Chapter Seven #3
He fingered the green jewel set in the bottom of the peace symbol. It was a large, almost gaudy piece of green glass, cut like a teardrop that fit perfectly into the bottom third of the peace symbol. “What about this piece of—is it cut glass?”
“Probably. I don’t remember it specifically from back in the day. But an emerald was Lizzy’s birthstone—May—so she must have added that at some point. I mean, obviously, it’s fake, but—”
“What if it’s not?”
Emma frowned. “It’s…huge. It couldn’t be real. We always assumed—”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Emma sat up. “Do you think it could be—?”
“They were treasure hunters, you said, your sister and brother-in-law. What do you know about their passing?”
Emma seemed unable to shutter the pain in her expression.
“Only that their boat was found abandoned, like a ghost ship, off the coast of Florida. It was found floating somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. We were never sure what happened to them. Whether they were pirated and murdered or what happened. They were veteran sailors. But we’ll never know. ”
Connor stared at the square of sunlight pouring through the window at the end of the hall. “We might be able to find out.”
“What? How?”
He pocketed the necklace again, nodding toward the pair of detectives and an officer in uniform walking toward Aubrey and Jacob, just as the surgeon from Emma’s surgery walked into the waiting room from the other door.
Ignoring the officers, Aubrey jumped up to talk to the surgeon. “Is she—?”
“She did well. As well as could be expected,” said the surgeon, who’d only minutes ago been joking about his nurse’s wedding.
Emma had to admit, without his mask, he was quite handsome.
“We set her leg, inserting plates and screws to secure the bone. It should heal well. And if— when she wakes up, she’ll have to go through some rehab for it. But I’ve seen worse.”
Aubrey brushed away a tear. “Thank you for saying that. Thank you for believing she will wake up and walk again.”
“I always have hope for my patients. Your aunt is young and strong. She’s made it this far. She’ll be in recovery for a bit, then you can see her again.” He patted Aubrey’s hand, and she thanked him.
She hugged Jacob, relief evident in her tears. “You should go,” she told him. “I’ll stay here. You can’t miss any more work.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m surrounded by people here. Nothing will happen. You can’t lose your job over this. Please. Go.”
Jacob checked his phone and the list of missed calls. “Only if you promise to stay here. At the hospital. I’ll come get you later when I’m finished at work. They’re getting slammed on the Trinity case.”
“I know. Go. I’ll stay here. Promise,” Aubrey told him.
He kissed her goodbye and headed off toward the exit. Aubrey slumped back down onto a chair in the waiting room, combing her fingers through her hair.
Emma sat down on the chair beside her. “It’s going to be okay, Aubrey. No matter what. It’s going to be okay. You’ll see.”
But both she and Connor knew that was a big white lie.
She still didn’t know which way this would go.
Maybe Connor did, but he wasn’t telling her.
Did other people who landed in the in-between stay here long?
Was she minutes away from waking up? Or going in the other direction?
Was it her time or not? How would she know?
She’d always believed that when it was your time, it was just your time.
But it certainly felt like some cosmic mistake had been made in her case.
That, first of all, the accident had possibly only happened because they’d thought she was Aubrey.
Which was terrifying. So, whose fate was at play here?
Hers? Or Aubrey’s? She couldn’t even consider anything happening to Aubrey. She simply wouldn’t allow it.
She shook her head, wanting to hug her niece. If only she could get to the bottom of all this.
“Let’s go, then,” Connor said, reaching for her hand.
“Go where?”
“To the bottom of it all,” he said with a wink.
“You have to stop doing that,” she told him.
“Aye, right.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” he said, pulling her up from the chair.
She sent a look back at her niece. “But what about…”
“Dinna worry. She’ll be safe. This willna take long.”
Confused, Emma stopped resisting. For reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom, when he put his hand in hers, curled his fingers around hers, she trusted him.
They started down the corridor together.
In the next instant, they were in another place altogether.
A pretty, green place, with a lake beside it that smelled of summer and of the fragrant pines bending in the July breeze.
There was a gabled house with a wide, screened porch in the back, pretty as a picture with a flower garden surrounding it.
A stunning woman with blond hair was sitting in an Adirondack glider on the lawn with an infant snuggled against her shoulder in the warm sun.
There was a Fourth of July banner strung across the front of the porch with little handmade red, white, and blue triangles.
Emma tightened her fingers around Connor’s. The look on his face reminded her of a boy on the first day of school—at once excited and nervous.
“Where are we?” Emma asked Connor.
“Leyton Grove.” He pointed to the woman in the glider. “And she’s an old friend of mine.”