“You’d be surprised. The good ones are hardier than you think.” Mira nodded at the right side of the unit. “Why don’t I start over there, and you can start on the other side.”
“Sounds good.”
They worked in silence for a good half hour. Sejal grew increasingly discouraged as she came across lots of documents that should have been shredded a long time ago and nonsense knickknacks and clothes that didn’t seem to have any significance. But nothing related to Alexei.
After moving aside a big wardrobe box, she discovered a desk behind it. A small jewelry box was in one of its drawers, and the fluorescent lights flashed on the gold earrings inside. She picked them up and weighed them in her hand. “Hey,” she called to Mira, “there’s some real gold over here.”
Mira came to stand next to her. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her eyes narrowed on the jhumkas. “Ah, yes. Those were Rhea Auntie’s.”
Now that Mira mentioned it, Sejal could recall her aunt wearing them. “Did you not know these were in here?”
“No, I did.” Mira bit her lip. “You should have them.”
Sejal raised an eyebrow. She never turned down gold, but... “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. Rhea and I weren’t very close when she died. I mean, when she went into Witness Protection. I was mad at her for...” For so much.
Mira nodded, like she knew what Sejal was saying. “Yeah, I was, too.”
“Did you know she skipped out on Witness Protection after Rushali got arrested?”
Her sister’s smile was rueful, but not shocked. “That tracks. I could have sworn Rhea was lurking at our wedding. I thought it was you at first, but then I found a cigarette with her lipstick on it.”
“Clinique Black Honey,” Sejal murmured. Of course her aunt had had the same thought she had. But Sejal had lurked at the Mehndi, not the actual wedding. They could have lurked into each other. “The FBI thinks that Rhea is running Cobra now.”
“Also tracks.” Mira nodded at the earrings. “Take them. If you ever need to sell them, do it. I have enough, truly.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Sejal started to put them in her pocket, but Mira stopped her.
“You should wear them. You could lose them in here.”
Mira had always been cautious. Sejal took a second to screw the earrings into her earlobes. Smart. The last thing she needed was one more thing to protect. “Thanks.”
Sejal opened and closed the other drawers in the desk, but they were all empty.
“Check the bottom. I found a photo of the four of us there. I did take that.”
Funny that Mira would leave the earrings and take a photo of their weird little family. “You kept it?”
“I don’t have any baby photos of us. It’s nice to know Ananya looks like you.”
“She does?”
“Yeah.”
Huh. How about that. “Like, my eyes, I guess.”
“And your cheeks.”
Sejal touched her cheeks. “Cool.” She shook her head and got back to work, feeling along the bottom of the desk. “Good part about growing up in a family like ours, you can deliver a solid cautionary tale or two about dropping out of school and becoming like her grandparents.”
“There’s that. What are you doing?”
Sejal crouched down in front of the desk and tilted it back slightly, so a leg was exposed and she could unscrew the rubber stopper on it. “Dad never liked a false bottom. But he kept a hollow leg on his desks. I found some weed inside one once.”
“Oh. What did you do?”
