As we came to a stoplight, Savannah coughed discreetly from the backseat. “I hate to interrupt you two, but I found something you might want to see.”
She sat forward and dangled a gold chain with a delicate silver-and-glass locket between Derek and me. The two of us stared at the locket, then at each other. His intensity almost fried me, but it wasn’t anger I felt from him. It was love. It filled my heart and I had to press my hand to my chest to contain it.
He shook his head and rolled his eyes at me and I felt a bit like an incorrigible mutt. But I knew he’d forgiven me. At least, I hoped so.
I forced myself to focus on the locket. “Whose is that?”
“It’s Colette’s,” Savannah confirmed. “She’s worn it for years. Never takes it off.”
Derek raised an eyebrow. “Where did you find it?”
“In Peter’s backpack,” Savannah explained. “I found it while you were in the bathroom.”
“How did Peter get hold of it?” I wondered.
“I don’t know,” Savannah said, then added, “but I also found these.” She reached over the seat and dropped something onto my lap.
I looked down and gaped. “My earrings?” I turned in my seat. “You found these in Peter’s bag, too?”
She nodded. “He must’ve picked them up off the table the night you had dinner at Arugula.”
“They’re shiny,” I murmured, holding the pair up to catch the light.
“Yes,” she said. “Peter likes shiny things, remember?”
“So he must have taken your earrings,” Derek surmised. “Then later the locket.”
“I think the locket went missing first,” Savannah said. “I’ve been trying to remember the last time I saw it and I think she lost it the night of Baxter’s death.”
I thought back to that night and tried to picture Colette talking to Inspector Jaglom. I remembered her rubbing or stroking her neck a number of times in a nervous gesture. Now I knew why. She was used to playing with the necklace she wore.
“So how did Peter get it from Colette?” I wondered aloud.
Savannah shook her head. “She never would’ve given it to him voluntarily. It’s a family heirloom from Raoul.”
“Did she ever mention to you that she lost it?”
“No.”
“Maybe she took it off in the ladies’ room that night.”
“Oh, right,” Savannah said. “When she went in to wash her neck.”
I chuckled. “Okay, that was stupid.”
“We have to give it back to her,” Savannah said.
Derek shook his head. “No, it’s evidence. We have to give it to the police.”
“Do we have to tell them where we found it?” I asked.
There was silence in the car while we contemplated the consequences of informing the police that Peter was a kleptomaniac. It didn’t seem to have any bearing on the deaths of Baxter and Montgomery. Or did it?
“I’ll call Inspector Jaglom and tell him we have it,” Derek said. He brought the car to a stop in front of our building and waited for the traffic to break before turning into the garage below.
“What’ll we tell Colette?” Savannah wondered.
“Let’s not tell her anything until we think this through,” Derek said. “I’d like to find out how Peter got it from her, but that won’t happen until he regains consciousness.”
I frowned at him. “Do you think Colette…”
“I don’t know what to think,” he said as he backed his car into his reserved parking space. “Let’s talk this through upstairs.”
*
Dalton got an earful from Derek, who blamed his younger brother for letting the womenfolk out of his sight. Okay, Derek didn’t actually say that, but that’s how I was reading it.
Dalton fought back like any brother would. “It’s not my fault. They said they were going off to the market. Why would I suspect them of lying? Look at the two of them. They’re the epitome of innocence.”
“Oh, hell, yes,” Derek said, casting another heated glance at me. “The innocent one whose hobby is murder. And her sister, who could have told you that she was flying to the moon for lunch and you would’ve bloody believed her.”
“I wasn’t lying,” Savannah insisted.
My hobby was not murder. And apparently, I told myself, Derek and I were not finished with our conversation.
“Leave them both out of it,” I said to Derek. He looked directly at me, and I met him stare for stare. I really do love Derek very much, but I’m not going to be treated like an idiot child. “I get that you’re angry, but don’t direct it at Savannah or Dalton. I already told you I’m to blame for everything. I dragged them both into it and I’m sorry. I suck. But enough already.”
I’d reached the point where I was about to cry again, and that was so not going to happen. So instead of humiliating myself, I stomped off to my bedroom to wallow alone for a while.