Freeze (The Jewel Project #4)

4.2|| New Leader

Jessie had never seen a more unorganized family. She'd first thought that hiding Tom and Sam's absence from their parents would be damn near impossible. It turned out to be stupidly easy. Every morning, Maxi and Freider would be in a rush to leave for work, wishing them good morning, asking about the others.

As it turned out, Kyle always left before everyone else, while Jerry was usually the one to leave the house last. Claiming Sam and Tom had either left with Kyle or went out jogging did the trick every single time. Dinner was the same. No one in that house ate at the same time unless it was planned weeks ahead.

In a flurry of early Christmas shopping, Maxi was almost never home, and when she was, she usually cleaned around or cooked. Freider always retreated to his office after work. No one batted an eyelash that they hadn't seen their children in days as long as the other children claimed they'd seen them.

Kay found the situation exceptionally weird. Jessie found it stupid, but she couldn't say she wasn't used to it. After all, her own family didn't give a crap about her.

As far as research went, she and Jerry retreated to their home library every afternoon to try and figure out the whereabouts of the new jewel. Tina often joined them, an unpleasant spirit lingering in the corner with her arms crossed over her chest.

Jessie tried to ignore her and her show of hostility, but the truth was she couldn't understand what was going on and it pissed her off. True, she and Tina weren't exactly friends and barely exchanged any words since Tina was so quiet, but she'd never gotten the impression that there was any animosity there.

Apparently, she'd been wrong. But for Jerry's sake, she refused to get into any sort of conflict with Tina. So Jessie just said hi and then minded her own business, only speaking to her if she was spoken to first. It became increasingly easy to forget she was even there as the research absorbed her.

Unlike they'd thought, Snitch Gravel's notes weren't that useful since they presented a thousand and one useless possibilities of where and what each jewel could be. From all his notes, it was obvious that he thought there were more than four.

While Jessie went over lists and maps, Jerry had started reading on the history of France, correctly assuming he might find some information about a large jewel there. She'd never appreciated how the urgency of Sam and Tom's departure would make the entire research process so frustrating.

"Come on, give me something," she mumbled as she glanced over yellowing pages, trying to decipher Snitch Gravel's handwriting.

"Did you find any mentions about France?" Jerry asked, his eyes glued to the book in front of him.

"Yes, but it's mostly abbreviations and references to other pages I can't seem to find." She shuffled through the papers, when finally, her eyes rested on one she hadn't seen before. It looked like a family tree, so she pulled it out and studied it.

It was by far the strangest family tree she'd seen because it seemed to go the opposite way. The first names were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but Jessie was pretty sure they were the last king and queen of France and had been killed together with their entire family if they even had any kids at that point.

The people under them were the previous king and queen of France. So Jessie concluded Snitch Gravel was going backwards with the genealogy. The question was, what was he after? She found her answer at the bottom of the page in messy handwriting: French crown jewels? Sapphire.

Even with the question mark, this supposition was circled, as if this were his final conclusion. And Jessie had to admit that it fit. It would also explain the genealogy.