“That he had more proof.”
“What?”
Lucas shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said I would believe him when he found...”
“When he found what?” Rachel prompted.
“The bodies.”
She pushed her plate away, leaving her lunch half-finished. “That’s what he was doing in your woods that night? Looking for my father’s body?”
“Either that or hoping to catch you meeting me there so he could force a confrontation. I don’t know.”
Scrubbing a hand over her face, Rachel sighed. “Why did you tell me all this?”
“Because I thought you had a right to know. And because...”
Again, he hesitated. Again, Rachel prodded. “What?”
“A couple of months ago, someone broke into Emily’s house. She walked in and was knocked unconscious. When she woke up, she found her room had been ransacked and some of her jewelry was missing—including the bracelet she was wearing when she entered the house.”
Rachel was horrified. She’d been told there’d been a series of break-ins around Honoria, but she hadn’t heard about the attack on Emily. “Is that why you came back? Because you heard about the break-in and you wanted to make sure Emily was all right?”
“The bracelet taken from her wrist was the one Roger found in the woods. Emily had discovered where I’d stashed it before I left. I didn’t realize she had found it until I read in a newspaper article that a gold bracelet belonging to her mother had been stolen. As far as I knew, Nadine had left no other gold bracelet behind—and even if she had, my father got rid of everything that had belonged to Nadine. He didn’t save anything for Emily. It bothered me that nothing else of consequence was taken. I couldn’t help wondering if there was any connection between that bracelet and the attack on Emily.”
“What connection could there possibly have been?”
Looking a bit sheepish, Lucas shrugged. “I haven’t found any reason not to believe Emily was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Rachel linked her hands in her lap beneath the table, gripping her napkin between them. “Even if the bracelet was evidence that Nadine had been...killed, the only person who would want the evidence hidden—your father—was already dead when Emily was attacked.”
Lucas nodded, though his frown only deepened.
“Unless, of course,” Rachel murmured, carried away for a moment by imagination, “someone else had reason to want that bracelet to remain hidden. Someone who took advantage of the break-ins to target Emily specifically to get the bracelet.”
Lucas grimaced. “Doesn’t sound very likely, does it?”
“That’s what you thought? That Emily was attacked just so someone could take her mother’s bracelet from her?”
“I don’t know what I thought. But it seemed like a good time to come back and check on her. I, er, didn’t know you’d be here.”
Rachel pleated her napkin. “Are you sorry now that you came back?”
After a moment, he answered simply, “No.”
She bit her lip.
“Are you sorry I came back?”
She didn’t know how to answer that one. “I...”
Lucas gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “Never mind. Do you want dessert?”
“No, thank you. I’d better go check on my grandmother.”
He nodded. “Thank you for helping me with my shopping.”
“I’m not sure I was much help, but you’re welcome, anyway.”