Chapter 10 - THE PAWN TICKET
A week had passed since the gala. The media fallout had been spectacular. Robert’s mugshot was on the front page of the Chicago Tribune, and Brooks & Mitchell Restorations had officially been born.
Vanessa and I were in Robert’s old corner office, boxing up his personal belongings. The room smelled stale, devoid of the cigars he used to smoke when he thought I wasn't around.
“I still can't believe the board tried to force us to sell,” Vanessa said, throwing a golf trophy into a cardboard box.
“They underestimated us,” I replied, pulling open the bottom drawer of his heavy oak desk. “Just like he did.”
As I pulled the drawer out completely to check behind it, I heard a faint rattle. I reached my hand into the dark cavity beneath the desk frame and pulled out a small, locked metal cash box.
Vanessa paused. “Is that company money?”
“Let's find out,” I said. I grabbed a heavy brass letter opener and pried the flimsy lock open with a sharp snap.
Inside, there was no money.
There was only a single, faded yellow slip of paper.
A reversal hit me. I had assumed Robert had hidden all his secrets in the Thunderbird or at the clinic. But this was something else entirely.
I unfolded the paper. It was a pawn shop ticket, dated twenty-six years ago—a year before Robert and I even opened the first shop.
“What is it?” Vanessa asked, leaning over the desk.
“It’s a pawn ticket,” I whispered, staring at the item description.
One 14k gold diamond solitaire ring. Engraved: ‘To Dorothy, Forever.’
My breath caught. It was my mother’s wedding ring. The one she told me she lost down the kitchen sink when I was a teenager.
Answer one: Robert didn't just borrow twelve thousand dollars from my mother to start the business. He had pawned her most prized possession before the company even existed.
Open two: Why did Dorothy let him pawn her ring? And why did Robert keep the ticket hidden for twenty-six years?
“Look at the redemption date,” Vanessa pointed to the bottom of the slip. “It says it was never claimed. The shop kept the ring.”
May you like
I gripped the yellow paper, a new wave of anger and determination flooding my chest. “Vanessa, take over the board meeting this afternoon. I have an errand to run.”
I grabbed my purse and the keys to the Thunderbird. I was going to get my mother’s ring back, no matter what it cost.
