Only now did Jade realize how this appeared.
“This - this isn’t what it looks like,” she stammered.
“No? What is it, then?”
She felt defensive. “It’s - it’s called survival, Brenda.”
She glanced back at the necklace. “It looks like a lot more than ‘survival’ to me.”
Now she realized that she might have seen her and Valentina walking hand in hand in the courtyard - she remembered the sound they had heard.
“Brenda... ”
“Why did you abandon me in Bulgaria?”
“Brenda...” There were tears in her eyes. “I should have listened to you instead of that awful old man. I’m sorry, I... ”
“Why didn’t you respond to my letters?”
“Letters? What letters?”
“I traced you to that hotel you were staying at in Washington. I know for a fact they were delivered.”
Everything was becoming clearer to her
