I Prepared for My Wedding, Only to Be Shut Out of My Own Bridal Suite novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Clasp

"That's my grandmother's clasp," I said.

Beverly's face didn't move.

"Don't be ridiculous. It's been in my family for years."

"It's been in your family since last fall."

My mother had come down the steps behind me.

She looked at the ring and put her hand on the porch rail.

"The pearls," she said. "Last October. Beverly, you offered to have them cleaned and restrung for the wedding. Your jeweler."

"I was being generous."

"You kept them three weeks," my mother said. "You gave them back in a lovely new box."

The pearls were at my mother's, in the quilted bag in my suitcase.

I didn't need them in front of me.

I could see the clasp on them now, in my head, the one I'd pressed and turned on Kelsey's neck.

Smooth gold. A rose on the front.

No worn spot.

When I came back out Beverly had closed the velvet box.

"Here's my offer," she said. "You tell that detective you approved the revision. That you forgot, in all the drama. Mason comes home. And you get your little family trinket back."

"No."

"Then it goes with everything else," she said. "The bank is selling every Ridgeway asset at auction next Saturday. My house. My car. My jewelry. I pledged it all for the loan."

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