Part 16 (1/2)

Lauren took his extended hand and shook it. ”h.e.l.lo.” Her eyes were wide, and she kept glancing between Willow and Neil and Charlotte, clearly concerned about what might come next. Charlotte smiled at the thought. No need to disappoint the girl.

”Nice to meet you.” Neil nodded an acknowledgment, looking professional but not unfriendly.

Charlotte gestured toward her niece, then. ”And you already know my niece Willow.”

”Yes, good to see you again.” He nodded toward her, his face giving away nothing of his thoughts. This was one of the reasons Charlotte liked him so much. The man knew how to hold out for the element of surprise. And tonight's was going to be a doozy.

Frances set a Caesar salad before each of them. No one spoke, each person seemingly waiting for the others to lead the way. Lauren knew one thing for certain-she wasn't going to be the one to break the silence. Finally, Miss Montgomery c.o.c.ked her head in Lauren's general direction. ”How do you like my necklace, Lauren?”

”I love it, obviously, but I thought . . .” Lauren looked toward Willow, swallowed hard, then turned back to Miss Montgomery. ”I thought you lost it.”

”No, it was never lost.” She took a bite of salad.

”But you said-”

”It wasn't lost, it was taken. Isn't that right, Willow?” She smiled over at her niece and took another bite.

Willow held a forkful of romaine just off her plate and smirked toward Lauren. ”That's right. Thankfully, Mr. Edwards happened across your hiding place.”

”What?” Lauren's mouth went dry.

”That's right. After you moved out, I walked over to speak with Mr. Edwards as he was doing a walk-through. He found the necklace in the top back shelf of the closet. Did you forget you had left it there? Did you lose your nerve about selling it on the black market and decide to leave it behind? Or were you waiting for a higher bid?”

”I did not . . .” Lauren looked to her right. ”Miss Montgomery, I did not put your necklace in that closet, or anywhere else for that matter.” She stopped for just a moment, considering Frances's earlier words about not wanting to break Miss Montgomery's heart by telling her the truth about Willow. Still, there came a point when a person could no longer keep silent, and when one was being accused of a criminal act, that was definitely such a time. ”I did not steal that necklace. Nor did I take it over to my cottage and hide it. If I had, why would I have left it behind to be found so easily? It's more than a little strange that you”-she looked at Willow-”just happened to be there when he found it.”

”Yes, I was there. Of course I was there. Unfortunately, I had walked over to let him know that I had to withdraw my offer and was no longer interested in buying the place.”

”Your offer? You mean . . .” Lauren looked toward Mr. Winston. ”Someone really had made an offer? And it was Willow? I thought Mr. Edwards just made up that story to be a little more gentle when he kicked me out.” The extent of this girl's schemes was just beginning to sink in. Clearly she had no qualms about throwing Lauren into the lion's mouth if it would save her own skin.

If Lauren held back any truth here, it might cost her even more than she'd believed possible. It was time to tell the full truth. ”Miss Montgomery, I found your necklace in the potting shed the day after you told me it was missing. No one was home here, so I did take it back to the cottage for just the afternoon. That night, I brought it over and rang the doorbell. Willow answered, and I gave the necklace to her.”

”Oh really? And why did you not mention this until now?” Miss Montgomery watched Lauren evenly.

Lauren glanced back toward the door that led to the kitchen. She didn't want to get Frances in trouble, but she was not going to allow herself to be accused of a crime to spare someone's feelings. She opted to start by being vague. ”I believed that it might be devastating to you when you learned about your niece's deception. It didn't sit well with me, but I decided to remain silent for a little while and hoped that Willow would eventually bring it to you.”

”This is absurd. Why would I not return my aunt's necklace? I know how much she treasures it, which is why I immediately returned it to her after I found it-in your cottage.”

”Yes, Willow, you do know how much I treasure it, don't you, dear?” Miss Montgomery quirked an eyebrow at her niece, then turned her attention to Neil Winston. ”Mr. Winston, why don't you tell these ladies about the call you received a few weeks ago. From Sotheby's in LA, I believe?”

”Yes, I'd be more than happy to tell them what I know.” Condensation was dripping off his water goblet as he picked it up to take a sip. He savored the coolness of the water for one extra heartbeat before he continued. ”It seems that someone had brought in an heirloom necklace to sell. She wanted it appraised. The jeweler recognized several things about the necklace right away. First off, he knew the design was a Joseph Throgmorton original. He also knew that some of the particulars of this design had been at the center of a Hollywood scandal some six decades ago-it was a story that always fascinated him. Third, he recognized right away that this was a copy of the original, a very good copy, that was stamped by the fabricator. He made some calls and came to find out that this had been made at the request of the insurance agent who represented the owner of the original.”

Lauren was confused. ”Why would they do that?”

Willow, whose face had gone a bit pale, rolled her eyes. ”What, did you grow up under a rock? A lot of high-end jewelry pieces can only be insured if they are worn exclusively at highly secure events. So, when a woman gets a necklace worth several hundred thousand dollars, she has a copy made. These are high-quality fakes, mind you, still valued in the tens of thousands sometimes.”

”Exactly. And in this particular case, that is the necklace in question.” Neil Winston nodded his agreement with Willow's a.s.sessment.

Lauren was only growing more confused. ”So, Miss Montgomery, it was a copy that you lost? Not the real necklace? Did you not realize that it was the copy when you first lost it?”

”No necklace was ever lost here, I can a.s.sure you of that.” She took a sip of water, set down the goblet, and let the silence grow for a few seconds more before continuing. ”I purposely misplaced that one, the copy, knowing you would be the one to find it. I planned on having you kicked out of your cottage as soon as you made the phone call to sell it-either as a necklace or as a story.” She looked across the table then. ”Please continue, Mr. Winston.”

”Eventually, as manager of Miss Montgomery's estate, I was contacted by someone at the auction house.” He paused, glancing at Willow. ”We explained that this necklace had indeed been stolen, and we further instructed him to inform the potential seller that this was a copy but that he was willing to buy it for ten thousand dollars because of the history involved with the necklace.”

Willow s.h.i.+fted uneasily in her seat, but her expression did not change.

Mr. Winston continued. ”When the person who brought in the necklace realized it was worth a fraction of what she'd imagined, she came back to retrieve the necklace and left the store. It can only be a.s.sumed she went in search of a more lucrative outlet.”

”And then she took it back to her cottage and hid it until I found it.” Willow nodded, a malevolent grin settling on her lips. ”What, were you going to see if you could find a higher bidder? Or someone who didn't know jewelry as well and would believe it was the real thing?”

”I did not take that necklace anywhere, and I did not hide it anywhere in my cottage. Miss Montgomery, I am telling you the truth.”

Miss Montgomery looked across the table. ”Mr. Winston, what do you have to say about this?”

”I say, a picture is worth a thousand words.” He reached into a manila envelope and withdrew a photograph. He turned it so they could see it. ”Anyone recognize this?”

thirty-two.

Charlotte Montgomery had been an impetuous seventeen-year-old. She could still remember her younger self, so full of energy and ideas and dreams. Those dreams began to die one by one and then two by ten, until there were none left.

She'd been sitting at the kitchen table of the bungalow house she shared with her mother and sometimes her father. The new edition of Confidential magazine was in her lap. Her father was reading some trade paper or other. Sixty years later, she could still remember how it felt to see that picture, to read the words. She could still hear the whoos.h.i.+ng sound of ruffling paper as she threw the magazine across the room, where it splatted against the far wall, then slid to an untidy heap at the bottom.

Her father had looked up from his newspaper then, tilted his head, and just looked at her. Finally, without saying a word, he stood up and walked over to see what all the fuss was about. He picked it up and flipped through the pages. There was no question as to the exact moment he recognized what it was she had been reading. ”No wonder you're upset, reading this trash. Why do you keep buying this? I told you, this is a bunch of garbage.”

He had originally made this particular observation about this particular publication after he and Charlotte's mom had been photographed together, with a story following about their decades-long affair. He had called and threatened to sue, but there was nothing they had said that wasn't the complete truth. In fact, times being different then, it seemed that the magazine had withheld a fair amount of information. They threatened to print these additional tidbits if he took them to court, and that had been the end of it. He'd hated the magazine ever since.

In this upsetting issue, there were multiple pictures of Randall Edgar Blake at the ”21” in New York with JoAnne Mayfield. They were surrounded by admirers as they sipped champagne, celebrating the fact that she had just been named Playmate of the Month. The problem came in the next line. They had also announced that she was all set to star in his latest film, The Power of Love.

”He promised that lead role to me, you know he did. He told me the role was mine right before he got on that plane to New York.” The role had meant all that much more because Randall Edgar Blake did not answer to her father in any way. This was a role she'd won on her own merit. Or so she'd thought at the time.

”Believe me when I say you're better off. The guy is a loser.” Her father, she noticed, rather than folding up the magazine and dumping it in the trash, actually read every single word of the article. He shook his head, then handed it back to her. ”This is not the kind of man you want to do business with, trust me. Nothing good would have come of it.”

She'd started to cry then, in spite of the fact that to do so in front of her father was humiliating. ”But I did everything right, and I got offered the role fair and square. It was going to be my chance to show the world that I could do this on my own.”

Her father walked over and put his arm around her shoulder. ”Now, now, don't you waste another tear. You deserve far better than that, and that louse of a man will eventually get what's coming to him.”

Charlotte turned her head slightly to look at him. ”Finally I thought I was good enough. Now I find out that I'm not.”

”He's a climber, baby, and those are the kinds of people you've got to watch out for. One minute they're holding on to you like you're best friends, the next minute they're walking on your head and reaching just a little higher on the rungs.”

Charlotte wiped her eyes. ”They're all climbers, aren't they? Everyone we know? Everyone in this town?” And that was when she first began to realize what everyone else had known all along. She didn't fully believe it, not even then. It was too terrible to allow herself to believe. All of her roles, all of her dates, and all of her friends. Nothing but climbers, using her as just another stepping-stone.