Paul humors me, and for the span of ten breaths. I watch his frown of concentration, those spider-fine lines fanning out from his eyes that mean he’s thinking really hard. I give him all the time he needs.

Finally, he lifts his hands from the table. “A watch. A piece from her grandma with some kind of stone. Some earrings, maybe? That’s all I remember.”

“It was a pair of gold hoops, a pearl bracelet, a watch, a ruby-and-diamond ring that once belonged to her grandmother. That’s what Micah told us. He also told us the police weren’t releasing the list of jewelry to the media. I checked, Paul, and it’s nowhere. No one has mentioned those pieces specifically.”

“Okay.” Paul drags out the word, still sounding for all the world like he still doesn’t know where this conversation is going. I stare across the table, taking in his furrowed brow, his measured breaths, the way his gaze stays strong and steady on mine, and I can’t decide if he’s playing me or not. His mother knows everything about him, but does he know what she’s capable of?

“The thing is, there’s no way your mother could have known unless she saw the jewelry for herself.”

“Could have known what?”

“Diana told me they were costume. She called them cheap.” I watch a shadow flit across his face, but he remains silent. He doesn’t move, either, other than to clasp his hands a little tighter, his knuckles going sharp and white. “Except how could she know that unless she saw it herself? Unless she held them in her own hands?”

“What exactly are you accusing her of?”

“Exactly what you think I am, and for the record, she didn’t deny it. Not even when I said they’d be looking to you for Sienna’s murder. Jax has an alibi, and Micah told all of us he didn’t kill Sienna. By then he’d already admitted to killing Katherine and driving the car that killed Bobby. Why not just come out and say he killed Sienna, too? At that point, he had no reason not to.”

“I don’t know. Because Micah was a monster. Because he wasn’t the person I thought he was.”

“And your mother? Is she the person you think she is?”

There’s a long stretch of silence, and I let him sit with things for a minute, giving him time for the full weight of his realization to sink in. Diana, who loves her son so fiercely, she’d silence anyone who got in his way. He winces, closing his eyes.