Page 26 of Merciless Heir
He’s right, that’s exactly where we’re going.
“Don’t you want to know why?”
“Jenson has a property here. My mother’s more Hamptons. Hudson—my brother—owns some things out here, too. But I don’t think we’re going to any of his properties. What do you want with Jenson?”
The other questions hang heavy in his words.
Questions like what are you up to.
“Not Jenson’s place. There’s another, owned by Sinclair. It took me a little digging—” which is interesting because this wasn’t in anything I discussed with his mother “—to find it.”
“You’re saying it’s not listed?”
“Yes and no.”
“Subsidiary.” He stops and I can almost hear the frown. “But why would the location of the tiara be some kind of strange secret?”
“I’m not interested in that.”
He shifts in the seat. “You know, I never asked if it was reported to the police.”
“It wasn’t. I looked into it.”
This time he doesn’t speak for a long time. “It’s a test.”
I’m almost positive it’s a test, but whether it’s one that’s gotten out of hand, I don’t know. Faye’s paying me to locate it, and to take my time. She didn’t use those words, it was more along the lines of helping her son and not moving things along too fast, after she got me in to look at her security system.
She’s very good at whatever game she’s playing. And her son? The fewer opinions I form of him the better.
None of these people are my world.
I prefer the fringe.
“There are a lot of reasons not to report things,” I say. “Maybe there’s a stipulation or maybe it’s a matter of the insurance claims not worth it, or a myriad of reasons.”
“Or,” he says, “A test.”
“Yes. Maybe one that’s gone wrong.”
“Maybe.”
I drive along, following the highway to White Plains and the property I found in the digging I did. It might mean something or it might mean nothing. But that old familiar tingle of adrenaline when I stumbled on it says it just might be the former.
“Tell me about the Sinclair jewels. What you know,” I say.
“You know it all.”
“Humor me. On paper isn’t the same as from the heir.”
I glance at him and he’s studying me. Heat flares hot and needing inside at that look. I turn back to the road, fingers squeezing the wheel.
“My great-great-grandfather had them made for my great-great-grandmother many moons ago. Around the time he made his fortune, and they were, as legend has it, the reason she married him.”
“So she was a money-grabbing woman?” I say this before I can stop myself, but Kingston just laughs.
“That’s what I said. It didn’t please my mother.”
I glance at the google maps on my phone. No one has dared put a GPS system of any kind in this car.