Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

LAINEY

It's Friday afternoon, four days after the emergency vet had to fully sedate Professor X to remove the glue trap, which cost more than what Cleo had paid me to recover the necklace. But the cat seemed grateful for it, and she's warming up more toward me every day. She only hissed at me twice this morning—once when I failed to produce her food in a timely manner, and again when I made the mistake of touching the shorn spot where she got glue-trapped. Now, I'm at my day job, assisting Mrs. Rosings of Smith House—the largest estate in Marshall, an enormous airy mansion that still manages to feel stuffy. It's the largest private residence in Marshall, which would be more impressive if most of the houses weren't one-story bungalows.

I left the necklace with Nicole, and she and I have arranged to meet Cleo in our office at the cabin after work to hand over the goods. It's hard to be patient, because I'd rather be there, not here. My heart's not in this well-paid, poorly defined job—and from the way Mrs. Rosings is glaring at me from across the table in her velvet-encrusted drawing room, she knows it.

This is another opportunity I fell into. Claire got her bakery, and I got her former job as Mrs. Rosings's personal assistant. Mrs. Rosings has made it very clear that she doesn't think much of me, but at least our resentment is mutual.

Claire likes the older woman a lot and thinks she's just lonely and bored, with a sharp brain that's underutilized.

Of course, Claire likes almost everyone.

Mrs. Rosings looks and smells like money—from her over-priced kaftans to the perfect white of her hair, made that way by dye, not age, since her natural color would be salt and pepper, heavy on the salt. I know because last month, she had to wait an extra week to get it touched up since her hair stylist had the flu.

When I look at her, it's like someone pressed fast forward on my life, and I'm seeing what I would have become if I'd gone through with the engagement and married Todd.

Proud.

Bored.

Lonely.

Manipulative as fuck.

She's been planning her son Anthony's engagement party and wedding to a woman she hates—doing a terrible job on purpose in the hopes of splitting them up.

While I would normally resent this sort of interference in another woman's love life, I can tell she's one hundred percent right about the future Mrs. Smith. Takes one to know one, after all. I can see it in the glint in Nina's eye—like she's won something and will turn into a feral cat if someone tries to take it away. Hear it in the proprietary way she calls Anthony her fiancé but never says his name. Intuit it from the fact that she has allowed Mrs. Rosings to do all of the planning for her wedding. She hasn't even offered an opinion about anything other than one crucial point—the wedding has to happen on New Year's, and it has to be at Smith House. Other than that, she's passively agreed to every microaggression and outright insult. Maybe she does it because she knows she's driving Mrs. Rosings crazy, her attitude underscoring that it's not the wedding or even the marriage she wants: it's Smith House and all its glory. Whatever the case, she's in it to win it, and nothing Mrs. Rosings has done so far has chipped at her fa?ade.

Maybe Mrs. Rosings doesn't like me because she understands that I'm not helping her for her sake, but for Nina's. Marrying someone for money and status is a mistake. Anthony seems fine, I guess, if you enjoy hanging stuffed shirts in your closet, and he's handsome enough, but Nina has no love for him. It's as obvious to me as it is to Mrs. Rosings, and his inability to see that truth makes me dislike him a little. It suggests he's the kind of man who believes everyone loves him, so of course she means what she says.

Nina may think she's won something now—she may look at this house and dream of it being hers someday—but what will be left of her by the time that happens? Will she have become the future mother-in-law she hates?

Maybe she'll be so far gone she won't even be able to regret what she's done.

I don't know Nina well, but I've worn her expensive shoes, so I've felt the pinch. I know what it feels like to pretend to be someone else, day and night, like a hand was wrapped around my neck from morning until night, never releasing me. To feel the truth slipping away like it was covered in greasy film. To think I was in control of the situation, only to become owned by it.

I know .

So in my mind, I'm helping Nina, not Mrs. Rosings…not that I expect either of them to thank me.

The engagement party will be a buffet of horrors. There will be a petting zoo. Yes, a petting zoo for adults who were told to dress in black tie optional. The meal will be seven courses of Anthony's favorite childhood foods…from when he was five —chicken fingers and French fries, served up by hired help, while Mrs. Rosings gives a twenty minute speech about nothing. The fancy fast food will be followed up by an hour-long slide show of Anthony's childhood pictures, accompanied by multiple versions of "The Power of Love." Then there will be dancing, with an assortment of music selected to annoy, played on a sound system tweaked to emit a horrible sound every five to seven minutes, unpredictably. At the end of the night, each guest will get a cookie, made by Claire, that bears the likeness of the happy couple.

"You'll be there, of course," Mrs. Rosings says grumpily. "To make sure everything goes according to plan."

Which is to say everything goes badly. At least I'll have someone at the party to gripe to, because Claire's boyfriend's sister is one of the waitstaff. Rosie works with Claire at the bakery but gets bored easily and is constantly taking one-off jobs. She's done some work for Nicole and me for the Love Fixers—delivering the fuck you very much cookies and a bouquet of penis balloons with smiley faces for a "real dickhead."

"Does this count as my invitation?" I ask.

Mrs. Rosings makes a disagreeable sound. "As if you should need to be invited to do a job you're being fairly compensated for."

"Mrs. Rosings," I say, tsking. "A girl likes to be romanced a little. Do you want me to ask Claire to come too? I think she and Declan have plans, but they could be persuaded."

She shakes her head tersely. "No, let's let them have a night out. I don't think they'd enjoy themselves at the party." A wicked smile crosses her face. "In fact, I think we'll be the only ones who enjoy ourselves."

"Has Emma given her final RSVP?" I ask, referring to Mrs. Rosings's elusive daughter. I've worked for the older woman for a couple of months now, and I've still never met her. Mrs. Rosings tells me she stays busy with work, although it's less clear what she actually does for a living. In my mind, she's one of those professional rich people, who sips lemonade on verandas and complains about where she's seated even when she's the one who picked the table. But maybe that's just my own prejudice working—that and her name, Emma Rosings Smith.

Mrs. Rosings's mouth puckers. "No, but my daughter loves to keep us all in suspense." She taps her finger on the table, then says, "Speaking of RSVPs, Anthony said he's bringing someone else. A young man. So we'll need another place setting for him, at the very least."

Hopefully, it's not a business contact, because whoever this guy is, he's about to see a photo montage of Anthony in diapers.

"Should we warn Anthony?"

Her lips upturn slightly. "He must know I have something special planned. If I know my son, this new guest is supposed to ‘talk sense into me.' Well, let him try. I hope he enjoys petting zoos. I'm told one of the goats is incontinent."

I mime tipping an imaginary hat at her.

She sighs and tells me to leave.

"I'll be here tomorrow at five to help get the petting zoo set up."

She seems deep in thought, and when she rouses, she says, "Can you ask Claire to add ‘Eat me,' to the bottom of each of the cookies?"

Damn, this woman is vicious. She's also nervous. I can tell that beneath all of her machinations she actually loves her son. She's running out of time, and she can feel the next several weeks drifting through her fingers.

Anthony and Nina are having a New Year's wedding, and Halloween is next Thursday. Mrs. Rosings only has a couple of months left to convince her son he's making a mistake—which means I only have a couple of months left to convince Nina of the same.

"Will do, boss." I salute her and turn to leave.

"Wait!" Mrs. Rosings calls out.

I turn to look at her, and she says, "I'll need you to come in early. I've decided I want to put a few of my jewels on display in the drawing room. There are some cases we can use in the basement. Anthony needs to witness the hungry look in Nina's eye when she sees the Heart of the Mountain. Then he'll understand what he's doing."

I don't know what the hell she's talking about, and if Anthony hasn't seen the writing on the wall now, he's not going to see it if it's underlined and in neon lights, but I nod my agreement anyway.

"Did you see the documentary that the Discovery Channel released a couple of months ago?" she asks.

This is where most people would politely inform her that they have no idea what the fuck she's talking about, but I refuse. She already thinks I'm ignorant, why give her fodder for the fire?

"Which one are you talking about?" I ask, as if there are dozens of documentaries about obscure necklaces, and I've enjoyed watching all of them.

She rolls her eyes, probably thinking something along the lines of stubborn girl, why did I have to lose the nice one? Then says, "I'm surprised you didn't do your research. You're an enterprising girl too."

"I didn't think I'd be working here for this long," I admit.

I'd hoped that The Love Fixers would be bringing in more money by now, but we've been held back by our location in Marshall, the steep learning curve of Facebook ads—which has prevented me from successfully putting any up—and how long it took for us to put the LLC paperwork through. It probably doesn't help that I blew the income from our biggest gig on paying for a cat to be put under sedation.

Mrs. Rosings snorts. "That makes two of us."

There's a strange kind of camaraderie that's developed between us as a result of our mutual disdain. "If I were bored enough to look for this documentary, how would I find it? And, follow-up question, should we air it in its entirety after the hour-long slide show?"

She grins at me, showing all of her teeth. "Now, there's a thought. It's forty-five minutes long, dull as dust, and they don't talk about the Heart of the Mountain until the last five minutes."

I get a flash of Todd, talking about that Yankees bat until the people in front of him had fight-or-flight coming off them in their sweat, beaded at their brows. At least Mrs. Rosings has an objective other than pissing people off just because she can, I guess. I have to admit that if I had a son, I probably wouldn't want him marrying Nina either. Her intentions are, at a guess, not to love and cherish Anthony until the day he dies.

"Would you like to see the necklace?" she asks, something flashing in her eyes.

I wonder if she's only offering because she wants to see a greedy look in my eyes—confirming everything she suspects about me .

If so, she'll be disappointed. I have plenty of jewels and gems from Todd, which I've been slowly but surely selling on eBay.

"Sure," I say. "Are you going to pull an old woman in Titanic move and throw it into the mountains at midnight or something?"

"Maybe," she says, lifting her chin. "It would certainly create a stir."

And I find myself smiling at her—genuinely smiling. "Yes, I'd like to see it."

I watch as she rises from her chair, wearing one of her signature kaftans. They're the kind of clothes people wear for the same reason they tell long, pointless stories and subject other people to boring documentaries. Because they can. Because their status has given them power, and they want you to know it.

I grit my teeth, then my mouth falls open. Mrs. Rosings is approaching the fireplace, where, beneath portraits of her two children, is arranged a row of urns on top of the fireplace mantel. One for every husband she's buried—three of them—along with a special bequest from Claire's biological father, whose death resulted in us moving here.

A gasp escapes me when she opens the second urn. My grandparents were buried in plots economically purchased decades before they died, so my knowledge about them is limited, but I'm pretty sure it's against urn etiquette to open them.

"Oh, relax," she says with a smile that seems genuine. "I poured out Adrien's ashes underneath the apple tree decades ago. It seemed only appropriate since he died picking from it."

It's not the most lovelorn thing a person could say. Then again, Mrs. Rosings admitted to Claire that she married the man because she was a gold digger, just like the town suspects. She also told her that Adrien Smith was not the hero he's venerated for being. While Mrs. Rosings is a piece of work, I believe her.

Todd is universally beloved too—forgiven for his "quirks," like the boring-as-fuck story about the Yankees bat, or his inability to lose at anything, even Pretty Princess, which his niece insisted on playing at Thanksgiving last year. Todd pouted for half the afternoon because he didn't get the crown. But the people who flit through his life don't see the man he really is—the one behind the smile his parents bought him at the orthodontist.

Cold, withholding, punishing, cruel.

The kind of man who'd adopt a kitten and leave her behind in his apartment because she was too much work.

My mind flashes to Jake Jeffries, who'd gone up and down his apartment hallway asking for a tampon for me. Even though he's a bad apple, too, I can't help but smile at the thought. Todd would never have done that.

"It's something, isn't it?" Mrs. Rosings asks, jolting me to awareness, and then I gasp, my mouth falling open. The large blue, heart-shaped gem is surrounded by a starburst of white gold spikes embedded with diamonds, the chain an intricate and unusual pattern of white and yellow gold I've only seen once before.

The necklace she pulled out of her husband's empty urn is the exact replica of the one I retrieved from Jake Jeffries's room.

Or, I'm guessing, the necklace I stole from him is an exact replica of this one.