“It was really scary, Lark. You were the most together person I knew. You’d been prim and proper in public forever. And when you weren’t around adults, you were silly and funny and…. But never like that. I’d never seen you like that. After a few minutes, Mrs. Edelmen made me leave, too. I went outside and sat on the swings. That’s where I was when your parents arrived. I saw you leave. Your dad was carrying you.”
“He was carrying me?” I asked doubtfully. “I was thirteen.”
“Yeah,” Adam said, shaking his head as if to get rid of the memory.
“So, that’s it?” I asked, hoping desperately that there wasn’t any more.
“Other than you disappearing immediately and absolutely? Yeah. I must’ve called your phone a million times that night. When I finally fell asleep, I made sure the phone was on the pillow next to me. Every once in a while, I woke up with a start and called you again. It would just ring and ring and then go to your voicemail. The same thing the next day, and the day after…. Until I tried calling the next week, and it said the number had been disconnected. Even my parents weren’t sure what had happened. They tried calling your parents, but they never gave me any explanation. After a while, they said you’d moved away and that was that.”
“That must have been terrible for you,” I sympathized.
“It was,” he said, his eyes glistening. “But it wasn’t about me. I was worried about you. For all I knew, your parents stuck you in a funny farm and threw away the key.”
“That would have been awful,” I said hollowly.
“What did happen…you know, afterwards?” he asked.
I forced a smile. “I was diagnosed with exhaustion,” I said, repeating the party line. It was the same lie that my parents had told anyone with knowledge of my meltdown.
“So, that was it?” Adam spoke delicately.
“Yeah. My parents cut me off from you, and from everyone else back in Connecticut. They said it was for my own good, that I needed a fresh start. But really, I think they wanted to pretend it had never happened.”
“And you let them?” Adam’s eyes flashed with both hurt and anger.
“They told me that you’d never called. They said that your parents contacted them and said you didn’t want to see or talk to me. I thought…I thought you hated me.” With that, a lump formed in my throat that was impossible to swallow around.
“Lark! How the hell could you think that?” Adam said fiercely. “You were my best friend. I loved you. I would’ve stuck with you through anything. If you’d let me. I still will.”
My parents had done a lot of shitty things in their time—really shitty, in fact. But coming between Adam and me, simply because they were embarrassed by my breakdown? Not okay. They’d taken away my best friend and confidant at a time when I needed him the most. And for what reason? To maintain their reputations?
And now, I couldn’t help but wonder…how far would they really go to keep those reputations? The memory of the night I’d stolen the Kingstown files surfaced in my mind. What had my mother and father been talking when they thought they were alone? What other dirty little secrets were they hiding?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RAVEN
“it was him,” I said simply, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I know,” Asher replied softly.
His words were hits with a hammer to the thin, glass wall between me and the world. It shattered and reality came crashing down around me. Suddenly, I was livid with Asher for letting Blake leave. And then, as I stood there with my back to him, I realized something.
“How did you know it was him?” I demanded warily. Obviously, I’d cyberstalked Blake. But how would Asher know what Lark’s boyfriend looked like?
“He told me,” Asher replied, in a clipped tone. “Said he received Lark’s package. Apparently there was a note in it, asking him to bring something to this address. He didn’t know why, or what the significance of it is, but wanted to do anything he could to help find her.”
The explanation sounded good…but I detected a hint of dishonestly. What wasn’t Asher telling me? I kept my back to him, so he couldn’t see the suspicion in my eyes.
Am I being paranoid? I wondered.
“What is it?” I asked stiffly.
“What’s what?” Asher asked, sounding confused.
“The item he brought over,” I said, finally whirling around to face Asher, eyebrows raised in irritation. “The one that might help us find Lark?”
“Oh, right. Um, it’s a key.”
“To what?” I asked.
Asher shook his head. “No idea. Blake didn’t seem to understand its purpose either.”
“Let me see it,” I insisted, tossing aside my manners. As if that weren’t clear enough, I held out my hand.
When Asher placed the key in my palm, the cold metal sent a chill up my arm. A scene flashed through my mind in a blur of color and muffled voices. My fingers curled around the golden object in my hand, a long, thin, leather rope dangled from a small hole at the top of the key. I squeezed the object Blake had delivered, willing the scene from a moment ago to come back to me. But my mind was as blank as my expression.
Opening my hand, I ran my fingertip over the metal, tracing the outline. It was like no key I’d ever seen. And yet, it felt familiar. Like I had seen it before.
Think Raven.
The memory came fast and hard, slamming into place with a jolt that reverberated through my entire body. I hadn’t seen the key, not in real life. I had read about it, in Lark’s journal. And like all passages involving Blake, the love-drunk heiress was extremely detailed. Puzzle pieces began shifting, falling into place like tetris blocks.
The key really isn’t like any I’ve ever seen before, I thought, a slow smile spreading across my face. It’s one-of a kind.
Created by a master craftsman according to specifications Lark had provided, and gifted to Blake for safekeeping.
“Raven?” Asher said my name tentatively, leaning closer as though to inspect the key, but his eyes never left my face.
“Shhh,” I snapped, holding out my free hand to keep him out of my personal space.
I closed my eyes and recalled the day Lark had picked up the key from Navid, the jeweler. The day was cold, I thought, and my skin began to burn as though the bitter wind was inside the apartment instead of solely in my mind. It was dark outside. Nighttime. She rode the subway. I could picture the scene perfectly, as though I had been there, trailing behind Lark like her shadow.
Navid took her into a backroom, an office, where he showed her the two finished pieces she’d order.
The two finished pieces. And they were meant to go together.
I glanced up at Asher, who was still standing closer than I liked. “I know what this key goes to,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
He looked at me strangely, like I’d lost my mind. “Really?” he asked, his tone bursting with doubt.
That’s when I remembered that I’d told Asher the butterfly pendant was mine.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I was holding the necklace when I woke up in my car from that unfortunate sleepwalking incident. I’d told Asher that I had suddenly remembered hiding the necklace in my car and needed to retrieve it immediately. In the middle of the night. While not wearing shoes. In hindsight, the lie was so flimsy that Asher probably didn’t believe it anyway.
You really need to bone up on your fibbing abilities if a PI gig is in your future.
“Well don’t keep me in suspense,” Asher teased, though he still looked dubious.
I took a deep breath, stalling a few more precious seconds while I tried to invent a decent story.
“Raven?” he pressed.
Screw it. Time to fess up.
I exhaled slowly. “Okay, so you know how you found me in my car that one night, really late?”
“With feet that looked like you’d just walked through a cornfield?” Asher replied dryly.
“Yep, that’s the one. So…I wasn’t totally honest with you at the time. That necklace, the one I showed you with the butterfly pendant? It’s not mine. It belongs to Lark.”
Asher’s eyes went wide and, for a moment, he was speechless. “Raven, I…. Well, shit. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me the truth,” he said, sounding hurt. And a little dumbstruck. “You don’t ever need to lie to me. Ever. No matter what it’s about, you can tell me. I’m here to help you.”
“I know, I know, it was stupid,” I said quickly, hoping to brush over that part. “It’s just that I was in bed, reading her journal, and I saw something in there about the necklace. She wrote about hiding it in a car. And I figured that maybe, maybe, the car she was talking about was mine. It seemed like it was worth checking, at least, since I did find her journal in there.
“I was so caught up in the whole thing that I ran right outside. When I found it, I was just so…shocked. And then you were banging on the window. I’d just met you and had no idea if you’d believe this crazy story. Which was why I lied. Even as I’m saying it out loud now, the whole thing sounds crazy.”
Wow, way to ramble. He’s totally going to see through that excuse, I thought.
“I see,” was all Asher said. But after a deep breath, he seemed to regroup. “And what does this key have to do with that butterfly pendant? I feel like I’m missing something.”
“It’s sort of complicated,” I hedged, which was a vast understatement. “Lark had this key made for Blake by the same jeweler who made her the butterfly pendant. At the same time. They’re a set.”
“Are you sure?” Asher glanced down at the key as though seeing it with fresh eyes.
“Positive,” I said firmly. “And if I’m wrong, whatever. Following my theory will take like three minutes.”
I wasn’t wrong. Lark had given this key to Blake because she trusted him, not enough to share her secrets and fears with him, but enough to know that he would never lose a present from her.
“Okay.” Asher nodded steadily. “Where’s the butterfly pendant?”
Pushing past Asher, I hurried to retrieve the butterfly pendant from my messenger bag. The same excitement I felt before every big discovery bubbled within me. I practically skipped back to the plush couch in the living room where Asher waited. Sitting side by side, a respectable space between us, Asher held the key as I opened the velvet pouch that held the gold and opal pendant. As always, I was caught off guard by its inordinately heavy weight. Was there really something in the butterfly? The contents had to be small, that was for sure. The pendant itself was only the size of my pinkie finger, if not slightly wider.
I spread out the velvet cloth on the coffee table and placed the butterfly on top of it. I brushed my fingertip over the surface. The metal was cool and smooth, with no grooves or indents. Satisfied that there was nothing unusual with the front surface, I flipped the pendant over and examined the back for the first time. It took me a minute to see them: two interlocking circles, barely visible to the naked eye, were carved into the gold near the base.
With the tip of my pinkie, I pressed down on the center, where the two circles overlapped. They slid apart with a tiny click, exposing a small keyhole. The soft sound was like thunder in the silent apartment.
“I’ll be damned,” Asher whistled. “You were right. How’d you know?”
“I didn’t,” I sputtered. “I mean, not about how to open the butterfly. That was luck.”
“Do you want to do the honors? Or should I?” he asked.
“I’ll do it,” I quickly answered.
Asher handed me Blake’s key, and I slowly eased one end into the hidden opening. They fit together perfectly, but I hesitated before taking the final step and actually unlocking the hidden compartment.
“Want me to do it?” Asher asked.
I felt his gaze on me as I shook my head.
“Okay. Take your time. No hurry at all.”
Clutching the key tighter between my fingers, I filled my lungs to capacity and rotated the metal object. In the quiet apartment, the soft click seemed to echo, and then tiny, twin doors popped open at the bottom of the pendant.
I met Asher’s brown eyes, and he nodded encouragingly.
Carefully, as if it was made of spun sugar, I picked up the heavy, gold pendant and gave it a delicate shake. I felt a wave of disappointment when nothing fell out onto the coffee table; no tiny scroll with the coordinates to ancient treasure; no slip of paper with script written in a dead language; nothing but air.
“Well this was anticlimactic,” I said, deflated.
I’d been right about the two objects being a set, but it seemed Lark never got around to hiding anything inside the butterfly. It was a dead end.
“Not so fast,” Asher said. He gestured to the pendant. “May I?”
“Go for it,” I replied.
His large fingers dwarfed the butterfly as he pushed the gold doors farther apart, until they rested flush against its body. My heart rate increased. What I’d taken to be empty space was actually the treasure itself: a chrome-tipped flash drive.
Asher and I exchanged glances. This wasn’t like Lark’s other clues, this was real, concrete evidence. I felt just as certain of that fact as I had that the key would open the butterfly.
“Should we take a look?” Asher asked hesitantly.
He knows it, too, I thought.
“Yeah…definitely. My computer’s right there,” I replied, nodding absently to the laptop in plain sight on the edge of the coffee table.
When I made no move toward the computer, Asher reached over and grabbed it. He gently fit the drive into one of the USB ports on the back of the laptop. When he clicked on the file folder, a password box popped up on the screen.
I groaned loudly and slumped against the couch cushions. “Of course! Of course the hidden drive inside a locked necklace needs a password!” I threw up my hands in defeat. “That’s it, I give up! I’m done with all of this. I’m pretty sure this is simply an intricate plot to drive me insane. And it worked!”
“Don’t be so quick to throw in the towel,” Asher chastised, hiding an impish grin as he grabbed my arm and gave it a little shake. Evidently he found my meltdown amusing. “What’s that nine-digit number you got from the sudoku game?”
I brightened. Asher really was a very useful accomplice.
I retrieved my notepad and rattled off the nine numbers in sequence as Asher input each one. Nothing happened.
For good measure, he tried again. Still, nothing happened.
Well, shit.
“Maybe the reverse order?” I suggested weakly.
Asher shrugged. “Okay, read ‘em off backwards.”
And again, nothing happened.
“Great,” I said, frustrated beyond belief. “Now I need to find another frickin’ password.”
Asher began to reach for my hands, hesitated briefly, and then closed his fingers around mine and leaned into me. His face was serious, and I started having déjà vu back to the other night. Then he—
Two lips across mine. Ten fingers down my spine. No space between us.
“Kingstown!” I exclaimed.
“Huh?”
“Kingstown! Try “kingstown.” It’s the crossword clue I found days ago.”
Asher grinned proudly. He squeezed my hands before returning to the laptop. His long fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in the single word with impressive speed. A heartbeat later, the computer’s media player appeared on the screen. Asher slid the volume bar to max and hit play.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LARK
“I’m ready. I want to do it,” I said, voice trembling more than I’d have liked.
“Good afternoon, Miss Kingsley,” Rebecca said, looking somewhat taken aback. “Come on in.”
“Thanks,” I replied, already on my feet and moving through the door she held open. “But really, I’m ready to try it today.”
Entering Rebecca’s office, I went
straight to the blue, tweed couch in the corner and plopped down on the thick cushions. When I glanced up, I saw her grey eyes cutting over to me as she took her seat in the matching chair across from me. Was that intrigue or fear that I saw? Hope or fear? By the time she finished adjusting her pencil skirt and met my gaze, the look was gone. Her face settled into that practiced expression: interest, free of judgment.
“Hypnosis, I mean,” I hurried on. “You’ve been saying for a while that you think I would benefit from it, that it might help me remember things. I’m ready to try it.”
When she ran her fingers through her shoulder-length, amber waves, the cushion-cut diamond ring Rebecca wore on her right hand twinkled in the light. Dread overtook me in that moment, but I pushed it down.
“I don’t know, Lark. You seem a little antsy. Maybe not today, hmm? Maybe we can try—“
“No,” I interrupted. My decisive tone caught her attention. “I’m fine, really. Just excited. Or, I don’t know, something like that.”
“Lark, you have been coming to me for over three years now, and I have never heard you use ‘excited’ when discussing your feelings about being here. I suggested hypnotherapy months ago. Why is it that you would like to try it today? What is it that’s different about today?” Rebecca asked in her standard, measured tone.
It took effort not to roll my eyes at the blatant therapist language. If I had a dollar for every time she asked me “Why is it?” or “What is it” or—my personal favorite—“How does that make you feel?” I’d be richer than my father. And that was saying something.
When my family moved to Manhattan, my mother quickly got in on the longstanding Upper East Side parenting trend and sent me off to Dr. Rebecca Fullbrook. After three years of therapy sessions, and listening to my friends discuss their own, I knew how to manipulate my shrink. As I fed Rebecca the right answers, the replies that I knew would satisfy her, I looked around her office high atop one of the most coveted office buildings in Manhattan. The antique desk on the far side of the room, the Tiffany lamp atop the carved, mahogany table next to her, and every other inch of the understated but clearly expensive room spoke volumes about the worth of Dr. Fullbrook’s services to the progeny of the most powerful people in this city. My mother had chosen an excellent parent proxy.
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