David gave his sister a lopsided grin. “Hey, Ash, just in time for some burgers and iced tea. Hungry?”

“Sure. Why not?”

At twenty-nine, her brother was strong and sinewy with the tanned, healthy good looks of a man who spent most of his day outdoors. He had deep blue eyes, much darker than Ashley’s, but his hair was exactly the same dark shade as hers. He was working sporadically on his master’s in forestry, and he had no steady job—not that he needed one. He helped out at the farm, helped out his buddies, helped out owners of small woodlots and farmers struggling to hang on to their land. Mostly, though, he liked physical work. He had built a house high on a hill in a small town north of Amherst.

He poured three tall glasses of iced tea, and they all three—the last of the Wakefields—sat at the big pine table and drank up.

Finally, Ashley said, “I came by to let you both know that I’ve arranged to have the jewels brought here—to Boston, I mean. They should arrive via bonded courier tomorrow.”

“What the hell for?” David demanded.

Barky said nothing.

Ashley shrugged, not looking at her brother or uncle. “I want to wear them.”

“I thought you said they were gaudy.”

There was a note of accusation in David’s voice. She understood: four years ago, she had said the jewels in the safe-deposit box in the vaults of Piccard Cie in Geneva, Switzerland, were indeed gaudy. And they had agreed to leave them there, untouched, hidden. “I changed my mind.”

“Ash, jeez.”

She bit into an ice cube, feeling the sweat drip down the middle of her back. “It’s just the tiara and the choker. The rest will remain in the vault. I...wanted something different to wear to the opening of the institute’s new wing next Saturday.” She forced herself to brighten. “Why don’t you two come?”

David pushed back his chair and stood up. “I’d have to wear a tux.”

“Barky?”

“It’s not a good time to leave the farm.”

It never was, Ashley thought. He had come to Boston, once, to see her duplex overlooking Charles River and her offices on the Boston waterfront. He had never been to the New England Oceanographic Institute, although it consumed her every bit as much as her work. She was a director, trustee and major donor. But she had quit expecting her uncle would take an interest in that part of her life. When she was on the farm, they generally discussed canning and freezing and weather and animals—never the jewels, the money, the questions that had gone unanswered for four years. He was getting old now, into his sixties. Was that why she had taken the radical step of deciding to wear the tiara and the choker? Was she afraid he would die before he had given them answers? She wasn’t sure. She had awakened one morning, at a friend’s beach house on Cape Cod, and decided she had to do something. She couldn’t go on like this, not knowing, not even trying to know. She had never been good at maintaining the status quo. Now she desperately wanted to know: what would happen if she wore the jewels in public, just for one night?