It was less than an hour from Sam’s apartment downtown to Lisa’s house in the hills. Being a junior partner at a corporate law office had its advantages. She had a three-bedroom glass and concrete modern monster overlooking the valley. Sam shook her head every time she pulled into the driveway. How had they ever been raised by the same blue-collar parents?
Lisa was halfway down the steps as they pulled in, her high blonde ponytail swinging behind her. The cut of her ripped blue jeans and purposely distressed graphic t-shirt belied their obvious couture price tags. There was a glint of curiosity in the deep blue depths of her eyes as Sam slid from the passenger side of the truck.
"Hi Sis, what's up?" She stopped in her tracks as Riley stepped out of the driver's seat of his father's pickup truck. Lisa stared her sister down. "Samantha? What exactly is going on?"
"Don't get your hackles up Lissie. It's okay." Sam turned to slip her arm around Riley's waist. "We're working on something. I'll explain everything later. Right now I need the keys to mom's RV."
"Absolutely not. You aren't going anywhere with him," she pointed a finger at Riley who had the good grace to look semi-guilty, "until you tell me at least SOMETHING worthy of me not wringing his neck."
Caleb chose that moment to slide out of Daniel's truck and clear his throat. "We don’t have time for this. Lisa, do you have your mom’s keys or not?” He leaned against the truck and folded his arms.
“Don’t get mouthy with me Caleb Kacey. I know you better than that. ”She wagged her finger and smiled at him. He returned her smile and pushed off from the truck door.
“Uh-huh, whatever you say Lissie.” He walked over to tower over her, his dark hair sliding across his eyes. “The keys?” He held up an open palm.
She looked up into those eyes, meeting him halfway, “When did you get so tall?” She completely ignored his question and shoved past him to hug his father as he came around the back of the truck. “Now you I actually missed.” She squeezed him a little bit tighter. “Hi, Uncle Daniel”.
Daniel squeezed her right back. These girls really were like his kids too. It made him very happy to see them all grown up and doing well for themselves. Well, at least Lisa seemed to be happy. But he had to wonder just how happy she could really be as he looked up at the cold concrete and glass house. It was nice from an architectural stand point, but it lacked the warmth of a real home. Money and prestige couldn't buy everything.
Lisa released him and turned to look at her sister. She was just in time to catch a secret look pass between Sam and Riley. Good, she had always wished they could have worked things out. Seeing them obviously together again (regardless of what was actually going on), gave her hope that maybe she wasn’t running out of time to find someone who could look at her the way Riley looked at Samantha.
She didn’t wait for an answer as she stalked past them, heading back up the steps, “You might as well come inside. I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting story.”
Sam groaned and shook her head at Riley, warning him not to bother arguing. She knew there was no budging her big sister once she’d made up her mind. Maybe there wasn’t much difference between them….
******
The inside of Lisa’s house was just as sharp and modern as the outside. It looked more like an advertisement for Architectural Digest than a home that was lived in. The only sign that the house was occupied came from the myriad of paintings on the walls. The bright colors and abstract themes told Sam that her sister may have convinced the world that she was nothing more than the hard-nosed bitch she appeared to be in court, but she was still painting. Even if nobody but her ever saw them. It made Sam smile.
“I like these, Sis.” She gestured at the painting nearest to her. “I’m glad you haven’t given up your art. Mom would be proud.”
Lisa shrugged and snorted under her breath. “Mom would’ve given me her opinion and then told me to toss the lot. All the while telling everyone else how wonderful they were, and you know it miss, ‘I never published a single song I ever wrote’”. Her pointed look making Sam cringe in acknowledgement of the truth of her words.
Their mother was never very forthcoming with the praise to their faces, though she constantly extolled the girls’ virtues to anyone else who would listen. She’d believed that any praise she might have given the girls directly would have spoiled their “character”.
The sisters shared a moment of sadness before Lisa broke eye contact. She turned back to Riley where he stood with his back against the gray marble mantle of her huge fireplace. It dawned on her that from where he was standing, he could see the front door as well as the stairs going up to the second floor, along with the full floor to ceiling windows that faced the rising sun. Somehow, she didn’t think that was an accident.
“You sir, have some explaining to do at some point.” She held up a hand as he opened his mouth to defend himself. “But not right now. Right now, I want somebody with a full set of brain cells to tell me why you need mom’s RV and where you are headed in such a hurry.”
She tilted her head to address Daniel who had chosen to stand behind her chair where he could see down the hall to the kitchen. She glanced at Caleb and caught him leaning against the stair railing facing his brother. From where the men had chosen to stand, there wasn’t an entrance to the living room that wasn’t covered. It should have made her nervous, instead it was oddly comforting. She let her gaze drift back up to Daniel.
“Uncle Daniel, what is really going on?” Her tone dropped into “courtroom” mode without her even thinking about it. She slid in and out of her lawyer persona so easily these days. It was hard to tell where that part of her ended and the fun loving, artist part of herself began. She was beginning to lose that colorful part of herself to her work and it had started to scare her.
Daniel gave a nod to Caleb, who moved from the stairs to lean against the side of the pillared archway leading to the hallway. It put him in the direct path from the kitchen. He made a pretense of cleaning his nails and looking bored. He might be just 18, but there was nothing awkward about the way he stood there. It made Lisa more nervous than anything the others had done. He looked like a cat pretending that they weren’t watching every move the mouse made.
A hand on her shoulder made her jump in her chair. Riley removed his hand from her shoulder and moved around to stand in front of her. As he did so, he dropped a velvet bag in her lap.
She picked up the bag and opened it. Whatever was in the bag felt cold to the touch. She upended the bag and sucked in a hard breath. The emerald that lay in the palm of her hand was the biggest she’d ever seen. She had a lot of famous clients and she was no stranger to the glitz and glam of Hollywood, but this…
She whistled and looked at her sister. “Sam, where did y’all get this?”
Sam broke out in giggles as she heard that polished veneer her sister always kept in place crack. The rest of Hollywood might think that her sister was top shelf, but Samantha knew better. They’d been raised with the red solo cup and Sunday dinner after church crowd in Arkansas. To say that they had friends in low places was an understatement.
The inside of Lisa’s house was just as sharp and modern as the outside. It looked more like an advertisement for Architectural Digest than a home that was lived in. The only sign that the house was occupied came from the myriad of paintings on the walls. The bright colors and abstract themes told Sam that her sister may have convinced the world that she was nothing more than the hard-nosed bitch she appeared to be in court, but she was still painting. Even if nobody but her ever saw them. It made Sam smile.
“I like these, Sis.” She gestured at the painting nearest to her. “I’m glad you haven’t given up your art. Mom would be proud.”
Lisa shrugged and snorted under her breath. “Mom would’ve given me her opinion and then told me to toss the lot. All the while telling everyone else how wonderful they were, and you know it, Miss, ‘I never published a single song I ever wrote’”. Her pointed look made Sam cringe in acknowledgment of the truth of her words.
Their mother was never very forthcoming with the praise to their faces, though she constantly extolled the girls’ virtues to anyone else who would listen. She’d believed that any praise she might have given the girls directly would have spoiled their “character”.
The sisters shared a moment of sadness before Lisa broke eye contact. She turned back to Riley where he stood with his back against the gray marble mantle of her huge fireplace. It dawned on her that from where he was standing, he could see the front door as well as the stairs going up to the second floor, along with the full floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the rising sun. Somehow, she didn’t think that was an accident.
“You sir, have some explaining to do at some point.” She held up a hand as he opened his mouth to defend himself. “But not right now. Right now, I want somebody with a full set of brain cells to tell me why you need mom’s RV and where you are headed in such a hurry.”
She tilted her head to address Daniel who had chosen to stand behind her chair where he could see down the hall to the kitchen. She glanced at Caleb and caught him leaning against the stair railing facing his brother. From where the men had chosen to stand, there wasn’t an entrance to the living room that wasn’t covered. It should have made her nervous, instead, it was oddly comforting. She let her gaze drift back up to Daniel.
“Uncle Daniel, what is really going on?” Her tone dropped into “courtroom” mode without her even thinking about it. She slid in and out of her lawyer persona so easily these days. It was hard to tell where that part of her ended and the fun-loving, artist part of herself began. She was beginning to lose that colorful part of herself to her work and it had started to scare her.
Daniel gave a nod to Caleb, who moved from the stairs to lean against the side of the pillared archway leading to the hallway. It put him in the direct path from the kitchen. He made a pretense of cleaning his nails and looking bored. He might be just 18, but there was nothing awkward about the way he stood there. It made Lisa more nervous than anything the others had done. He looked like a cat pretending that they weren’t watching every move the mouse made.
A hand on her shoulder made her jump in her chair. Daniel removed his hand from her shoulder and moved around to stand in front of her. As he did so, he dropped a velvet bag in her lap.
She picked up the bag and opened it. Whatever was in the bag felt cold to the touch. She upended the bag and sucked in a hard breath. The emerald that lay in the palm of her hand was the biggest she’d ever seen. She had a lot of famous clients and she was no stranger to the glitz and glam of Hollywood, but this...
She whistled and looked at her sister. “Sam, where did y’all get this?”
Sam broke out in giggles as she heard that polished veneer her sister always kept in place crack. The rest of Hollywood might think that her sister was top shelf, but Samantha knew better. They’d been raised with the red solo cup and Sunday dinner after church crowd in Arkansas. To say that they had friends in low places was an understatement.
“It’s a long story Lissie, and one I’d be happy to tell you all about another time. Right now we need the keys to mom’s RV so that we can, disappear for a while. We need time to do some digging. I thought we could take the RV up to the summer cabin. Nobody outside of the family even knows about it.”
Memories of happy summers spent at the lake made both girls a little misty for a second. Things had been so different before their mom died. Dad had never wanted anything to do with the cabin after her death. He’d signed it over to Lisa along with the RV just before he took his own life three years ago.
Sam reached across the space between them to squeeze Lisa’s hand in shared pain. Lisa squeezed back and then cleared her throat, “I have a couple of questions, from a legal standpoint, before we can go any further.”
She released her baby sister’s hand and stood up, moving the few paces behind her chair to stand in front of the wall of windows. She stared out at the midmorning sun as it sparkled over the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles.
She sighed and faced the room, “One. is this stolen?” She opened her palm, gazed down at the emerald again, then back up at Riley.
“Yes. technically it is. I stole it from my brother.” Riley waited to gauge her reaction. She made no move, so he remained where he was.
Lisa turned to Daniel, “And two, is there a damned good reason that I shouldn’t turn you all into the police right now?” She trusted Daniel as a more mature voice of reason.
He nodded, “Yes Lissie, it’s literally a matter of life and death.” He held her gaze for a few seconds, willing her to believe him.
“Fine.” She replaced the emerald in the bag and dropped it back into Daniel's outstretched hand.
She walked over to the mantle. Riley moved out of her way with a smile as she gave him a shove. She reached up and opened a silver box on the ledge. She reached in to retrieve the keys when Riley snatched the box out of her hands.
He turned to show the top of the box to his father. Samantha squealed and crossed the room while Caleb never moved other than to raise one eyebrow.
“Where did you get this box, Lisa?” The steel in Riley’s voice made Lisa cringe. What the hell was going on?
“I’ll ask you one more time Lisa, where did you get this box?” There was an inhuman growl under Riley’s words that hit Lisa’s senses causing a rush of adrenaline. She’d never heard anyone do that before and it scared the crap out of her.
All semblance of bravado went out the window. Her shoulders came forward and she glared up at him. “It was Mom’s. I inherited it along with the rest of her stuff when she died. She was adamant that Sam didn’t get any of her antiques because we never knew where Sam was going to be.” Lisa was aware that she was rambling, but Riley was still glaring at her like a wild animal. She took a step back, stumbling over the hearth as she did so. She fell backwards and would have landed hard if Daniel hadn’t caught her.
He wrapped an arm around her to steady her while casting a glare of his own at his eldest son. “Riley, knock it off. You’re scaring the poor girl. It’s not her fault. Neither of them would have known anything about all of this and you damned well know it.”
Riley tried hard to reign in the cat that was roaring in his head. The sharp barks of sound grated against his temples. He clenched the little silver box in his hand while he pushed away from the fireplace. He needed to put some distance between himself and Lisa.
Samantha wanted more than anything to go to Riley and try to calm him down. Instead, she chose to cross the room to where Daniel had led Lisa back to her chair. Her sister was visibly shaking by this time. She kneeled down in front of her.
“Lissie? It’s okay. Don’t let him get to you. He’s just being a jerk.” She glared over her shoulder at Riley. He glared right back, still trying to calm the beast that was in the process of tearing up the inside of his skull. Sam stuck her tongue out at him then turned back to her sister.
“To tell you the truth, I’m more than a little curious about a few things now.” She rocked back on her heels to sit down. She tucked her feet under her and looked up, meeting her sister’s distraught gaze. “Did Mom really say that? She didn’t trust me at all did she?” She couldn't keep the hurt from spilling out in her words.
Sam had never been very close to her mother, but she’d always assumed that it was just because she was so much like their father. Lissie had always been Mom’s favorite. Sam had never really questioned it. It had never paid to contradict or question Mom in any way.
Lisa did her best to stop the shaking by concentrating on her sister’s questions. “ That’s what she told me, before… well, before she died. She didn’t want me to give you anything. Especially that box.” She made a gesture toward Riley where he was now leaning against the pillar.
“Lissie, was there anything in the box when she gave it to you?” Caleb, who had been silently watching everything, finally spoke up.
“No. It was empty. I honestly thought that it was just a random silver box. Her and Dad were always taking trips overseas so I just assumed that it came from one of those trips.” Her voice was steadier when she once again looked up at Daniel, “What is this all about Uncle Daniel? Why is that box so important?”
Riley grunted from the shadows that were gathering as the sun shifted outside the windows. “I told you on the way over here that it wasn’t a good idea to separate the bag and the box. This is how things get lost. Just like this.”
Riley walked the four paces to Lisa’s chair. He dropped her box in her lap. He pulled the matching box from his pocket and dropped it next to the other one.
Lisa’s eyes flitted from one to the other. The truth was finally drawing on her. Her eyes flew to her sister’s face. She tried to gauge Sam’s emotions, looking for any sign that this was just a coincidence. She didn’t like what she saw.
“This is ridiculous!” She tossed the boxes into her sister’s lap and stood up. She paced back and forth in front of the huge windows. The late afternoon sun shot honey sparks from her ponytail. She had gone back to full “lawyer” mode again and she was just getting warmed up.
Caleb smiled, whistling under his breath. This was going to be interesting.
“How can you possibly expect me to believe that these boxes are anything other than tourist trinkets? ”She emphasized her point with a wave of her hand.
“Lissie,” Sam tried to interrupt her sister mid stride. She didn’t get very far…
“If the boxes are connected, and I’m not saying they are, where did they come from? What was in Mom’s box? Was it another stone? If so, where is that stone now? How did she get it? Why was she so adamant that you not be the one to get it?” She waved her hand again at her sister. The rapid fire questions kept falling out of her. Her thoughts tumbled faster than even she could keep up with.
“Lisa!” This time it was Caleb’s voice barking at her. The sharpness in his tone surprising everyone else in the room. It was enough to bring Lisa’s tirade to a halt at least. “Stop. you’re going to give yourself an aneurysm.” His tone dropped to a slow growl. “ And you’re giving me a headache.” He smiled at her.
To everyone’s surprise, Lisa took a deep breath and sat down where she was. She looked up at him from the thick gray carpet, looking for all the world like she was the younger one. She cocked her head to the side, seeing him in a different light.
He was so concentrated on calming her down that he completely missed the quizzical look that passed between his older sibling and Samantha. Since when was Caleb the voice of reason?
Daniel coughed, hoping to break the very palpable tension in the room. “You bring up a few very good points my dear.” He chose to ignore whatever had just happened between Lisa and his youngest. That was a puzzle for another day.
He reached out his hands toward Samantha where she still sat on the floor for the boxes. Sam placed them in his hands before getting up from the floor to go to her sister. She sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her. He stood silent for a moment. Turning the boxes over, examining them closely.
The similarities of the boxes couldn’t be a coincidence. The only difference that Daniel could find was the etchings on the lid. They were the same size and weight. The velvet inside even appeared to be cut from the same piece of cloth. He took the boxes over to the glass-topped coffee table in the center of the room. He laid them side by side for the others to see. He had no doubts about them, but he wanted the other’s opinions.
“Well, what do you think?” He’d always wanted his sons to use the brains he’d given them. Their mother was never the sharpest crayon in the box. She relied on brute force or seduction to get what she wanted. Manipulation didn’t require much in the way of logical thinking. She just had to make others believe that she believed the lies she spouted constantly to make others believe. Regardless of whether she had any real knowledge of the subject at hand or not. Narcissists were like that.
The brothers moved in to get a closer look. Riley picked up his box while Caleb reached for Lisa’s. They turned them over, opened them both, closed them, and returned them to the table. Riley spoke first. “Dad, there is no way that these boxes are not a set. It would be impossible for them not to be.
“But Bro, look at the tops.” Caleb pulled them closer together on the table. “The carvings on the tops are slightly different.” He ran a finger over the central symbols on Lisa’s box. “This symbol here is different from this one.” He pointed to the center of Riley’s box. “Are they meant to be different? Is one a copy of the other? What do the symbols mean?” He chuckled. “I’m starting to sound like Lissie.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. She was glaring at him. Sam was trying unsuccessfully not to laugh at them.
Lisa took offense to that. Her need for answers had served her well in the courtroom. She’d gotten a reputation for being a bulldog when it came to finding the truth. She was proud of it and she certainly wasn’t going to let some kid find fault with it. She brushed off her sister’s arm and shot to her feet, fire in her eyes.
“Now wait a minute. Y’all asked me for my help. I didn’t ask you to bring this shit into my house.” She stopped in front of him as he turned on his heels to face her. He looked down into her big blue eyes and smiled. She might be nine years old than him, but her size made it really hard to take her seriously when she was angry.
“Lissie, calm down. I wasn’t making fun of you.” He reached down to brush a stray hair out of her eyes. “I promise.”
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