Putting those disturbing thoughts on hold, I read through the rest of the report, but nothing else jumped out at me. We'd already found the link between my mom and the Holden brothers. The theory that Kade's father was in on the job wasn't backed up by anything but speculation. There was no link between him and the Holdens. Kade's father had worked for the private security company for more than two years with no incident. The only clue that had led to the speculation was that he'd told the other security personnel he was going to stay behind to take one last pass through the house. They said they didn't know why he'd done that because they'd all done their checks thirty minutes earlier.

Why had he stayed behind? Had he seen something or heard something?

Sadly, I didn't think we'd ever know. I looked up as the sound of bells from the washing machine pierced my reverie. I got up and moved the bedding into the dryer, then I returned to the couch, thinking about what I'd put together so far.

I couldn't begin to figure out who had robbed James Holden and killed Kade's father, but my mother and possibly her sister had had some involvement. Ian had taken my mother into his brother's house a few days before the party. That wasn't a coincidence. She'd learned something while she was there. It was possible someone had used my mom's connection to Ian Holden at NYU to coerce her into helping the robbery crew. But I could be giving her too much credit.

Closing my eyes, I drew in a breath and slowly let it out, my mom's image floating through my brain. I didn't try to chase it away. I wanted to see where it would take me. I wanted to remember not just the good times, but the bad times.

But there weren't any bad times, I soon realized. She'd been a great mother. Maybe she'd used the museum as a way to meet up with her sister, but she'd taken us a lot of places where we could learn about art and history and music. She'd taught me to play the violin. She'd read us stories. She'd watched movies with us. She'd taught us how to garden. Every spring, we would do a new planting. Watching her putter around that garden, tending to each plant with nurturing love, had made it feel magical. The flowers had practically shimmered in the sunlight. I remembered the dirt slipping through her fingers as she dug down deep into the planter box. And then everything was so shiny when the sun hit her hand.