was everything,” she whispered. “I was raised in the highest of society, and, even though we worked in a trade, it was a wealthy trade. I knew everybody who was anyone and was privy to their secrets. I was privy to their world. My husband and I were both welcomed in society, but, after the fraud accusations, the fire, and then the death of my parents, it was all just too much.”
“And, in all this, what happened to your husband?”
“I had to go back to our home after the break-in, or the police would have never believed the alibi. We stayed together for a time, but our marriage was going downhill. I did think afterward that he only hung around long enough to see if I would inherit anything.”
“And?”
“My parents didn’t have anything left to speak of,” she whispered. “They’d already used up all their savings, their own money, and had even sold the house, though I didn’t know it.” Tears were in her eyes. “They did everything they could to pay back the people who had trusted them.”
Doreen’s heart ached for the older couple who would have realized how much they had lost. “I’m glad for them that they at least went to the grave thinking they had done the best they could,” Doreen murmured. “But how terrible to know that their own losses and tragedies would continue to impact other people.”
“Exactly,” Aretha said, “it was a tough time, and Reginald was there for me.”
“Good,” Doreen said. But she wondered at the relationship. Had Reginald really been there for her or more for himself?
“But it also left me with nothing,” Aretha said with a small smile.
“And your husband?”
“And then he died,” she said with a bitter laugh. “At the time I couldn’t decide if I was delighted or horrified, but I knew I wasn’t grief-stricken. Not about Reginald. I was still dealing with the grief over my parents.”
“But some time passed between his death and theirs, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yes. A couple years between them. But I was very close to my parents. That loss remained with me a long, long time. At the time, I was trying to find a way to get away from my husband. He’d taken everything I had and had crushed it all to powder.”
“Did you ever suspect maybe he had stolen some of the gems for later?”
“I asked him if he had because I couldn’t let the idea go,” she said. “He just looked so hurt that I ended up feeling guilty.” She shook her head. “I found out later he had stolen quite a few of the gems and had hidden many of them in places I would never find.” She shrugged. “He left me a strange letter before he died, saying gems were still hidden in the city, but he couldn’t find them anymore. The landmarks he’d written down to remind himself were no longer there, so he didn’t even have a way to get them himself.”
“Why would he have left you that letter?”
“Because he’d kept some of the jewels and slowly sold them over time, after we were separated,” she said bitterly. “He had essentially lived off my family for all those years, and, when he finally ran out and knew he would be done for, all he wanted was that last bag of jewels, but he couldn’t find it.”
“Do you know how many gems were in the last bag?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t remember. Only that this last group had an emerald he didn’t dare sell because it had been specially ordered by a friend of mine for his wife.” She shook her head. “It was so hard to hold my head up in society.”
“Was it helpful when your husband died?”
“I don’t know about helpful, but it allowed me to close a chapter. A long and sordid chapter I was desperate to be done with.”
“And even if some jewels do show up,” Doreen said, “there’s no way to prove whose they are, is there?”
“No, probably not. The whole thing was a mess with many clerical errors, which is why the insurance wouldn’t pay on that group of stones, as they couldn’t be proven to have been part of the shipment or that they were in our possession. The only way would be if the emerald happened to be with them.”
“Why is that?”
“It was a very specific emerald that was custom ordered. Records exist for that. But not that it was ever received.”
“Do you know who ordered the