My eyes flew open, and I abruptly sat up, my heart beginning to race. There hadn't just been dirt in her hands—there had been stones, shiny stones. I'd asked her once where she'd found them. She'd just laughed and said she'd gotten them a long time ago. The shiny stones helped the plants grow.

But they hadn't been magical stones to grow plants. They'd been real stones, clear, sharp-edged brilliant rocks that looked like diamonds, blue stones that could have been sapphires, and green ones that could have been emeralds.

I jumped to my feet and paced back and forth, wondering if I could possibly be on to something. As my gaze moved toward the window, I saw the garden on the back patio and the colorful flowers planted along the back fence.

I threw open the back door and dashed down the stairs.

When the person had broken into the house, they'd turned over the patio chairs and tossed around the gardening supplies in the small shed at the back of the property, but they hadn't dug into the planter boxes.

As I stared at the garden options, I wondered if I was crazy. Would my mother have really planted priceless gems in dirt?

I didn't even know if she actually had any of the stolen items. But as Kade had pointed out, she'd paid for things that cost far more than she would make on a teacher's salary.

I picked up a spade from the shed and walked over to the flower garden. Getting down on my knees, I put the spade into the earth and started to dig.

Thirty minutes later, I'd ripped apart most of the flower bed and had found nothing. My hands were dirty, and my knees and arms were aching. I thought about giving up, but there wasn't much farther to go. I might as well finish it.

As I ripped up the last bunch of flowers, my spade hit something hard, and my heart jumped. I dug down deeper, tossing away the garden tool to use my hands. Finally, I pulled out a metal box that was about eight by ten inches in size. I could hardly believe it. There was a small combination lock on the box and for a moment, I thought that would stop me. But I put in my birthdate, and it popped open. I sat back on the ground and opened the lid, my heart beating very fast.

Inside the box was a stack of baby and toddler photos from the first seven years of my life. She must have had them in her wallet when she'd disappeared. There was also a stack of postcards from random places, none of which had been written on, which made me frown. I wondered if my mother had been to those places over the years, but why hide them away?