The Sapphire Brooch Katherine Logan (best beach reads TXT) 📖

the call went to voice mail. Her voice was sharp and shook slightly with concern. “Call me. STAT.”

Her brother was fanatical about keeping his Outlook calendar current. He had deadlines and media events he scheduled and then synchronized to his phone. Maybe he’d entered an appointment which would explain his absence.

She booted up his laptop and a document popped open. Curious, she read a few paragraphs about his meeting with one of the conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination, Mary Surratt, at her boarding house at 604 H Street NW shortly before the assassination. Charlotte picked up a pen and sat back in her chair, twirling the Bic ballpoint between her fingers. Jack hadn’t told her about the interview. She knew about the one he had with Booth, of course, but not Surratt, and while she remembered Surratt was one of the conspirators, she wasn’t sure what role she had played in the conspiracy. She shrugged and opened Outlook. Jack had blocked out time for dinner with her on Friday night—nothing else was scheduled.

Sighing with frustration and a heavy dose of worry, she closed the computer and locked up the apartment.

Driving home, she thought about where he might be. Researching was the logical conclusion, but why wasn’t he answering his phone? If he was in the mountains out of cell range it would explain no calls or texts, but if he’d gone to the cabin he routinely used, he would have called to cancel dinner. If he didn’t call her in the next hour or two, she’d call his agent. Maybe she had heard from him.

When Charlotte arrived at her house, she found her medical bag open on her unmade bed. Obviously, Jack had been to her place and looked for his journal. Did he find it? Until he called, she had no way of knowing.

She put the bag back into the closet, unpacked her suitcase, dumped the dirty clothes into a pile, and then slipped into a pair of sweats and a running T-shirt. Dinner was supposed to be at Jack’s place. Now she’d have to come up with something to eat. She stood in front of the gourmet refrigerator that had come with the purchase of her house and cost more than a Honda, and pondered her choices. A bottle of Cailean, Meredith Montgomery’s chardonnay, a package of cheese, a bottle of water, and a half-gallon of outdated milk were the only items on the shelves.

Go without or carryout.

While she considered Chinese or barbecue, she carried a glass of wine to her office, sat down at the desk, and opened her Mac laptop. She wasn’t interested in checking email, so she googled Mary Surratt and discovered she was charged with aiding and abetting her codefendants. Charlotte knew the government had hanged several of the conspirators. Was Surratt one of them? She Googled the question and found the military panel had sentenced five defendants to the gallows: Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, Mary Surratt, and Jack Mallory.

For one shocking moment, the steady hand of time stopped dead.

She didn’t flinch or look away, but continued to stare wide-eyed at the computer. Then blood seemed to drain from her body, leaving icy cold fear freezing her veins. Jack Mallory? Impossible. She slammed the lid down on the laptop and left the room, wineglass in hand, wandering aimlessly through the house. Her fear faded, mutating into agitation spinning out of control in the pit of her stomach.

On July 7, 1865, the government had hanged a man named Jack Mallory for conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Why hadn’t she known? Simple. How many people knew the names of the conspirators? How many people could name the presidents or state capitols? She shrugged as if the answer was obvious. Unless a person was a teacher, a student of history, or author, probably not many knew. She knew Virginia history and Civil War history as it related to the Commonwealth, but that was the extent of her expertise.

But to have the same last name…

The conspirator Jack Mallory had been dead for more than a hundred and fifty years. Her Jack must be secluded in a mountain cabin out of cell range so he could meet his deadline. Time must have gotten away from him, and he forgot she was coming home. He had done it before. It made sense.

She collapsed onto a chair next to the stairs, pushed aside a stack of clean jeans and T-shirts, and glanced up toward her bedroom door. There was a quick way to prove her brother was not the same Jack Mallory hanged for conspiring to kill Lincoln.

Open the puzzle box.

Slowly she climbed the stairs, imaging the terror which must have burned through the condemned as they climbed the stairs to the gallows.

She halted on the top step. This was ludicrous. She was terrifying herself over an improbability. Her bedroom door, several feet ahead, gaped open. With a deep, conscious inhale-exhale and her feet dragging, she crept forward, wading through a pool of shoes and clothes and unread journals.

Clean thongs and bras, running socks without mates, and a couple of empty wineglasses cluttered the top of the dresser. The puzzle box that held her most precious piece of jewelry sat in plain view. Clammy hands reached for it. Now that she knew the solution to the puzzle, opening the box took only seconds. A rivulet of sweat trickled down the side of her face.

Inside was a blue velvet bag with a gold-corded drawstring. Upon her return, she had wrapped the sapphire brooch in the bag and carefully tied a perfect bow.

The bow was now untied.

With nerves curling, she dug her fingers inside the cut velvet, but nothing was there. She drew a trembling breath and swayed a little as waves of darkness washed over her. Everything went faintly out of focus. Her legs turned soft and wobbly, and she fell into a bottomless cavern of despair.

73

Richmond, Virginia, Present Day

Charlotte’s world had already been teetering on its