35

EPILOGUE

“Hello, Mother.”

At the sound of my voice, Tara looks up in alarm from the Lombardy bar—a turn of events I’m quite pleased to have orchestrated on my own. It’s no fun being startled all the time by someone sneaking around in the background. Let’s see how much she likes it.

“What are you doing?” she snaps. “Don’t call me that.”

I ignore her and gesture to the bartender, who’s pretending not to watch us. “I’d like a club soda, please, and get my mother here another of whatever she’s having.”

“For God’s sake, Pen. Keep your voice down.” To the bartender, she purrs, “I’m not her mother. She’s delusional.”

“My mother likes to crack jokes, but she’s quite loving once you get to know her.”

“I’ll call security and have you escorted out,” she warns. “One look at the two of us sitting here, and I promise they’ll think you’re the crazy one.”

She’s not wrong. In her skintight orange minidress, Tara has never looked less like anyone’s mother, let alone mine.

I roll the suitcase I’ve been dragging behind me up to the bar and take a seat, pressing the handle down with a click. “I brought your clothes back. I don’t think I’ll be needing them anymore.”

“Oh?” She swivels her stool back to face the bar, feigning disinterest. “Did your grandmother decide it’s too risky to have you accompany her to future events? Have you been banned from polite society?”

“Actually, no.” I swivel my own stool so we match—two ladies out on the town, sitting side by side and having drinks. “She’s quite proud of me for uncovering the truth about Jane. Apparently, we Duponts are the only ones capable of seeing through deception to a person’s true motives. It’s one of our many talents.”

Tara has to clap a hand over her mouth to keep her drink from spewing back out. “Like hell you are. I’m the one who saw through her deception.”

“Yes, but you fled the scene before you could take any credit for it. So I took it all.” I press a cocktail napkin against my lips in a gesture of genteel tranquility. “Grandmother is so pleased, she’s going to take me on a shopping spree to outfit me properly. Apparently, she’s tired of me dressing like a harlot—her words, so you can put that knife down. I’m afraid I’m going to end up with a closet full of pantsuits.”

Tara laughs. “Serves you right.”

It does serve me right, but then, so would a lot of things—including Tara marching out of here without a word of explanation. She doesn’t, though. I turn to her with a question on my lips, grateful for this opportunity to voice it.

“How did you know it was Jane?” I ask.

She allows herself a moment of careful consideration before turning the question back on me. “How did you?”

“I didn’t—that’s the point,” I say. “The whole time, I suspected you and Riker and Jordan and Christopher…not once did I think Jane was the culprit. I didn’t have the smallest clue it was her.”

“But you did,” she insists. “When you stood outside the museum facing the pair of us, both equally likely suspects, you turned the gun on her instead of me. Why?”

It’s an easy question, but it doesn’t have an easy answer—and I should know, because I’ve been trying to figure it out for days. Grant says it was my inherent brilliance, but that’s because he’s trying to get me to sign him out of the hospital a week early.

“I have no idea,” I say with perfect honesty. “It was mostly a feeling I had. From all the stuff she said about my mom, it was obvious she admired her, but… I don’t know. She made her seem so perfect, so untouchable. That’s not what love is.”

I don’t think Tara’s going to like this next part, but I say it anyway.

“Love isn’t putting a person on a diamond pedestal, or even carrying a picture of them in your wallet years after they’re gone.” I know that now. It’s recognizing their flaws and imperfections, loving them in spite—and because—of them. It’s finding a common ground between a life of crime and the FBI. It’s this crazy thing Grant and I have somehow managed to make for ourselves. “Jane only said those things about my mom to try and get me on her side. You’ve never sugarcoated how you feel about either of us.”

Tara pauses so long, I’m afraid I pushed the subject too far, but she eventually takes a drink from her martini glass and turns to me. “You know what your problem is, Pen?”

“I only have one?”

She ignores the insouciance of my reply. “You don’t trust your gut enough. I’ve always thought that.”

“Really?”

“Don’t be too flattered—most of my observations spring from professional jealousy, not personal interest. What would you say was your first impression when you met Christopher Leon?”

I need only a moment to gather my thoughts. “Oh, the poor guy. I felt like he was way too nice and uneasy to be any good as a federal agent. That ended up being painfully accurate, didn’t it?”

“What about Jane?”

That one requires even less time. “I thought she was a jaguar, all sleek and muscled. Predatory. But then she claimed to know my mom, and—”

“And you mistrusted your initial reaction.” She stops. “What about me?”

No time at all. “You were the devil incarnate, come to earth to ruin my life.”

Her smile isn’t quite as pronounced this time. “Also painfully accurate. That was exactly what I did.”

“Tara, I—” I begin, but this next part doesn’t come so easy. I bite my lip as I think best how to capture my thoughts—about Tara’s role in my painful youth, about the overtures of friendship she’s been extending lately, even the way she hinted at Jane’s true motivations the day she gave me my mom’s picture. There are so many different things I feel about this woman, all of them swirling until I don’t know if they can be untangled anymore.

In the end, I decide it doesn’t matter. “I’m glad it wasn’t you,” I say.

She doesn’t reply—at least not right away—and when she does finally speak, it’s to provide more of that semimaternal advice. “Trust your intuition, Pen, and you’ll be fine. You have an unerring talent for handling people.”

“I do?”

“Of course.” She waves an airy hand, but the gesture feels forced. “Just look at your life, at everyone who came out of the woodwork the moment you needed help. I never thought I’d live to see the day three federal agents would willingly team up with four jewel thieves to work toward a common goal, but you pulled it off.”

I flush. “They didn’t do that for me. They did it for Grant.”

“They did it for you,” she says firmly. “Just like you asked them to. Just like you knew they would. I don’t know how, but you’ve managed to surround yourself with a group of people who love you without question. Grant, Jordan, Oz, Riker, Warren, Simon, Cheryl, Mariah, your grandmother…”

She holds her breath and looks at me askance. I hold my breath and wait.

“…and me,” she finishes, unsteady. “You have to know that there isn’t anything we wouldn’t do for you.”

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out.

“I’m not nearly as good as you at seeking out loyal allies, obviously, but I do tend to get an accurate read on people. Christopher Leon is a perfect example. I never knew the guy, of course, but I did hear that he was working with Grant—and that there was friction between them. From there, it was easy to rile you up.”

“That wasn’t very nice of you.”

“No, it wasn’t—which was part of the reason I took such a keen interest in Jane. I wanted to prove to you that I’m not all bad. And she seemed too good to be true, dropping in like she did, full of promising stories about your mother when she never bothered to look you up before.” She shrugs. “I dug into her background a little, saw that her cosmetics company wasn’t enjoying robust stocks lately, and put the pieces together. It made sense. I once told you you’d be surprised what you can get away with by acting like you belong somewhere. That’s exactly what Jane did. She walked upstairs when everyone else was busy and took what she wanted.”

Jane confessed as much to the FBI a few days ago. She also admitted to knowing that my mom married a jewel thief and that I was the product of that union. She never intended to copy my methods, but when I showed up and paved the way for the theft of the Starbrite Necklace, she jumped at the chance.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you tried to warn me about her.”

She laughs softly. “That’s okay. I didn’t expect you to. What reason did you have to listen to me? Besides—I wasn’t one hundred percent sure myself. I didn’t want to accuse your newfound mother figure without proof. Not after you were already so mad at me for keeping that picture all those years.”

It seems a strange thing to be mad about now. I love that picture of my mother, love even more that I’m in there with her, but having it in my possession doesn’t mean anything. It’s as futile as putting her on a pedestal. She’s still gone, and I’m still me. Those are things I’ll never be able to change, no matter what happens.

What I can change, however…

Without waiting for Tara to sense—and counteract—my intentions, I throw my arms around her and bury my nose in her neck.

“Oh, God.” She lifts her arms to try and force me back. “What are you doing? Stop that. Stop that right now.”

“You can’t make me,” I say and hold on tighter. “Mom.”

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in the Penelope Blue series

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