Chapter 16: The Penthouse Key

Teddy looked at the roll in his hand, and then at three hundred strangers, and put the roll in his pocket.

"What I was told," he said, "was that my sister knew."

The ballroom went still.

"Dalton told me that. At lunch, in March, when he said it was a scholarship adjustment."

Teddy's voice cracked, and he pushed through it.

"It was a lie. Susie found out two weeks ago, in our kitchen, when I said it by accident."

On the stage, Dalton closed his eyes.

"I lied to him," he said into the microphone. "She didn't know."

"She emptied our mom's life insurance for a cashier's check," Teddy went on, louder now.

"She once mailed him a check for a nine-dollar pretzel, lady. Nine dollars. With a memo."

A woman at the nearest table made a noise.

"So sit down," Teddy finished, and then added, because he was nineteen, "please."

Lucinda stood alone under the lights.

Opal had stopped at the stage steps, and her hand was out, palm up.

"The key, dear," she said.

Lucinda opened her clutch.

Her fingers shook, which I had never seen them do.

She took out a single brass key on a silver ring and held it over the stage floor, and let go.

It rang once on the boards.

"Dalton's penthouse," said Opal, to the room. "She has had it for six years."

Then Lucinda reached up and unclasped the sapphire.

She laid it in Opal's hand.

I stepped in front of her before she could walk off.

"Look at me," I said.

She did.

Her green eyes were dry and flat and tired.

"You picked me because I was the one nobody would believe," I said. "You were right for three years. That's over."

"You'll see," Lucinda said, low, for me alone.

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