The Hound of Bar Harborville (A Jane True Short Story) (Trueniverse Book 1) by Nicole Peeler Read Free Book Online Page B

thought she was going to spit on the carpet after saying his name. “Julia died soon after the wedding. Jack went right ahead and married the woman he’d been having an affair with, the affair that killed my daughter.”
    Edeet! snorted again, her lips twisted so that she looked less like a bougie hotel owner and more like a viper. “Your daughter was a fool and she was weak. That’s why she killed herself, not because of us.”
    Jane and I both winced. “Ouch,” Jane said. “Rude. And still not an explanation for the diamond.”
    “The stone was a family heirloom, passed from mother to daughter upon the daughter’s marriage,” Kitsy said, still holding Aisha’s hand. “When Julia died, I asked Jack to have it back. I even offered him money. He said he wouldn’t take a dime from me, that he knew how much the stone meant to Julia and to me. He was so nice about it.” Kitsy shook her head angrily, although I think the anger was as much at herself as at Jack. “Why did I believe him? He gave me a knock-off he’d had made. A beautiful fraud, just like the man himself. And his whore,” Kitsy added, causing Edeet! to hiss like a cat.
    “I didn’t realize it was fake at the time,” Kitsy continued, ignoring Edeet!. “I was so distraught over Julia’s death, I couldn’t even look at it. I put the stone away and forgot about it, until Aisha came into my life.”
    The look Kitsy gave the girl was so full of love and longing, and the hand she reached to brush the girl’s cheek was trembling. “Everyone said I was silly adopting at my age, but Aisha has been everything to me. And I wanted to give her what was hers. When she started her senior year, I took the stone out for the first time in decades. I only really looked at it then. And I knew I’d been conned.”
    Edeet! was glaring at Kitsy and Aisha with unconcealed rage. It wasn’t the face of someone who’d pulled a successful con job. Kitsy pointed at Edeet!. “That woman’s jerk of a husband killed my baby girl, then stole our family heirloom so he could buy this monstrosity and keep his whore happy.”
    Aisha flinched as her mother railed against Jack and Edeet!, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.
    “You know nothing,” Edeet! snarled as I directed another swell of power at her, wanting to hear her side of the story. “Nothing! You want to hear why Jack would not part with your precious stone? Because it was Julia’s. Because he never forgave himself for what she did. Because he loved her more than me!” Edeet! clapped a hand over her mouth, obviously shocked to have admitted so much. Kitsy looked both surprised and smug.
    “Keep talking,” I told Edeet!. “What happened to the ring?”
    “I sold it,” she said, leering at us, her face rigid with her manic smile. “I stole it from the safety deposit box he thought was a secret and I sold it. We’d bought this place years ago and never made enough money to truly fix it up. So I stole the ring and sold it. Soon after, my aunt died and I told him the money was an inheritance. He never questioned me.” Edeet!’s smile lost its manic edge but still split her face. She leaned back as if sated on a fine repast.
    Kitsy looked liked she’d been pole-axed.
    “And then you came back here, after you realized the ring was a fake?” Jane said to Kitsy, looking over the woman nervously. We didn’t want Kitsy to go the way of Jack. But Edeet! was the one to answer.
    “Yes. I didn’t know who she was, of course. She’s aged so much,” Edeet! gave the older woman a dismissive gesture that made Jane’s fists clench. “But Jack recognized her.”
    “And how did you end up working here?” Jane asked, turning to Aisha.
    “When Mom realized about the ring, she looked up this place on the Internet. They’d posted an ad hiring a chambermaid for the summer. She made me apply.”
    “What were you arguing about the day we arrived?” I asked her.
    “Jack caught me snooping,” Aisha said,