Finders Keepers by Fern Michaels

in her arms. “What should we do, Ben? Should we bury him or should we ask Charlie to cremate him. We never talked about it. I don’t want to talk about it now, but we have to. We could keep the ashes here in the room for . . . me, for us, for Hannah if she ever comes back, and for JJ. It would be like he’s still with us. But then maybe that isn’t good. I don’t know what to do, Ben.”
    â€œLet’s do that. I think it’s what we both want. We’ll make a special place for him. He’ll always be with us. Who cares if it’s good or not. It’s what we want, what we can handle. I’ll call Charlie to make the arrangements. We’ll have to explain to the kids what this is all about.”
    Grace nodded. “This is the second most miserable day of my life, Ben. I simply don’t understand. We’re good people. Why is God doing this to us?”
    â€œI don’t have the answer, Grace. Are we going to leave things just the way they are?”
    â€œI think I would die before I’d move a stitch of anything. Ben, another one of those boxes of money came today. I threw it in the back of the truck. You need to call the FBI.”
    â€œThe hell with the FBI. They couldn’t find a pile of dog crap if they stepped in it. Forget about calling them. I’ll put the money in the toy box and lock it. One of these days we need to discuss that money.”
    â€œI don’t want to discuss that money. Not now, not ever. Leave it there till it rots.”
    The following day, Jelly’s ashes were placed in Hannah’s room on a small ornate shelf that Ben Larson spent the night making in the garage. JJ watched the proceedings, his head on his paws. He waited until Grace and Ben walked through the door before he got to his feet. He tilted his head to look at them before he walked into the room and took up Jelly’s position on the old, worn blanket at the foot of the bed. As one, the Larsons nodded.
    There was a new caretaker guarding Hannah’s memory in the Larson household.
    Â 
    Charleston, South Carolina
1973
    Â 
    Jessie Roland waited until she was certain the house was completely silent. It was one-thirty in the morning. Surely her parents were asleep by now. Her steps were stealthy as she tiptoed down the winding staircase, out through the dining room to the kitchen, and then outside. She clutched her small flashlight tightly. The dew on the spiky grass felt wonderful on her bare feet. Her destination was the playhouse and the built-in storage room where she secreted everything she didn’t want her mother to see. She thanked God every day that neither her mother nor Ellie could enter the little house. She herself had to get down on her knees and crouch her way through the little rooms. She was careful to hold the flashlight downward so there would be no trace of light filtering out through the tiny windows.
    From long years and nights of practice, Jessie moved silently until she was in the room with the storage cabinet that had once held toys. Now it held her diaries, her cosmetics, her secret stash of money, notes from different boys when she was in high school, and, the prize of all prizes, her acceptance to New York University.
    Jessie sat down and hugged her knees. Tomorrow she was going to be as free as her friend Sophie. Together they had come up with the plan, a year ago, after her parents refused to allow her to go to college out of state. They had insisted she attend the College of Charleston so she could live at home and walk to class. For the first time in her life the temper tantrums she excelled in refused to work. She had agreed because she had no other choice. It was Sophie who said she needed a game plan and time to prepare, and that’s what she had done. Tomorrow morning she was driving to Atlanta for Sophie’s party in her brand-new BMW, her high-school graduation gift. There she would sell the car and purchase a new