning.”
They started another carton, earmarked pieces, and made the kind of steady progress Sonya had hoped for.
Then Cleo stretched her back, pointed. “Look, the sun. We haven’t seen that for a few days.”
“And it looks terrific. We should go down. We did good work here, and these two probably need to go out. Plus, I think I’m ready for that sit-down now.”
“How about we do that outside?” Cleo closed the terrace doors.
“I’m with you.” Sonya checked the time on her phone. “It’s nearly six. I didn’t mean to stay up there that long.”
“We did what we needed to do. I’ll throw a quick pasta together for dinner. In a bit. I want the sit-down, too.”
