Searching for Answers
Outside the gates, Liam ran after me. “I swear I’ll get to the bottom of this,” he promised. His father’s reaction, he said, wasn’t logic—it was panic.
Back at my small, aging house, I tried to hold myself together. Then I remembered Nana’s attic. Among the boxes, I found her jewelry box. Inside lay the serpent brooch, gleaming with deep green stones set in gold scales. It was clearly no flea-market trinket.
I took it to Mr. Halpern, an elderly jeweler downtown. His eyes widened the moment he saw it. “This is genuine. Very old. Custom work. Quite valuable,” he said. Then he added, “I’ve seen this before.”
Decades earlier, a wealthy woman had brought it in for insurance. Later, it was reported stolen. Turning the brooch over, he pointed to a tiny engraving—the Liam family crest.
My stomach dropped.
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