Page 68 of The Seven Rings
Glancing around, he noted the folded dustcovers. “You’re getting an early start on this.”
“I credit Molly there. But I’ve already found a treasure. It’s Catherine’s. They’re Catherine’s,” she corrected. “The combs, the brush, the vanity.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw her sitting at it, saw her mother brushing her hair. Her wedding night. It was like the time I saw Astrid and the little party in theparlor, Lisbeth and that party in the music room. But I was aware, awake. I heard voices,” she continued, and told him.
“You’ve seen five of them now, beyond when Dobbs took their rings.”
“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of it, but that’s true.” As she spoke, she opened the rest of the drawers on the vanity, but found nothing. “All of them except Marianne and Agatha. And we found Marianne’s journal. I’ve read most of it, and it’s almost like seeing her.”
“Logic—this logic anyway—says you’ll see her and Agatha at some point. And, hopefully, talk to them.”
“And maybe gain a clue. The rings aren’t hers, don’t belong to Dobbs, so I can get them back. I have to believe that.”
She stood, scanning the attic.
“But it really helps to know it.” She set the brush down, then pointed. “That armoire was in the room.” She walked over to go through it. “No need for it now that there’s a closet, and it’s too big, but I’d like to move the vanity in there.
“Empty.” She closed the last drawer on the armoire.
“I’ll start over there. So, what was I right about?”
“Huh. Oh! About being meant to find these things. The marbles, the journal, the yo-yo, now the hair combs, the brush. It’s more taking ownership, I guess. But for them. And I don’t think Dobbs likes it.”
He went through a highboy. “Did she act up some?”
“Definitely. You know she’d been mostly quiet for days. You had to figure she was planning something.”
He stopped what he was doing to watch her as she opened one of the trunks.
“And what was it?”
“I was shutting down for the day when your mom sent some of the photos. Having you out playing fetch with Mookie? Genius, by the way. You both look great.”
“What does that have to do with Dobbs?”
“I wanted to get Cleo, show her, so I ran up to her studio. I think maybe Dobbs was holding off until we were both up there.”
“For what, Sonya?”
Enchanted by the dresses in the trunk, she didn’t notice his tone.
“To cut loose. Big-time. Just opening the door of the Gold Room at first, and saying my name. As if I’d fall for that. We were having the storm, and then we were having the storm inside the Gold Room. Wind, thunder booming, then glass breaking.”
As she went through the trunk, she relayed what happened up to the fire, the floor in the hall collapsing.
“And you didn’t think you should call me, tell me you were in trouble?”
Now the tone got through. Holding the pink frock she’d seen Lissy wearing in the music room, Sonya rose.
“It happened fast, and things were, you could say, pretty damn fraught.”
“And after, any time after? Like maybe, I don’t know, when I texted you to ask how things were going?”
In Sonya’s experience, Oliver Doyle III had a long, slow-burning fuse. Clearly, he’d reached the end of it.
“I would have, but—”
