Chapter Sixteen #2
“No, we just borrowed the place for a night.”
“We?” Sarah lifted a brow as she glanced around for the other part of we. “You didn’t mention that you weren’t alone.”
“Dub Crawford, that cowboy who I told you about? He knows the owner.”
“The cowboy who was always asking you out at the convenience store? I thought you didn’t want anything to do with him?”
Grinning, Clancy said, “He kind of changed my mind.”
“Is he going to have breakfast with us?” Sarah moved to the glass doors that looked out to the deck.
Where was Dub? It nagged at her, making her worry with each passing hour that something had happened to it.
Him not leaving a note felt…off. He wouldn’t have done that.
Even if he’d changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to be involved in the mess she’d made of her life, he would have told her—not just left without a word.
“Dub should be back soon, but I was thinking that we could eat here. There’s food. I figured we could throw something together and take it out on the deck.”
Sarah didn’t answer. She had turned from the wall of glass out to the deck overlooking the creek and now was staring into the kitchen.
Sarah seemed surprised by something she’d seen. Clancy realized that her friend had spotted the jewelry still spread out on the kitchen table.
“Is that the bag of jewelry you said Esther tried to force on you?” Her friend’s voice sounded flat, odd. “I thought you said you didn’t take it.”
“I didn’t,” Clancy said as she followed Sarah to the kitchen table.
“I found it in my backpack where Esther must have slipped it that day. I was going to throw it away.” She saw Sarah’s shocked expression.
“But I’m glad I didn’t. It could be why Esther and Jane were murdered.
The sheriff is going to come pick it up soon since it’s possibly evidence. ”
Sarah didn’t seem to be listening. She sifted through the jewelry as if looking for something.
Her friend’s interest in it surprised Clancy.
“You said you were starving,” she said, going to the refrigerator and opening the door.
“I could make us something. Let’s eat out on the deck.
I want to hear all about what’s been going on with you. ”
When Sarah didn’t answer, she looked around the edge of the open refrigerator door to find her going through the jewelry again, as if whatever she was looking for wasn’t there. “Is this all of it?” she finally asked.
Clancy let the refrigerator door close as she saw Sarah spy the broken pendant.
It had slid under the edge of the table runner.
Slowly, Sarah pulled the pendant out by its chain.
The few fake jewels left on the pendant caught the sunlight coming in through the windows.
Her friend seemed mesmerized by the ugly thing even with all its missing fake pearls and rhinestones.
She felt an odd sense of worry that unsettled her. “About breakfast—”
“Did you know that this pendant belonged to Mildred Wilson?” Sarah asked, her back to her. “I used to take care of Millie even before she came to Shady Rest. I did everything for her. She told me that she was going to leave me something very special.”
When Clancy said nothing, Sarah turned slowly, holding up the pendant. “She promised to leave me this ugly piece of jewelry. But when she died, I couldn’t find it.”
The concern was no longer just disturbing her, Clancy realized. She could feel her pulse pounding in her ears, making her a little ill. She’d never seen Sarah like this, the way she was gripping the pendant’s chain, the almost angry tone of her voice.
“I knew Esther had taken it,” Sarah said.
Clancy touched the key around her neck through her sweater. If Mildred had really promised the pendant to Sarah, then wouldn’t she know about the key hidden inside?
“Now the pendant looks even worse than when Millie showed it to me the first time,” Sarah continued as the pendant spun back and forth like a pendulum, the chain gripped in her fingers.
If Sarah had noticed a lot of rhinestones and fake pearls missing, she didn’t say anything about it.
Nor did she mention that the back of it was now broken and the small compartment inside was empty.
Instead, she seemed to want to reminisce about the deceased Shady Rest resident Mildred Wilson and the pendant she was holding.
“You two must have been close,” Clancy said, trying to shake off the bad feeling that was working its way up her spine, cold as ice.
She couldn’t ignore the growing concern that the pendant was the reason Sarah was here right now—not breakfast. If Sarah had known that she had the bag of jewelry, there was only one way Clancy could imagine she knew.
Esther must have told her before Sarah killed her.
“Mildred told me it was worth a fortune,” Sarah was saying.
“She promised that she was going to leave it to me in her will. I was there the day she wrote out the will and signed it and dated it. Her two sons witnessed it, all legal and binding. But then this ugly piece of cheap jewelry went missing.”
Clancy didn’t know what to say. She could hardly breathe, let alone speak.
Sarah wouldn’t have killed Esther. Not this woman who’d befriended her.
Sarah must have figured out that if the pendant hadn’t shown up, Esther had somehow forced it on Clancy.
This woman standing just feet away couldn’t be a murderer.
“The jewelry, including the pendant, is evidence in two murders,” Clancy said, her voice cracking.
“But if you have the will and Mildred left it to you, I’m sure the sheriff will see that you get it when the investigation is over.
” Why didn’t she tell Sarah about the key?
Why not just give it to her? It was hers if she’d inherited the pendant and if she hadn’t killed two people looking for it.
Clancy hated what she was thinking and tried to push away the warning bells going off inside her head.
She wanted to believe that it would be a surprise when Sarah learned about the key that had been hidden inside—especially if there really was a fortune locked up somewhere.
She also wanted to believe that the pendant wasn’t the reason her friend was here right now.
But when her gaze met Sarah’s, she knew better. Her former friend knew about the key. It was why she was here. But was it also why Esther was dead?
It had always been about that bag of cheap costume jewelry.