“Even now I don’t really dislike you; this is simply necessary. And necessary means I will kill you if I have to. Stay put.”
She pulled two loops of skinny rope out of a big black tote with a bookstore logo on the side. “I want you to sit on that chair.”
Lucy knew in her gut she didn’t have a choice. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to be here to welcome Coop when he got back. She sat down in the single chair.
“Put your hands on the arms of the chair, I’m going to tie your wrists to the arms.” She carefully pulled the ropes taut and knotted them, always watchful. “I’ve heard Court talk about all that martial arts stuff you do in the gym, so I’m not taking any chances with you. Hold still.”
When she moved to Lucy’s right wrist, Lucy made a fist, which lifted it a bit from the chair arm when Miranda tied the rope around it. It worked, the rope ending up not all that tight, not like her left wrist. Lucy immediately began working it, slowly, easily, so as not to draw Miranda’s attention.
Miranda placed her black tote onto the bed, shrugged out of her black coat, and sat down facing Lucy.
“Miranda, tell me what this is all about. What do you mean the ring is yours?”
Miranda didn’t answer. Lucy watched her pull the ring out of her pocket and caress it like a lover. She pressed it lightly against her chest, then brought it down again to study it. She whispered, “It’s been so long since I’ve seen this ring, since I’ve touched it, more than twenty-two years now since my Uncle Milton stole it and went walkabout—that’s what my father called it. I wonder if he ever really accepted that Uncle Milton simply walked out, left his son, his wife, his precious little granddaughter. I was a teenager at the time, all into myself, the way teenagers are, but I remember Dad saying over and over, ‘But why? It doesn’t make sense. Why?’ My mom and Court believed he’d just left, and so did I, simply because it was easier to believe he’d run away instead—instead of what? You were too young to know anything. Turns out Dad was right, it didn’t make sense, and Uncle Milton never left.
“When I found out you turned up his skeleton in Aunt Helen’s attic, we all realized the supposed walkabout was a big whomping lie. Aunt Helen hadn’t driven him away, she’d murdered him, and your father must have helped her hide his body. They lied about all of it. I wonder what else was a lie? Aunt Helen told me your grandfather had stolen the ring and taken it with him when he left. All those years I thought I had lost the ring forever, and then suddenly anything was possible.
“I started searching your grandmother’s house for the ring as soon as the police left, and whenever I saw you leave for work. Father told me you’d been looking around in her study, and that’s where I found Uncle Milton’s letter to you, his precious granddaughter, in one of Aunt Helen’s books.”
“Miranda, you took the letter?”
“Of course. Who did you think did? My father? Court? They never had a clue about the ring—Mom, either. When I read the letter, I knew for sure you had the ring and that you’d never give it up, not after you discovered what it could do, and that’s when I hired those idiot felons to take it from you. Congratulations, Lucy, either you’re very lucky or you’re very good. You got away, and you even killed one of them. I knew then the FBI would identify him and it was only a matter of time before you traced him back to me. I got everything ready to run, but I wasn’t going anywhere without this ring.”
“Miranda, how much do you know about the ring?”
“I know everything.”
Lucy said slowly, “But how?”
Miranda laughed. “Your mother’s death broke Aunt Helen’s heart. She was always secretive, at least that’s what I heard my father say, but after Claudine’s death she got really depressed; she’d stare off into space, saying nothing, looking at nothing in particular. You were too young to notice, only two. I’ll never forget the day she took me into her study and we huddled together. I had just turned twelve. She took out the ring and told me it was a special ring meant for only one girl in each generation of our family—one girl, not a boy—and I was her niece, and it would be mine someday, when she thought the time was right. At first she didn’t tell me any more than that, but every time I visited, she would show me the ring and tell me stories about it, stories passed down that her own mother had told her, stories about how she’d used the ring, and all the while she was speaking, she was darting glances around the room to be sure no one was near.
“Aunt Helen said now she was passing all the stories down to me. She said it had to be our secret, that no one was to know or she couldn’t imagine what would happen. Maybe the ring would disappear, maybe it would even stop working. That was a lie and at first, I didn’t understand. I thought she was crazy. She scared me, but the ring didn’t ever, even when she showed me what happened when she held the ring and said the word. She could always tell me if something strange was about to happen, things she had no way of knowing otherwise. It was a game she played with me. But she wouldn’t let me use the ring myself; she said I wasn’t ready for it.
“I felt such power, and I was only twelve years old. I knew it would belong to me, no one else, only me. I asked her over and over when that would be, and she smiled at me and said we’d have to see.
“And four years later, Uncle Milton was gone and so was the ring. We felt such anger, such despair, both of us together, an unbreakable bond between an old woman and a teenager.”
Lucy said slowly, “I am my grandmother’s direct heir, not you. I think if she hadn’t been so distraught when my mother died, if she hadn’t lost her bearings, she would never have spoken to you about it, shared its power and secrets with you, and you know it. She would have waited and given the ring to me.”
“Dream on, Lucy. Who cares why she picked me? The fact is, she did, whatever her reasons. You were Uncle Milton’s choice, but he had no right to decide anything; the ring wasn’t his. I was Aunt Helen’s choice. You read the letter; you know everything he wrote was true. Aunt Helen was strange, it’s true, she was obsessed with the ring, and if that sent her to me, then so be it.
“Maybe you were too young to remember, but I was always over at your house after school so she could spend time with me, teach me about the ring. I’ve thought about this ring for over two decades, thought about what I could have done with it, how it could have changed my life.
“I’m thirty-eight years old now. I think it was fate you found Uncle Milton because it brought me back this ring. Now, finally, it’s mine as it was meant to be.”
“You were twelve years old when grandmother showed you the ring, showed you what it could do. You never said anything to your parents? Your brother?”
“That’s right, I never told them. Why should I? I don’t think Father even knew about it, or if he did he paid no attention. He and Court, it’ll be a grand surprise to them when I leave with the ring, since they have no idea what I can do with it. As for my mother, she always cared about only two things in her life—being my father’s wife and looking like a million bucks. She’s the perfect wife for my father, since all he ever wanted was to make more and more money and have a beautiful woman on his arm.” Her eyes went sharp and cunning. Lucy wondered if she was thinking about humbling both of them, proving she was the superior one.
Lucy kept gently working her wrist back and forth. The rope was loosening.
“I dreamed, Lucy, I dreamed for years about what I would do with this wonderful ring.” She squeezed the ring tightly in her hand. She frowned. “Is it always cold? Odd, but I don’t remember it being hot or cold.”
Cold? What was this? Lucy said, “Yes, it’s always cold. Miranda, what do you plan to do with it? You have only eight seconds. That’s very little time to change much of anything.”