Page 10 of Once a Hero

“Don’t hang up. We found the three-amber brooch.” She did not explain that Raynelle had stolen it on Jake’s watch.

“Where?” Benjamin sounded alert now.

“Our nanny kept it.” Beatrice stretched out on the sofa.

“That thief. She stole it from Dad.”

“Well, I got it back.” Beatrice didn’t want to get into details.

“You know it’s not enough.”

Beatrice sighed. “We don’t have the other two brooches.”

“We’ll have to track down the buyers.”

“We? Benjamin, are you planning on doing something? Will you come out here and help me?” Beatrice almost got her hopes up.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. A long silence.

“Dad has been dead for twenty-five years,” Benjamin said. “I’ve let it go. You should too.”

“No. We’ve been having this conversation for a long time. His murderer needs to go to jail.”

“I love you and all, but I really don’t agree with you about this. You’ve spent an enormous amount of your inheritance on finding the Amber Room, and all you have to show for is one-third of a brooch set.”

That about summed up the story of Beatrice’s career. “I am putting my history degree to good use.”

“Right.”

“I think we’re very close.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Dad would keep going.” Beatrice didn’t know for sure, but she thought he might.

“Yeah, he probably would. He’s stubborn like that. I don’t know who I take after, considering we don’t know much about our mother, but I know I don’t take after Dad.”

“I’ll call you when I find the lost Amber Room.”

Even when Beatrice had been in college, she’d been fascinated by the research done on the special room in Catherine the Great’s Winter Palace. When Germany raided Russia in World War II, the Amber Room vanished.

That was, until a year ago, when a few panels were unearthed in Agneta Sanna’s crypt on the island of Crete. Helen Hu was there, as far as Beatrice knew. She had read the rest of the information from newspapers that four small panels were found altogether.

There had to be more.

“Bee, there is a reason it’s called thelostAmber Room.” Benjamin laughed.

“Whatever.” Beatrice was determined to find it. If Molyneux thought it existed, then she would too.

The world didn’t care. St. Petersburg had been displaying a reproduction Amber Room to tourists for years.

Those who wanted to preserve history cared about original things, artifacts, documents. Memories of days that had vanished into the vortex of time.

“Okay then. Just don’t get dead on the way there.”

Benjamin might be a paranoid recluse, but he sure hadn’t lost his sense of humor. Beatrice rarely laughed at his jokes, but he was still her brother. She wouldn’t want to lose him.

So yes, he could stay in their hideaway in Charleston for the rest of his life if he wanted to. As long as he was alive and well.

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