Diary of a Teenage Jewel Thief(34)

“What are you doing?” My voice is harsher than I meant it to sound, but I set my hands on my hips and own it.

Uncle Samuel lurches upright and slams the drawer. When he turns to face me, his expression is one of innocent confusion and for a brief moment, I think he might try to play dumb. But there’s really no way to play off the fact that I’ve just caught him rifling through my stuff, and he must realize it because his shoulders sag in defeat before he says, “I was looking for something.”

“Clearly,” I answer.

“Let’s go to another room. We should talk.” He motions toward the front of the apartment, and after a moment, I head for the living room. His footsteps follow not far behind.

“Mari?” My mother steps out of her room, fresh from the shower, with her hair wrapped in a bath towel. “I thought you left for school. Is everything all right?”

“I forgot my homework. But when I came back in, Uncle Samuel was going through my stuff.”

Her eyes widen in shock. Then she pins my uncle with a look of pure fury. “What were you doing? Looking for money? You won’t find any alcohol in there.”

“I wasn’t looking for alcohol.” He sounds insulted, and I don’t know why, but it makes me feel a little sorry for him. Until he follows it up with, “Can we go sit and talk? There’s something you need to know.”

My mother looks like she wants to argue, but she ends up motioning for us to follow her to the living room. I wait for my uncle to pass me before heading that way myself, and I have to hold my breath against the stench of booze hanging around him like a cloud. He obviously wasn’t looking in my room for alcohol, because he’s already been drinking. Probably has a secret stash of it hidden in the guest room.

I watch him carefully as he heads for the couch and settles himself on the cushions. He carries himself well for a man who’s drunk at seven a.m. Or maybe this is his normal.

I claim the same chair I sat in the night Uncle Samuel arrived here, and my mother sits in the other one. If it weren’t for the bright sunlight streaming through the windows, I’d be experiencing some serious déjà vu.

“All right, Sam. What’s going on?” My mother sounds less accusing than before. Now, she just sounds worried.

He doesn’t answer right away, then finally says, “You know how Petrov Rosinsky chased you both out of France?”

I nod. My mother doesn’t move.

Uncle Samuel continues. “Well, it wasn’t because he found out you were moving in on the duchy jewels. Or that you actually managed to get them. Though that did piss him off a little.” Yep. He’s definitely drunk.

“Go on,” my mother encourages.

Uncle Samuel looks around the room as if he’s scanning for interlopers, then leans forward and whispers, “He’s after the book.”

Okay, maybe Uncle Samuel is drunk and crazy. Why would Petrov send killers after us for some book?

“What book, Sam?” My mother’s voice is low and serious, like she’s scolding him for missing curfew or something.

“The diary!” he says like we’re being intentionally thick-skulled.

And then it hits me. “My journal?”

“Yes! The one Gabriel gave you before he…” Uncle Samuel seems to come to his senses before he mentions my father’s death. He looks wide-eyed to my mother, as if for direction, then guiltily down at the carpet under his feet. “Rosinsky wants the diary.”

“Why does he want Marisol’s diary?” My mother’s overly calm reaction is starting to put me on edge. She’s always taking things in stride; that’s no surprise, but there’s something deadly in her calm this morning.

“I don’t know.” Uncle Samuel sits back among the couch cushions, looking defeated. “I just know that’s what he’s after.”

We sit there like that, none of us speaking, for so long I begin to wonder if we’ll ever speak again. I mentally run through my journal entries. The book is thick, probably several hundred pages, and even though I’ve had it for more than nine years, only about half of those pages are filled. I really only write in it when I’m missing my father or big changes have happened in my life. And of course, when we pull off a heist. Every job we’ve ever successfully completed is in that book, like the duchy exhibit. Could that be why he wants it—to have written record of our criminal exploits?

It was stupid of me to write them down. Part of me realized that when I was doing it. Now, I fully recognize the error of my ways.

A soft snore interrupts my thoughts, pulling my attention away from the journal tucked under my window seat right now. Uncle Samuel is passed out. His head is tilted against the back of the couch, and his arms are spread wide on each side. His mouth hangs open, and even as I watch him, another snoring inhale rattles at the back of his throat, this time louder than the first.

My mother rises gracefully and crosses over to the couch. She grabs the throw from the back and lays it gently over my uncle. “You should head to school, mija. We’ll figure this all out later, sí?”

“School?” Yeah, that is so not happening now. “I can’t. Not now, not today.” Maybe not ever.

My mother’s expression is a mask of pity and sadness, but she doesn’t argue with me or try to comfort me. I head to my room wordlessly. I can’t digest this new turn of events. And I don’t think I’ll be able to for some time. I pull my phone from my pocket and send a quick message to Will letting him know I’m not going to be there today. I don’t want him to stand around waiting for me—or worse, show up at my door. My phone chimes his response almost immediately, but I don’t bother reading it. As soon as I enter my room, I drop the phone on my dresser and head for my window seat and my journal hidden under the cushion. I go to it as if pulled by gravity, pick it up, turn it over and over in my hands. Then I open it, and I sit. And I write.