He tilted his head in a sheepish shrug. “There was never a partner. It was all Kubrick.”
She nodded, then knocked on the door.
The CO stepped aside and Quincy came into view. Brows drawn in a severe line. Arms crossed over his chest.
The door didn’t have a window like the one in Arizona. He couldn’t see inside the room, so he stood on the other side, a tad on edge if his expression were any indication.
“You okay?” he asked, peering past her to the inmate at her back.
But she was more than okay. Her world had just changed. She tackled him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Okay, then,” he said, patting her back and, Sun was certain, questioning Wynn from over her shoulder.
“Right this way,” the CO said to them, ready to lead them out.
She let go of Quince and threw her arms around the guard’s neck, too. He let her, though he didn’t hug back so much as pat the top of her shoulder. Gingerly.
She was so happy. Mostly because he didn’t tase her.
She stood back and scanned the area to see how much of a fool she was making of herself. The large room had several tables, and a handful of COs and administrators looked on, witnesses if the guard decided to file a sexual harassment lawsuit. A few inmates were there as well, one doing paperwork and one cleaning the tables. Probably a trustee who had earned the right to help in other areas of the prison.
As one of the officials came forward, determined to put a stop to whatever was going on, Quincy stepped in front of him and held up a hand, politely requesting a moment.
She turned and pushed her luck as far as she possibly could by giving Wynn another quick hug, then she faced the wrath of Quincy.
“We have to go save the dark lord’s life,” she said, utilizing Hailey’s pet name for her brother. She gave Quincy a warning lift of her left brow. “He’s going to be very, very angry.”
Auri could hardly blame him for breaking out. Cruz. He escaped from Presbyterian Hospital a few hours after they released her. It also happened to be the day before his father’s birthday.
“I can’t let him spend his birthday in that box,” he’d said when they were lying in bed, which sounded worse than it was. She was already dressed in clothes her grandma had brought for the trip home.
Her mom was signing the discharge papers while her grandparents gathered her things. The nurse had brought a cart to take all the flowers to the car. Her room had been filled with them. Cruz’s room was empty. Not a single vase or potted plant and only one get-well card her grandparents had bought and had everyone sign.
Auri forced it out of her mind. The town loved him. She knew that. But did they understand what he’d done? How he’d saved her life? How he’d saved Mrs. Fairborn’s?
They lay nose-to-nose, his handsome face and previously ashen pallor back to normal. And yet the sadness that consumed him was like an anvil on her chest, cutting off her air supply.
“My dad hated confined spaces,” he said, his eyes glistening with tears he refused to shed.
“And now he’s in a cardboard box.” He bit out the words from between a clenched jaw. “Like his life didn’t matter. Like all he was worth was a piece of corrugated paper.”
She’d cupped his cheek. “Cruz, no one believes that. Everyone loved your father.”
How he had kept his father’s death a secret still boggled Auri’s mind. He’d been working nights on the cars that were in his dad’s shop before he died, then he would have people pick them up, telling them his dad was running errands. He’d be right back if they wanted to wait.
They never did.
The authorities still didn’t know what to do with Cruz. His nonbiological grandfather was coming from Riley’s Switch the next day. When Auri thought about it, she panicked. The thought of him moving killed her.
“I’ll never see you again,” he’d told Auri.
“Of course, you will,” she lied. She knew how these things worked. She’d watched her mother pine after Levi for years. Now they’re back and her mom and Levi still hadn’t hooked up. Sometimes it didn’t matter how much you loved someone. “Besides, you may not want to see me after this.”
He inched back to get a better look at her. “Why would you say that?”
She bit her lip, and admitted, “My head.”
“Your what?”
“It’s lopsided.”
“It’s what?”
“My head is lopsided.”
“That’s so weird,” he said, astonished. “I love lopsided heads.”
“Really?”
He took her hand into his. “Really.” He looked down and uncurled her fingers to see the necklace she had clasped in them. “What do you think of this?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know what to think. I’ve tried to look for engravings or markings, but there’s nothing.”
He took it from her, and said with a teasing grin, “Let me look.”
“Okay, but there’s simply nothing unusual about it.”
He studied it closely as she studied him. What she wouldn’t do for his eyelashes. “My dad was super into this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Clocks and watches. He loved the mechanics and detail.”
“Like in the carving?”
“Exactly.” He showed her a part of the woman’s hair where a ribbon held it back. “Look closely around the edges of that bow.”
She did. “It seems a little more indented than the other lines. Deeper.”
“Because it is.” He pushed on the bow, but nothing happened. “I need something sharp.”
“I used to be sharp,” she said sadly.
He laughed.
“Oh! How about this?” She brought a tongue depressor out of the pocket of her sweater.
“Do I want to know why you have that?”
“It’s grape flavored.”
“Ah.” He broke it to create a point and pressed it onto the bow. “This might work.”
“What’s it supposed to do exactly?” She imagined a music box inside the brass setting that played when someone pressed the button, but when he said, “This,” and held it out to her, she sucked in a soft breath of air.
The cameo clicked and swung open to reveal a secret chamber. “No way.”
“Way,” he said, just as astonished. He tried to sit up but gave up with a wince.
“Here.” She took it and brought out an aged piece of paper.
“What is it?”
She unfolded it carefully and screwed up her face. “It’s … mineral rights?”
“Okay,” he said, just as confused.
Her mother walked in with a smile. “Hey, you two.”
“Mom, look!” She handed the paper to her mother. “I knew it. I knew there was more to that necklace. Mrs. Fairborn knew, too. But Cruz figured it out! We have to tell Mrs. Fairborn.”
Her mom took the paper and read it over. She was wearing her usual black uniform and had pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, holding locks of hair back that had come loose from her French braid. She was so pretty. Auri had always thought so, but she seemed to get prettier as she grew more and more elderly and decrepit.