Chapter 7: Her Mother's Ring

The circled line on the bank statement read: ML Holdings, eighteen thousand dollars.

It appeared once a month on the firm's operating account, going back thirty-six months.

I did the sum on the back of an envelope in Tobias's lobby.

It came to six hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars.

The money had gone to a company I had never heard of, out of a firm I had funded.

"Who is ML?" Tobias asked.

"Marguerite Lowell," I said. "I think."

He did not ask me anything else. He called his assistant and told her to clear the afternoon.

I told him I had an appointment first.

A message from Marguerite had come in that morning: "Tea at three, my girl. Let's clear the air."

At three o'clock I rang the bell of the house where I had spent six Christmases.

Marguerite opened the door herself in a lilac cardigan and her good pearls.

"Cora. I'm so glad. I told Rodrick you'd come around."

"Your message said tea at three," I said.

"And you're only a little late."

The aunts were already in the sitting room.

Four of them sat on the good sofa with the good china.

They were the same four who had ordered the pairing.

Their cups were held very straight.

Nobody spoke when I came in.

"We wanted to clear the air," said Marguerite, pouring. "In front of family, so there are no misunderstandings."

"That's thoughtful."

She handed me a cup, and I saw her hand.

On the third finger, next to her wedding band, she wore a square-cut emerald with a thin gold setting and a small chip in one corner.

My mother had worn that ring for thirty years.

I had put it in a velvet pouch in my jewelry drawer the day she died.

I had not seen it since the spring Rodrick said he was having the clasp looked at.

"That's a lovely ring," I said.

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