Jacqui couldn’t look at him. She tried not to let him see her cry, but he came to her anyway and wrapped his arms around her.
“I promise, Jacqui. We’ll spend as much time here as you want, and I won’t stop until you know everything you need to about your family.”
She nodded into his chest. “Thank you.”
He pulled back and wiped the tears off her cheeks.
“Ready to go on?”
“Yes. I don’t think there’s anything down here.”
“Then upstairs it is,” he said confidently.
They climbed the stairs to the second level of the house. Jacqui saw mostly bedrooms and one bathroom. Nothing stood out until Khizar waved at her from the doorway of the bedroom on the east side of the house.
Inside, above a pretty three-drawer dresser, was a large painting of a rose.
“That has got to be it,” Jacqui breathed, hardly able to believe it.
Khizar carefully felt around the painting’s frame, and then lifted it off the wall. He gently set the painting down, off to the side, out of the way.
A small metal panel sat in the wall, with four rotating discs lined up in the middle of panel and a small handle next to the discs.
“It’s a safe,” Khizar said, running his fingers along the edge of the safe’s door.
“So, we need a combination to open the lock, right?”
Khizar nodded. “Four numbers.”
“Okay. What four numbers should we try?”
Khizar studied the safe for another minute.
“Usually, people use numbers they won’t forget. Birthdays, anniversaries, things like that. This kind of safe, it doesn’t matter how many combinations we try. It won’t lock us out after a certain number.”
“Well, that’s good, at least. Do you know Bill’s birthday?”
“I know the date, but not the year.”
“Try it and see.”
Khizar put in four numbers for the month and day of Bill Bauer’s birthday. Then, he tried it reverse, just to be sure. The safe didn’t open.
“Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy,” Jacqui said.
“Is there anything else in his letter?”
Jacqui carefully pulled out her great-uncle’s note to her and reread it, looking for any numbers or anything that might be translated into numbers.
She shook her head. “I don’t see anything that would work.”
“What about your birthday?” Khizar asked. “He left this for you to open.”
He stepped aside so that Jacqui could put in the numbers. Jacqui tried a few different combinations—the day and month, the month and year, reversing each of those—but nothing worked.
They thought in silence for a few minutes until Jacqui looked up with an idea.
“What if it is my birthday, but it’s also the day Uncle Bill and I met?”
Khizar nodded once. “That’s it. It’s something only you would know.”
Jacqui put in the day of her birthday and the last two digits of the year. She heard a click, and then she pulled on the handle.
Jacqui slowly opened the door to the safe, and gasped. The Bauer Diamond sat inside the wall safe on a bed of black velvet, and even in the dim light of the bedroom, it shone like a small star.
Khizar peered over her shoulder, and Jacqui heard a sharp intake of breath from him.
“Wow,” he said, reverentially.
Jacqui reached into the safe and picked up the diamond. She’d never held anything quite like it. Stunning didn’t do the gem justice—it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. Turning, she walked to where they could see the diamond in better light.
Standing in front of a window, sunlight hit the diamond and scattered the light in a rainbow of prisms on the far wall.
“It’s beautiful,” Jacqui said softly.
“It is, without a doubt, the most exquisite diamond I’ve ever seen,” Khizar added.
Jacqui laughed, a little nervously.
“This is the real thing, right? It’s not another clue.”
“No, this is definitely the real diamond. I’ve never seen anything like it. No wonder Bill hid it away. He would never have had a moment of peace if he’d kept this in public.”
Jacqui turned the diamond over. It was perfect, but it was also something that her great-uncle had touched. It was part of his history, and so it was part of Jacqui’s. But, standing there with a priceless diamond in her hands, Jacqui realized that she had no idea what to do with it now.