Chapter 24

“I should have realized you’d notice that. Her earrings, Mark. Those rubies were given to Allison by Clarkson Palmer, her first husband. Quite garish, but quite expensive. He asked for them back when the marriage collapsed, but after twenty-five years, she refused to return them. She told me she’d earned them, that after all the aggravation he put her through with one midlife crisis after another, she’d be damned if she’d let him give those rubies to his…child bride.”

I had a feeling those weren’t the words Mrs. Mann’s friend had used to describe the young woman who had snared her husband.

“Could they be fakes?”

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose it’s possible, but they looked real to me.”

“So why would she give them to her present husband’s sister?”

“I don’t know, Mark. But I intend to find out.”