“Prestige?” Gianna wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, because of Grandpa and who your dad was. And that you’re an ME. Everyone thinks that’s cool.” Violet had yet to look her mother in the face. “And because of the accident,” she added quietly.

“He said that to you?”

“No. I heard him talking about it with someone at Nana’s funeral. He acted like it was no big deal and that you’d told him all about it. But I knew you hadn’t, right?” Dark eyes turned toward her mother.

Gianna was quiet as she studied Violet. “You’re right. I told him I preferred not to discuss it.”

“I knew it. That asshole.”

“Language!” Gianna slid the key card in a slot and opened the door, then entered and began flipping on light switches.

“Smells old,” mumbled Violet as she tossed her bag on a bed.

“It is old.”

Chris took a peek in the closet and checked the bathroom of the suite. All clear. “Do you want to look at those photos again now?” He’d grabbed a spare laptop at his brother’s when they’d picked up Violet. He set it on the large desk and turned it on, then opened up the remote software he and Michael used. He remoted into his computer at home and accessed his private server, where Frisco’s pictures had been automatically backed up. He pulled up the photos.

Gianna walked up behind him as he sat in the desk chair and placed a hand on his shoulder as she leaned over it. “I need to get into my email, too. I noticed on my phone that one of Saul’s assistants sent me an attachment. It must be scans of the photos we asked for. Can we look at those first?”

He followed her instructions to access her email and downloaded the attachment, opening the photos in a viewer. Gianna gasped at the first one and leaned closer. He could smell her skin. If he turned his head, her chest would be inches away. He stared forward, not seeing the screen for a few moments as he got control of his thoughts.

Us alone in a hotel room.

Violet is here.

He waffled between being thankful for Violet’s presence and resenting it. He blinked and the photo in front of him came into focus. A huge Christmas tree with a small girl standing alone in front of it, her feet buried in ripped-open wrapping paper. She was dressed in a Winnie-the-Pooh nightgown and had a broad smile that showed missing front teeth. She wore a gold necklace that looked like it belonged on a rapper, not a child.

The original photo was quite old and had yellowed slightly. Chris enlarged the image.

Gianna laughed at what appeared. “I remember that necklace. I loved it.”

The gold necklace featured a Barbie head.

“Didn’t they look closely at the photos?” Chris asked.

“I think Saul told them to send any pictures of a large gold necklace. He wasn’t specific.”

Chris moved to the next and moved on after a quick glance. The next several photos showed Gianna or her mother wearing jewelry, but none were of the large pendant they wanted to see. Gianna stopped him on several photos, her dark gaze drinking in the pictures of her mother. More than once she commented that she didn’t remember a photo. Violet silently watched from the other side of Chris.

“Why did he keep these from you?” Chris asked. The photos were a wealth of history. Frozen moments of two people who’d been cruelly ripped from the world.

“I don’t think my uncle thought of it that way.” Gianna didn’t look away from an image in which her parents were dressed up, clearly about to head out for some important social event. Her mother had the long skinny curls and huge poofy bangs that were a fixture of eighties fashion. Gianna’s father wore a skinny tie and looked like a younger version of Saul. “I think he was worried I’d be overwhelmed by all these pictures if he’d given them to me when I was a child.”

“You didn’t ask for them later?”

She grimaced and a shot of pain flashed in her eyes. “I did. He told me where they were stored, but I never made the effort to go look. It’s my own fault.”

“Are there other things that belonged to your parents stored away?”

“I think so. I don’t know what exactly. I should go sort through them. Seeing these photos makes me excited to do it.” She smiled at the screen, and he understood her need to connect to her past.

“Your dad looks a lot like your uncle. What’s the age difference?”

“Two years.”

“I wonder if resemblance made it harder or easier for you to adapt to him in your life,” Chris mused out loud.

Gianna reached over and enlarged her father’s face. “Good question. I really don’t remember. I never thought they looked alike when I was a kid. I see it clearly now that I’m an adult.” She continued to stare at her father’s face.

“Ready?” Chris’s finger was poised over the touch pad.

Gianna nodded. He tapped.

“Ohhhh!” Violet and Gianna leaned closer.

“Is that your grandmother?” Chris asked. A regal-looking woman with a sixties hairdo held a very young Gianna close to her face. Broad smiles shone from both of them, and even with the large age difference, it was apparent that Gianna resembled her grandmother. A large medallion hung around Gianna’s neck.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Mom, you look just like her!” Violet breathed. “I wonder how old she was in this picture.”

“There’s the necklace,” Gianna whispered. “I think this is when she gave it to me. I faintly remember seeing this picture before. Or maybe I just remember the occasion.”