No, David thought, but their uncle could have been. “That’s the last time they were seen in public?”

She nodded. “As far as I know.”

The marigold had been reduced to a little pile of bright yellow, which Sarah scooped into her palm. David noticed her nails were relatively short, but neat, a pale coral. She looked around the kitchen. He pointed out the wastebasket in the corner by the closet, and watched her as she walked over and dumped the mutilated marigold into the overflowing basket and brushed her palms together. She had yellow stains on her hands.

“Judith Land never reported the jewels stolen?” he asked.

Sarah shook her head. “Except for that rare photograph in the French magazine, there’s never been any indication that Judith Land ever owned the pieces. Maybe she borrowed them—or maybe they were given to her. I don’t know.”

“They weren’t listed in her will?”

“No.”

She fixed them both glasses of instant iced tea and smiled at the ancient ice trays and the tall cheap glasses. “It’s hard to believe you’re a millionaire, David,” she said bluntly.

He laughed. Even at his house up in the hills, he had glasses from K-Mart. As far as he was concerned, a glass was a glass: he went by size. But that was all beside the point. “So what’s this stuff about Balaton jewels?”

She handed him a glass of iced tea and sat back down, across from him. She left the marigolds alone. “My father insists there’s no such thing as the Balaton jewels. I suppose he should know, but the coincidences... I just have to believe he’s mistaken.”

“He hasn’t seen your picture of Judith Land in Vienna?”

She looked embarrassed. “He isn’t aware I have it— but he was there, of course. That was the night he and Judith announced their engagement. You’d think he’d remember what she was wearing.”

“It’s been thirty years.”

“But she was the love of his life, and if they were the Balaton jewels—” She broke off, confused, maybe even frightened.

David drank some of his tea; it tasted lousy. “Do you think he might have something to hide?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I can sympathize,” he said, giving her one of his lopsided grins. Women usually told him he had a great smile, but he was never sure what to believe and what not to believe; women had a tendency to tell him anything they thought he wanted to hear—at least most of the ones he’d met since the trust. They tried to be whatever they thought he wanted them to be, instead of just themselves. “Why did you come out here, Sarah? Why not just cut your losses?”

“I came north because I wanted to see your sister...meet her, try to explain. As for out here, to the farm—” She shrugged. “I was asked to come here.”

“Asked? By who?”

She snatched up a marigold. “By my father.”

“Well, well, well.”

“He...he’d like you to join him in New York for dinner tomorrow evening. He didn’t tell me why. I don’t understand anything of what’s in his mind, what he’s planning, why. I just know he’s my father and I believe in him—and I’d like to help him.”