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“Do you see the name of a pawn shop anywhere on that sheet of paper?”

“Then who is Gambel Gunnarsson? I googled him and the closest I got was a pro hockey player.”

Everett shrugged. “Probably a fake name. Selling this horse was the shadiest business deal I ever made.”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?” she griped and huffed back in her seat, crossing her arms.

“I never told you this, but my dad brokered stolen artwork. It’s why we moved to New York when I was a kid. I didn’t realize it was stolen art at the time. He introduced me to his contacts when I was a teenager before he died. I don’t know if he thought I’d take over someday, or what, but when I saw that horse in your belongings, I knew there could be something to it. I contacted his former clients with pictures thinking they’d laugh at me. Instead, they called with questions. Lots of questions.”

Linnea’s heart sped up.

“This is going to take some serious digging to figure out,” he said. “Especially if the horse was stolen. Not surprised if it was, considering Ulla and her mom.”

Linnea whispered a curse and cradled her forehead as hopelessness closed in. “Please, I’m begging. You’re the savvy one, not me.”

He looked at her with both apprehension and skepticism. “Why do you need it so badly?”

“I just want her back.” She stared into her lap as the memories pricked her, waiting for Everett’s snide remark about Ulla to come.

He didn’t disappoint. “You’re talking about Ulla? The same crazy bitch we grew up with, who called us—what—murdering narcissists? And then filed an order of protection against Taylor for apparently abusing her daughter—what was her name⁠—?”

“Analise,” Linnea said quietly.

“That Ulla?”

She rapidly blinked away the freight of emotions and shook her head. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Everett’s gaze went to her headscarf. He studied her for what felt to be an intense, protracted moment, and finally reached across the table to take her hand. The sympathetic gesture was so unlike him. “I’ll help you,” he said. “But think about what you’re doing. What this might mean for Taylor if you drag up the past.”

Linnea snapped her hand from his. “You think I haven’t? And you only ever cared about Taylor’s achievements so you could brag to all your colleagues as if you had any part in it. You never cared about his happiness.”

Everett linked his hands on the tabletop, the creases deepening on his perturbed brow. “You know what you and our son have in common?” he said with a headshake. “You never know when to let go.”

“That’s not true.” Linnea stared at the picture of the Dala horse. “Maybe he and I know when to hold on.”

Chapter Three

October 2017

Six Months Later

Linnea

Everett had called her an hour ago, sounding slightly paranoid. “I’ll meet you at the house,” he’d said. “I need to tell you something in person.”

So do I, Linnea had lamented silently but replied, “Okay.” She’d hung up and glanced out the bedroom window. The full moon danced on a choppy Lake Minnetonka. She labored to her feet, the room swaying, and rested on the bed, allowing her brain to align itself. Her purse was on the nightstand, and she opened it, taking out the test results that she’d initially thrown in the trashcan earlier that afternoon. She hated her blood for telling the truth. Her oncologist had printed the lab work, knowing Linnea needed tangible proof. Not for herself, but for her doctor-son. All the way home in her medical transportation, she saw the familiar streets that looked foreign now, like seeing them for the first time.

A complete hystersalpingo-oophorectomy had not curbed the cancer’s aggression. Neither had the three rounds of chemotherapy that poisoned the entirety of her still-healthy cells. You need to prepare, her doctor said. Tell your family because you might go quickly.

My family. She heard a car pull up in the driveway, the slam of a door, and Taylor enter the house. “Mom?” His voice echoed in the entryway.

She left the bedroom, leaned onto the railing down the stairs and saw him before he noticed her. Dressed in dark gray slacks and a blue oxford shirt, he also wore his casual soccer shoes. He couldn’t seem to wear anything on his feet non-soccer related. He would have come from his outpatient clinic, the only time he didn’t wear scrubs, meaning he wasn’t on a hospital ward rotation or violating his residency program’s strict eighty-hour workweek by moonlighting. Linnea knew he didn’t do it for the money.

Taylor turned and saw her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your appointment.” He drew close when she reached the bottom step, seeing her tears. He cussed softly and wrapped her in a hug. She cried harder. It was Mother’s Day of Taylor’s eighth-grade year when she was no longer the one to bend over for an embrace; he’d finally surpassed her height. He’d been a late bloomer but shot past six feet when he was a junior in high school, though he never reached his father’s gangly six-foot-four.

Taylor let her go when the front door opened, and his tenderness changed to a scowl when his father entered. “What are you doing here?”

The sudden hostility in the air cut her tears. Everett frowned. “Unlike some people, your mother can still find a way to be civil.”