Chapter 12 - The Pearl
Hale smiled as if they had met by accident.
“Mrs. Whitmore.”
Claire stepped away from the counter.
“What are you doing here?”
“Following up on the case.”
“With a suspended badge?”
His smile disappeared.
Claire had guessed.
The reaction confirmed it.
Hale shut the door.
Rosa moved between him and Eleanor.
“You need to leave,” she said.
Hale pulled the pistol from beneath his jacket.
“No one needs to make this difficult.”
Claire glanced at the call button near Eleanor’s bed.
Too far.
Hale nodded toward the pearl necklace. “Give it to me.”
Claire said, “You killed my father?”
He laughed. “I was twelve.”
“Then who?”
“Not my story to tell.”
Rosa suddenly grabbed the metal water pitcher and threw it.
Hale flinched.
Claire hit the nurse-call button.
An alarm sounded.
Hale lunged for the necklace bag.
Eleanor’s hand shot out from the bed with surprising strength and grabbed his sleeve.
“Not… yours,” she whispered.
Hale shoved her hand away.
Claire slammed the rolling tray into his knees.
He stumbled.
Rosa screamed for security.
Hale ran.
By the time hospital guards reached the room, he was gone.
Claire locked the door and picked up the necklace.
“Which pearl?”
Eleanor’s eyes closed again.
Claire examined the strand.
One pearl near the clasp had a hairline seam.
She twisted it.
It opened.
Inside was a tiny brass key no longer than her fingernail.
Rosa stared. “What does it open?”
Claire looked at Eleanor.
Her mother-in-law whispered one word.
“Station.”
“What station?” Claire asked.
Eleanor’s breathing became shallow.
“Union.”
Union Station.
Washington, D.C.
Claire remembered her father taking her there as a child every December to see the holiday train display.
Locker keys used to be brass.
Twenty years earlier, some lockers had been privately rented through a baggage service.
Claire closed her fist around the tiny key.
Then Eleanor whispered something else.
“Martin knows.”
Claire looked toward the door.
May you like
If Martin knew about the key, then his rescue in the SUV had never been a rescue.
It had been a way to keep her close.
