She wiped away a rogue tear with the back of her hand and considered my question. “Friday.”
“That’s what I thought, but I heard your mom say no one was allowed to drive his car except him. But didn’t y’all come here in the Lincoln?”
She grimaced. “My mother’s not allowed to drive his car,” she said, “and neither am I. But the boys are.”
Ah, the male chauvinist good-ol’-boy thing. “So Nate was—”
“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “Nate had his own car. He had some meeting to go to. Derek drove us.”
She started rocking again. “He and my dad both go back and forth. Home for a month, then back to the Ivory Coast or wherever it is they go. Derek’s been home for four or five weeks now—”
He has?
“—and it’s been a nightmare. Ever since—” She stopped and gnawed at the corner of her fingernail and snuck a glance at me. “All they do is fight. They can’t hardly stand to be in the same room with each other.”
I stopped rocking, trying to sort everything out. “Miriam, you just said Derek drove ‘us.’ Were you there? Did you come into my shop that day?”
“Only for a minute. I waited in the car.”
“You know Nate has an alibi. When Nell was killed, he was on a trip somewhere.”
She sighed and allowed herself a small smile, the first one I’d seen from her since I’d been back in Bliss. “South Texas. I heard. I . . . I was so afraid maybe he’d done it.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “I can’t . . . I just . . . it was a mistake.”
I thought about how Miriam had said it was her fault Nell had died, and how Nell had been hiding Josie’s ring in a button jar. I stopped rocking again. “Did you tell Nell where Josie’s first engagement ring was? Is that how she was able to steal it?”
Her eyes popped wide and she gawked at me. “What?”
“The day she was killed, she hid the ring in the shop. I found it—”
Her voice came out in a faint whisper. “Where is it?”
I held my hand up, stopping her. “It’s safe.” I didn’t add it was in Meemaw’s safekeeping. I suspected Meemaw hadn’t known what Nell was up to, thus the rogue leg and shattered mason jars. But as I’d finished the bulk of Josie’s dress, I’d recounted aloud everything about the murder case, hoping she was listening.
“She was hiding it for me,” Miriam said. “I stole the ring.”
I tried not to react, keeping my rocking chair rhythm steady. Whatever I’d expected, it hadn’t been Miriam copping to a jewelry theft.
“I gave it to Nell to hold and now she’s dead.”
“But you’re the only one who knew Nell had the ring, besides Nate, right? And he wasn’t in Bliss when Nell was killed—”
She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “All I want is to keep Holly safe. If anything happens to her . . .”
I squeezed her hand, willing enough strength into her to get through the wedding. “It won’t, Miriam. Just tell me who—”
She looked through me, like she was looking into the past. “It’s not Nate. It was never Nate,” she said.
Chapter 48
“Diamonds,” Miriam said.
“A girl’s best friend,” I said.
She said, “Nate.”
I said, “Innocent.”
It felt like we were playing a word-association game. Either that or rewriting the lyrics to that old 1970s song “Undercover Angel.” She said, “Derek.” I said, “Shiver.” I still couldn’t believe I’d dated him, even briefly. It was better left forgotten.
She said, “Diamonds” again.
I said, “What about them?”
“This is going to sound crazy, I know, but hear me out.” She took a deep breath before saying, “I think Derek is using the family company to illegally import diamonds.”
She could have hit me with a wispy yard of organza and sent me flying clear to East Texas. The Kincaids were oil tycoons, for pity’s sake. Diversification of a stock portfolio was one thing, but going from black gold to conflict diamonds when you were already billionaires? I almost laughed.
“Why would you think that?” I asked.
She launched into the story. “I was at Nate’s office a few weeks ago for a board meeting. Holly had to stay after school, but she’d lost her cell phone and I hadn’t replaced it yet. I gave her mine so she could call me at home when she was ready to be picked up. Anyway, I went to Nate’s office a little early to talk to him about this idea I had to open a bookstore. I wanted Nate to invest in it.”
“Right. I heard your dad talking to Will Flores about it at the party the other night.”
“Nate was tied up with his secretary, so I waited in his office. His cell was on the desk and he got a text. I thought it might be Josie, but it was from Derek.”
She shook her head like she still couldn’t believe it.
“What did it say?”
“It was cryptic, but he basically said that it was too late for them to stop the next shipment and that Nate was an idiot if he thought it was going to be easy to get out.”
“And you think he was talking about diamonds?”
She nodded, falling silent as a couple of kids ran past the porch, their parents strolling behind them. “I didn’t have much time, but I scanned some of Nate’s old texts. He and Derek went back and forth over the size of the first diamond Nate had put into a ring, and then argued about how to get the second diamond. Nate asked when the next shipment was scheduled and where it was coming from. I’ve been researching how it’s done,” she continued. “Someone acts as a dealer. That person sells them to another dealer across two countries’ borders. Eventually they end up here. Diamonds can be exported from one country to another. A dealer doesn’t have to show where they came from, only certification from the country they’re leaving at that moment. Nate didn’t kill Nell, but he and Derek are in deep.”
I couldn’t tell her what I was thinking—that Nate was probably scheming to blow the whistle on the operation. The night Nell was killed, that had to be what he’d been working on. “And if Nate didn’t kill Nell, you think that—”
“Derek did.”
She got up and paced the porch. “They’re my brothers. I know you must think it’s warped, but how can I turn them in? It’ll kill my mother. It’ll ruin the family name. And the wedding—” She collapsed into the rocking chair again.
At least now I understood why she’d dropped out of the wedding party, but it didn’t help me figure out how she should handle this.
“Nell always seemed to ‘get’ my family. I could talk to her and she’d understand. I didn’t know what to do, so I asked her. She told me that everything would work out. She said she’d hold on to the ring for me while I figured out what to do.”
“And you think Derek found out?”
She nodded. “And if my brother wants something, especially something he thinks is his, he’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”
A chill crept up my spine. I wondered if doing whatever it took this time included murdering Nell.
Chapter 49
Mama showed up at the shop door and prevented us from any further discussion of the Kincaid family. She back-combed Miriam’s hair, giving it just the right amount of Texas volume. Meanwhile I finished the side seams of her dress, helping her into it when her hair and face were done.
She looked in the mirror, and I watched that sense of peace visibly flow through her. “It’s beautiful.”
The mint green linen, cut with a slight flare at the hem, had turned out exactly as I’d envisioned it. It brought out her Irish heritage, the rusty highlights in her hair vibrant and bold.