Thing was, she adored Mrs. Fairborn. But did that mean she should just let her get away with murder? If she did, if she let her feelings influence her ability to do the right thing, to bring closure to those families who’d lost loved ones, what would that make her?
Cruz wasn’t texting back and worry gnawed at her. She could only hope his dad grounded him and nothing more. She’d screwed up before, but this was catastrophic on several levels. Levels she hadn’t thought of before she decided to take the law into her own hands.
While she waited for word from him, she dug a little deeper into the origins of the necklace. It was so intricately carved, but even if it dated back to the Roman Empire, which that one didn’t, it would still only be worth a few thousand dollars.
The way the family spoke in the interview they gave one reporter, that necklace was a family heirloom and worth more sentimentally than anything material they owned. They claimed the missing girl, Emily Press, was a poor relation and had stolen it when she’d come to visit.
She brought up the picture she’d snapped of the pendant and studied it again, enlarging it this way and that. The oval the cameo was set in wasn’t even real gold. It was brass, bulky, and not particularly pretty, and it had patinaed with age.
“Pepperoni with extra pineapple,” her grandma said as she brought Auri a slice.
Auri clicked out of the camera app and laughed as she looked at the plate. “That doesn’t look like pineapple.”
“Yeah, they forgot it. I could send it back.”
“No!” Auri jumped up and grabbed the plate from her. She was starving. Apparently food in jail was not a given.
“Whatcha doin’?” her grandpa asked. He handed her a glass of sparkling water with cranberry.
“Thanks, Grandpa. Just some homework.”
“If you want to talk about anything …”
“You mean how I ruined the lives of two of my best friends, may have gotten my mom fired, and disappointed everyone I know and love?”
“Yes,” he said with a humorous grin. “But not everyone.”
“You’re not disappointed?”
“Please,” her grandma said with a snort. “You have no idea what your mother put us through. You couldn’t disappoint us any worse than she did that time she threw a party while we were out of town and invited an entire biker gang called the El Choppos, who used my bras to shoot water balloons at the neighbor’s house.”
“Oh,” Auri said, genuinely concerned.
“Her defense was that she only let them use my old bras.”
Her grandpa gave her a stern expression. “If you promise not to invite motorcycle clubs to our house, I think we’ll be golden.”
She giggled. “I promise.”
“Then we’re good, peanut.”
“Always?”
“Always,” he said.
After three slices of pizza, two glasses of sparkling water, and an hour and a half of research, Auri found a relation of Emily Press, the woman who went missing with the necklace.
From what Auri could tell, Billy Press, the owner of a car dealership in Amarillo, Texas, appeared to be in his early thirties. If her calculations were correct, he would be a great-grandson of Emily’s uncle, which would make him her cousin, albeit distantly. She found him on Instagram and sent him a message with the shot of the necklace attached, telling him that she had been researching his cousin’s case and asking if he recognized the pendant.
The message may have been jumping the gun a bit, but her family deserved to know what happened to Emily, and they deserved to get that necklace back.
But then what? Would sweet Mrs. Fairborn go to prison? Because of Auri? Because of her meddling? Her intrinsic need to set the world right? The families deserved to know the truth, but it had been decades. Maybe the truth could wait a little longer.
Still, she had pertinent information on a cold case. Could she be charged with obstructing justice if she didn’t tell the truth?
With head spinning and stomach churning, Auri brushed her teeth and washed her face, then crawled into bed fully clothed. When her grandparents came in to check on her, she closed her eyes and deepened her breaths. They each took a turn kissing her head and her grandma tucked the covers tight before leaving.
Unfortunately, they didn’t close her bedroom door all the way and closing it now would be a dead giveaway, so she would have to risk it. Deceiving her grandparents yet again was giving her heartburn, but she needed to know Cruz was okay. And, more importantly, she needed to apologize to him.
After waiting another half hour, she could hear her grandpa snoring and sprang into action. She hopped out of her window—or rather tumbled out of it—and eased her bike out of the drive.
Two cars passed her and her heart got stuck in her throat both times, praying her mom was still at work. Thankfully, both were false alarms.
Cruz’s house was dark when she rode up, but his dad’s truck was in the dirt driveway. Her heart sank. Had he come back early from his trip because Cruz had gotten into trouble?
She turned off her headlamp as she passed his dad’s window and tripped twice as a result while sneaking up to Cruz’s. She knocked lightly, but nothing happened, so she knocked again.
“You’re going to kill yourself one of these days.”
The high-pitched screech that erupted out of her throat would be talked about for generations to come. The night a velociraptor came to town and woke up the entire population of Del Sol. Some people confused it with the tornado sirens. Others, a newborn sperm whale.
Turning to the godlike creature stepping down from the truck, she clutched her chest and gasped. “You scared me.”
“I never would’ve guessed.”
“Is your dad back?”
He closed the door and dropped his gaze. “Not yet.” After stuffing the keys into his pocket, he walked up to her. “What are you doing here?”
“You weren’t answering your texts. I had to check on you.”
Even in the darkness, Cruz’s eyes shimmered when he smiled. “It was my turn,” he said, leading her to a bench on the front porch.
They sat, the only light radiating from a streetlamp a couple dozen feet away. “For what?”
“I was going to come check on you.”
“Oh, well, my grandparents went to bed early.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Your mom’s going to kill you. Then she’ll kill your grandparents when she finds out how often you sneak out.”
“Oh, they’re already on her hit list. They keep setting her up on blind dates. I had to show you this.” She scrolled through her phone until she came to the picture of the necklace.
He took it to get a closer look. “Is this from Mrs. Fairborn’s house?”
“Yes. It’s like the Hope Diamond of the missing persons cases. I read an interview with one of the victim’s family members. An uncle, I think. It’s like he didn’t even care that his niece was missing. He seemed more worried about this old necklace.”
She showed him the article with a picture of the necklace. “It’s apparently really valuable, but from my research, it’s only worth a few thousand dollars. Nothing that would trump his niece’s safety.”