Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

LAINEY

I trail Jake, who's trailing Anthony, like we're playing a game of Assassins. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, filling me with its sweet, seductive thrill. With each soft footstep I take, I feel the beat of something is happening. I've wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself for my whole life, and this is my chance. I could stop a real crime from happening.

Considering what we overheard earlier, I'm guessing Anthony's going down there to cut the power, which I already warned Rosie about.

So why is Jake following him? Why isn't he walking down there with him?

Sure, he may be trying to jump-scare him. There are people who find that sort of thing funny, and it wouldn't shock me if Jake has a juvenile sense of humor, but it's still strange.

Anthony glances both ways when he reaches the door that leads down to the cavernous, half-finished basement—a place childhood nightmares are made of. His gaze completely misses Jake, who stepped behind a hideous statue of some long-deceased Smith, and me, tucked behind the corner of a skinny hall that leads to a room so useless Mrs. Rosings uses it to stow boxes from her online deliveries.

Jake watches as Anthony creeps down the stairs, his focus almost predatory. He waits. He listens. He looks. And then he follows him down the stairs, moving so carefully I can't even hear the scuff of his shoes against the stone—a bold maneuver, although there are plenty of places to hide down there.

Jake can't be a therapist. There's no way. He's much too good on his feet, too fit, to be a man who sits on a couch all day. And I absolutely cannot picture him spending all day asking people, "And how did that make you feel?"

He's not empathetic enough, and he'd go out of his mind with boredom. I know he would. There's a…wildness in him, for lack of a better word.

Of course, there are plenty of people who aren't good at their jobs. Maybe he's one of them, and he's feeding his need for excitement by going all in with hide and seek. Following the man who's supposed to find everyone might be his strategy. It's feasible he'd have one. I absolutely believe he's a man who likes playing games—and dominating in them.

Heat flashes through my body, lighting me up, as I remember being pressed up against the side of the house, hidden by the shrubbery.

I crush down the thoughts and consider the wisdom of following Anthony and Jake.

Not yet. I decide to wait for a solid minute before making a move, tracking the time by counting in my head. But before the minute's up, there's a clicking sound. The lights cut out, leaving me in a pitch black hall.

Adrenaline floods my system as a few shouts go up from various locations in the cavernous, three-stories-tall house. The guests have spread out far and wide—I can tell based on the distance of some of the voices. One person shouts, barely audible, "The lights just went off!"

As if this could possibly be news to anyone.

The other guests will start filtering their way downstairs, of course. But most of them aren't accustomed to maneuvering in the dark, let alone in a house this big and cumbersome. It'll take several minutes, maybe even half an hour, for everyone to converge.

"Everyone meet me in the front room," Anthony bellows from the basement stairs.

I knew this was going to happen; Jake knew it was going to happen.

The question is what he plans to do about it.

My mind whirrs over everything—

The fake necklace, the three-week friendship with Anthony, following Anthony now…

It all goes back to the Heart of the Mountain.

Jake said he got the fake made for Anthony so he could give it to Nina as a present, but how long would it take for someone to acquire a fake that good?

At least a few days, and it seems doubtful the jewelry genius who made it lives in Asheville. So add on at least a day or two for shipping.

I'm guessing Anthony wouldn't ask a man he'd met only once to make a fake necklace for him, so the request would have come recently—too recent for Cleo to have seen the necklace on Jake's dresser last week.

It all clicks, finally, and I see it clear as day, the epiphany filling me with vindication.

Jake Jeffries didn't just "find" Anthony's wallet—he pickpocketed him and then gave it back, like me bringing Marjorie her hand bag.

Jake Jeffries is a con artist like my parents, like me , and he wants to steal the Heart of the Mountain.

This is the key to every strange circumstance that's unfolded over the past week.

The universe is giving me a chance to stop him and redeem myself.

The logical thing to do would be to call the police, or at least alert Mrs. Rosings to my suspicion, but I don't have any proof. And I know in my heart, my soul, that this is his big chance. If I leave him unsupervised, he'll take that necklace, and he'll disappear in the wind—as surely gone as the asshat who abandoned Professor X.

Only I'm not going to let that happen.

My heart pounding, my body lit up like it's filled with liquid gold, I lie in wait.

Anthony's dark, shadowed figure comes up first. It's too dark for me to see his features well, but my eyes have adjusted enough that I can make out the slight smile on his face. He foiled his mother. Maybe that would sound like a minor accomplishment to some people, but I know Mrs. Rosings pretty well by now; it's not. He heads toward the front room with purpose.

I don't budge. I wait until another figure creeps out of the stairwell. My heart is pounding so hard, I hear it in my ears. The tips of my fingers are buzzing. Because I've become the predator, the hunter.

Jake pads slowly down the hall, moving quickly but paying attention to his surroundings. When there's a sound of quick, awkward footsteps moving toward us, he easily sidesteps into a doorway and goes still, and a suited man who's muttering unflattering things about Mrs. Rosings passes him without a glance. Passes me too.

Seconds after the ungraceful man turns toward the front room, Jake starts moving again. Right past me. He misses me, too, because I'm as frozen as that statue, although from the way he's glancing around he feels me. So I wait until he's well past me to make my move. I know where he's going, anyway.

Sure enough, I watch him sneak around the corner of the hall that leads to the drawing room.

Toeing off my high heels, I pad after him as quietly as Professor X. I don't know why—maybe it's the perverse part of me that likes winning, but I want to catch him in the act. To prove to myself that I may have gotten plenty of things wrong over the last week, but I was right about him.

I know he's unarmed—the guard at the gate may be mostly useless, but he checked everyone for weapons. Everyone other than me, that is. I had pepper spray already stowed in the house, and I pocketed it after coming in. I'll use it liberally if I need to.

My heart pounds a little harder as I turn the corner into the final hallway leading to the drawing room.

Behind me, I can hear someone thumping on a door, two people talking, but my ears are still buzzing, my senses all fixed on Jake. On the room ahead.

The door was left a whisper open, probably because closing it would have made sound.

I peer through it, and there he is, standing in front of a display case, dark now, the backlighting cut off along with everything else. But I know which case the necklace was kept in—I assigned it to memory, the same way he clearly did.

Not on my watch.

Without pausing to think, I run toward him and leap onto his strong, muscular back, wrapping my forearms around his neck. I expected him to cry out when I landed on him, or to try to try to fling me off. But the only sound he makes is a slight grunt, while my rapid breathing is almost deafening to my own ears. His hands don't rise to fight me at all.

I hike my legs around his waist for leverage, trying not to notice what it feels like to have the hard heat of his body pressed against me, my face up against his soft, slightly curly hair. His ear.

The adrenaline filling my body becomes slightly syrupy a second before I get a better look at the darkened display case in front of him. My eyes have adjusted enough to the near dark, brightened only by scant light filtering in from the gaps in the curtains, for me to see that the case is empty.

So he already took the necklace. He works faster than I could have imagined, but I tell myself that's okay. I caught him in the act. The necklace will be on his person somewhere, and everyone will know he was the one who took it. In fact…

My bare foot is pressed near his pants pocket—and I can feel that there's something hard inside.

For a half a second, I wonder if he's just happy to see me, but it feels cold through the fabric, not hot. The necklace.

It's time for me to shout for help, to bring this whole shitty engagement party into the room running, but for some reason I don't. I'm not…ready. Maybe it's because he's not trying to shake me off or hurt me.

He attempts to say something, but my arms are too tightly wrapped around his throat for the words to be audible. He reaches up and wrenches one of them away—his grip firm but not punishing.

"Surprised to have been caught in the act, doctor ?" I ask into his ear. It's an intimate thing to do, and we're in an intimate position, as closely pressed together as we were the other day, when I was cradled in his lap. My body pulses. It aches. It wants him without bothering to consider if it's a sensible ask.

My body is a horny idiot, but at least my mind is functional.

"You're too late," he says, his voice resigned. Almost…broken. "The necklace is already gone."

"Because you took it," I accuse. "I can feel it in your pocket."

He glances up at me with a half-smile, shaking his head slightly. In the dark, his eyes look black, his hair dark grey. "You're some hellcat, you know."

"What I know is that I've got you. I caught you in the act. Now, remove the necklace from your pocket," I say, my voice shaking slightly, but not because I'm afraid. Because…

Well, it doesn't matter.

"Sure," he says, "why not."

There's an undercurrent beneath his words, assuring me there are some surprises in store, and I'm probably not going to like them. But he doesn't buck me off or try to hit me. He reaches into his pocket and tugs out the necklace, lifting it up to me in the dark.

For a second, I think it'll be just that easy—he'll hand me the necklace, I'll turn him in, and life can go back to being…

Boring.

I bury the thought as I reach for the Heart of the Mountain, taking the pendant in my hand. And the instant my fist closes around it, I know. The jewel feels all wrong.

"This is another fake," I hiss, squeezing my legs around him reflexively.

He lets out a low sound, then says, "You should get a job working for a jeweler if the old lady fires you. You've got a real eye."

"You were going to replace it with this ?" I ask skeptically. Because if I can tell it's fake in the pitch-black room, it's not passing any quality control tests. "Everyone would know instantly."

"You took the other one," he says tightly, not without resentment. "I didn't have to fool them forever. Just for long enough…"

"For you to disappear. What a good pal you are to Anthony, huh?"

"Get off my back, would you?" he says, and it's obvious he means it both ways.

"No," I say, stuffing the fake into my empty pocket. "I'm keeping this."

"Forming a collection?" he asks with a sigh. I'm still riding his back, one forearm pressed against his throat, but he surprises me by stepping away from the case and then lowering into the closest armchair. If I don't release him, I'm about to be crushed by a two hundred pound man, so I do—and quickly get out my pepper spray as he pulls away.

"If you so much as touch my pinky finger, I swear to God," I say in a heated undertone. "I will spray you in the face and then the nuts."

"You'd have to pull my pants down to get to them," he says, giving me a flat look. He's standing in front of me, but just inches away—too close for me to stand up unless I want to be pressed against the wall of him.

"I'd do it."

"I believe you," he says. "But I'm not going to try to hurt you. I'd never do that."

I shouldn't buy it, but I do.

He's physically powerful, but he's never come off as threatening. He doesn't have the air of banked violence some men do.

A bitter laugh escapes him. "You know, I've fucked over enough people that I shouldn't be surprised karma's coming for me. I guess I just didn't think it would look like this."

"That you'd be foiled by a woman who's smarter than you?"

"If that's how you want to put it. Are you going to call in the hounds?" His voice is resigned. Sad.

It doesn't take a genius to guess why.

The authorities will assume he's behind this. They'll poke into his background, doing a much less cursory check than I did, and they'll find it full of holes and fake necklaces. And then there's me…

If I tell them what I know, they'll arrest him tonight. He'll be in a world of shit, and he didn't even get to do the thing he obviously came here to do.

But why the fuck should I care if this man sinks or swims? He's lied to all of us. And, yes, I did lie to him too, but given everything that's come to light, he probably deserved it. It's like I've given him a taste of his own poison.

He didn't take it , a voice says in my head. He didn't take it, but someone else did.

And there's a part of me that wants to find out who. Needs it. Six months ago, I was a desperate almost-housewife, who wanted to chew my own leg off to escape, and now…

Now, I'm the middle of something exciting. Something life-changing. Something dangerous .

"Why this necklace?" I ask, letting my mind chew over that thought. "Did you see the documentary?"

There's murmuring from the direction of the hall. Maybe someone's coming to check on us, or maybe they were deep within the house and are still on their way to the front room. When they pass the drawing room, I can summon them. I can tell them what happened. I can—

"Not me," Jake says, peering down at me. He glances off, then meets my eyes, his expression more serious than I've ever seen it. Even though the room is dark, I can feel his gaze in every pore in my body. I'm glad its power is blunted by the dark because this is a man who knows how to act, and he's like a prisoner on death row, making a final plea for his life. "Look, hellcat, you were right about me. I'm not a therapist, God knows, and I introduced myself to Anthony with bad intentions. That mess with Cleo was the result of my own poor decision-making. But you have my brother's life in your hands. He pissed off the wrong person, and I was given the chance to make amends and save him. By taking this necklace. If I don't get the necklace, Ryan's going to lose his hand. Maybe worse."

"Is he the other boy in your sketchbook?" I ask, and his flinch confirms it before his words do. He didn't want me to see inside of that book because it was personal. Special. It was a peek at the real Jake—if that's even his name. And it contained the likeness of someone he's protective of, someone he would prefer to keep to himself.

"Yeah," he says slowly. "Yeah, he is. And he can be a dumb asshole, but he's the only thing I've got."

I wasn't prepared to believe him, but the truth rumbles in his voice. It's there in the desperation in his eyes. And I understand. I know what it is to only have one person you love unconditionally—one person with whom you can unreservedly be yourself. One person who makes you human.

Claire is that person for me, and I ask myself: would I have done it for her?

When I have my answer, I stand from the chair.