Her hands shaking, Anna called the police. When officers arrived, the first thing they asked was what had been taken.
“Nothing except an antique locket,” Anna said, looking around at the wreckage. She felt sick. Her freshly renovated apartment looked like a crime scene.
“What kind of locket?” the detective asked.
Anna told him how she had found it and, after a pause, the family story behind it. The detective grew more interested by the minute and promised to look into it carefully.
He also told her, very plainly, to be more careful with valuable items and not to trust strangers.
“Which pawn shop did you take it to?” he asked before leaving.
Anna gave him the address, surprised by the question. Could that creepy appraiser really be involved?
Thinking back to the unease she had felt after meeting him, she realized it made sense. Who else outside the family knew about the locket?
Less than an hour after the police left, there was another knock at the door. Mike stood there, visibly upset.
Anna had called Polly in tears after finding the apartment trashed, and Polly had immediately called her father. So there he was.
“Are you okay?” Mike asked, breathing hard.
“Physically, yes. But now I get to clean up this mess until midnight,” Anna said tiredly.
“I’ll help.”
“You?” she said with a sad little smile. “Since when do you help around the house?”
“Since now,” Mike said, stepping inside without waiting for permission.
He kicked off his shoes, took off his jacket, and got to work right away—lifting furniture, picking things up, setting them back in place. Anna stood there watching him.
And then a terrible thought crossed her mind. Mike had seen the locket too. But no, she told herself. He was a cheater, yes. But not a thief.
They worked until well past midnight. Somewhere in the middle of it, talking quietly as they cleaned, they almost made peace without meaning to.
At the very least, Anna found herself answering him more gently. A few times she even smiled.
“Want something to eat?” Mike asked when he put the last fallen book back on the shelf. “Did the burglars leave anything in your fridge?”
“Looks like they didn’t touch the food,” Anna said. “But I haven’t cooked anything. There’s cheese and sausage.”
“At this point I’d eat stale bread and be grateful,” Mike said.
“Bread might actually be the one thing I don’t have.”
“That’s a problem,” Mike said in mock seriousness. “A body needs carbs.”
“Funny. I thought doctors spent their lives telling people bread was bad for them.”
“Only if you eat a whole loaf,” he said, heading into the kitchen as if he still lived there. Oddly, this time it didn’t bother her.
Later they sat at the kitchen table eating cheese and sausage with the last few slices of bread they found. They drank the rest of the wine Anna had bought for the holiday.
And they talked. About the early years. About Polly as a baby. About all the time they had wasted.
Mike took the blame for what had happened between them. But Anna had her own thought too: maybe she shouldn’t have spent so many years silently enduring everything. Maybe if she had pushed back sooner, demanded better, things might not have gone so cold between them.
“Anna,” Mike said carefully, “maybe we really could start over.”
She gave him a small, unreadable smile and pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t rush it.”
Mike nodded. That night they slept in separate rooms.
She lay in her own bed. He took the couch in Polly’s old room. And through the quiet apartment, both of them listened to the other breathing on the far side of the wall.
A few days later, Anna was called back to the police station. The detective told her they had identified the locket from her description.
Years ago, a well-known jeweler in town had been robbed. The main thief had been Peter—the same Peter. Among the stolen items was that very locket.
All the other jewelry had eventually been recovered after Peter’s arrest. But the locket had vanished. What made it especially valuable, the detective explained, was that it had originally held a large emerald on the front.
Not huge, but exceptionally clear and very expensive.
“But there was no stone in it,” Anna said, startled. “There was an empty setting, yes, and some gold branches around it. I thought that was just the design.”
“That’s where the emerald was mounted,” the detective said. Then he added, “Mrs. Anna, I believe the people who broke into your apartment weren’t just after the locket. They were after the emerald. And they may come back.”
“But I’ve never seen any emerald,” Anna said.
“I believe you. It’s possible your father removed and sold it before he ever gave the locket to your mother. But the criminals don’t know that.”
He told her to be careful. Don’t walk alone at night. Don’t open the door to strangers.
“Is it really that serious?” Anna asked.
“Yes,” he said. “We questioned your neighbors. No one saw anything. But security footage from across the street suggests the break-in was done by professionals.”
“What about the pawn shop appraiser?”
“Gone,” the detective said. “Disappeared. He’s no longer at his listed address.”
A chill ran down Anna’s back. This was no longer just an odd family mystery. It was dangerous.
Outside the station, Mike was waiting for her.
“What are you doing here?” Anna asked.
“From now on, I’m walking you everywhere,” he said.
“I spoke unofficially with someone I know in the department. The situation is serious. I know about the stone. And because you know too, I’m not letting you go around alone.”
For the first time in years, Anna looked at him differently. Not as a weak man or a selfish fool, but as someone willing to stand up when it counted.
“How exactly are you planning to escort me everywhere when you have a job?” she asked.
