“Why did he start robbing here in Edilean?” Gemma asked. “He must have known that there’s nothing here to meet his standards.”
“Well . . .” Jean said.
When she didn’t look at Gemma, she understood. “You committed the robberies here, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Jean said. “I think maybe he was going to leave town, but then he heard of that damned Heartwishes Stone, so he stayed and began to watch you and Tris. He was convinced that you two had found the Stone and that’s what you were being so secretive about. I thought that if I did some robberies using his old MO, it might draw the Feds here and that they might scare him into leaving. But he knew what I was doing and why—and he was amused. They were so very amateurish, the kind of thing he did when he was a teenager.”
Gemma was disgusted by this whole story. “I guess he had a buyer.”
“Several,” Jean said. “If my uncle had sold that Stone, no one in the world named Frazier would have been safe.”
They heard gravel flying outside as a car skidded to a halt. “That’s Colin,” Gemma said.
Jean looked at her, her eyes pleading. “Look, I know the robberies were wrong, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was losing everything. On that first night at the dinner I cooked, I saw how much Colin wanted you. And I guessed that his mother had planned it all. She can be a conniving snake.”
Gemma started to protest, but she knew that Jean was at last telling the truth.
“Please,” Jean said. “I’m putting my life is in your hands. If you tell Colin what I did . . .”
Gemma looked at the man on the floor. He was beginning to stir. No one had been hurt in the break-ins. “Will evidence be found against him at the robbery sites?”
“On the last one, I left hair and a fingerprint.” Gravel was crunching; Colin was running toward them.
This was a decision Gemma couldn’t make quickly. She needed to think about it. “How did you find the ring in the bedpost?”
Jean gave a derogatory little snort. “The bed was homemade. The post was screwed on crooked. He taught me to first look for the obvious.”
Colin threw open the door. His arm was around Tris, whose face was drained of color, and he was holding onto his left arm, which looked like it was broken.
Gemma wanted to hug both men and cry in relief, but at that moment a strong wave of nausea went through her, and she put her hand over her mouth.
Tris, in spite of the obvious pain he was in, grinned at her. “It must be seven.” He stepped away from Colin, who was looking at Gemma in fear.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he grabbed her by the shoulders.
Gemma’s answer was to throw up on his shoes.
Colin erupted in anger. “I’ll kill you for hurting her,” he bellowed as he leaped toward Jean’s uncle, who was pulling himself upright.
“Colin, no!” Tris yelled. “It’s your kid who’s making her sick.” Colin had the man by the front of his shirt, his fist drawn back to hit him, but when Tris’s words reached his mind, he dropped the man to the floor.
“Gemma?” he asked, looking at her.
She was fighting more nausea.
“Get her to the sink,” Tris yelled. “It’s your turn to hold her head.”
Outside was the sound of sirens. The police had arrived.
“That you felt you had to keep this secret from me . . .” Colin said as he held Gemma to him. Behind them, the police and Roy were handcuffing Jean’s uncle Adrian. “I can never apologize to you enough.”
“It’s all right now,” Gemma said.
He ran his hand along her cheek. “No, it’s not. I thought you and Tris—”
“I know.” She knew she should admit to her jealousy of Jean, but now was not the time. It felt too good to be held by him, to be reassured.
“I won’t be jealous again,” Colin said. “And I promise that I’ll spend my life making it up to you.”