Chapter 6
Serena confronted Miles with lawyers present.
No cameras.
No relatives.
Just four people around a conference table.
“Did Mom tell you to take the ring?”
Miles looked at his attorney.
Then answered.
“Yes.”
Serena shut her eyes.
“Why?”
“She said the trust situation was ridiculous.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“She wanted you to have the diamond.”
“I could have the ring through the trust.”
“She said Adria would force everything into equalization.”
Serena looked toward Adria.
Adria did not react.
This was Serena’s conversation.
Miles continued.
“Your mom said if the ring disappeared during the reception, the trust could list it as missing while things got sorted out.”
Serena stared.
“And Callum?”
“I didn’t know she was going to hit him.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Miles swallowed.
“I knew she had told security to watch him.”
“Why?”
“She said he was always getting into things.”
“Did you believe that?”
“I didn’t know him well.”
“You watched Mom accuse him.”
“Yes.”
“You had the ring.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed quiet.”
Miles looked down.
“Yes.”
Serena started crying.
Not loudly.
She simply stopped being able to hold her face still.
Miles leaned forward.
“I was going to speak.”
“When?”
“After she calmed down.”
“My nephew was on the floor.”
“I know.”
“You knew he didn’t take it.”
“Yes.”
Adria looked at Miles for the first time.
That single admission made the room colder.
Then Serena asked about Tuesday’s jeweler appointment.
Miles said Bernice wanted the diamond reset into something Serena could wear “without trust drama.”
Serena laughed through tears.
“So the answer to illegal trust distributions was to make the ring harder to identify.”
“I didn’t think of it that way.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
That sentence became the center of Miles’s problem.
He repeatedly did not think far enough to make himself stop.
Then investigators found a hotel text between Bernice and Miles.
Saturday afternoon:
Bernice:
Once you have it, leave after first dance if necessary.
Miles:
Where?
Bernice:
Your hotel safe tonight. Harcourt Tuesday.
Miles:
And if people ask?
Bernice:
Let security do its job.
Miles:
Callum?
Bernice:
He’ll be fine.
Three words.
He’ll be fine.
The same moral discount adults used whenever they knew someone else would absorb the discomfort.
Then another message:
Miles:
I don’t like making a kid look guilty.
Bernice:
Nobody is arresting an eight-year-old over family jewelry. Stop dramatizing.
There it was.
She had anticipated Callum becoming a suspect.
Not necessarily arrested.
Not prosecuted.
Just blamed long enough to make the disappearance believable.
May you like
Miles knew.
He still took the ring.
