Chương 2
“We’re not running away,” the woman said.
“No one said you were,” Thomas replied.
“You shut us in.”
“For eighteen seconds.”
“You shut us in with a child who just threatened my reputation.”
Elodie blinked.
“I didn’t threaten anything.”
The woman looked at her now, really looked, and Elodie saw the embarrassment reorganizing itself into anger.
“You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“I asked him to check.”
“You let us stand here.”
“You didn’t give me time to do anything else.”
Thomas stepped between them. “Ms. Marissa Dane, I think it would be best if we continued this conversation privately.”
So that was her name.
Elodie had seen it somewhere, perhaps on a bus shelter or on one of the advertisements that followed her online after she searched for shoes. Marissa Dane. Beauty tutorials, luxury travel, a clothing collaboration. Four million followers, according to the companion who had not tried to leave and now held her phone facedown against her thigh.
Marissa’s expression changed when Thomas used her name. Not softened. Calculated.
“You invited me here,” she said.
Thomas’s gaze flicked toward Julian.
Julian swallowed. “The private preview was scheduled for three.”
“It is three.”
“It’s two fifty-six.”
“Are you serious?”
Thomas closed his eyes for the smallest possible moment.
Elodie had come at two forty-eight because her school’s early dismissal left her nineteen minutes before her father’s driver expected her at the library around the corner. She had told the driver she wanted to return a book. That had not been entirely untrue. The book was still in her bag, beneath the sketchbook she had not shown anyone.
She had not known there was a private preview.
She had not known Marissa Dane would be there.
Most of all, she had not known the necklace in the central cabinet would look so much like her mother’s hands.
It was called the Aurelia Collar, although her mother had hated the name. Adrienne Vale had designed it around thirty-seven uncut yellow diamonds, each held in a fine blackened-gold setting that made the stones appear lit from within. During the year she spent developing it, she had kept wax models on the kitchen counter beside grocery receipts and half-empty coffee cups.
Elodie remembered one morning when her mother had buttered toast while wearing magnifying lenses clipped over her glasses. She had looked like an insect and laughed when Elodie told her so.
That had been before the diagnosis.
Before hospitals.
Before adults began lowering their voices when Elodie entered rooms.
The Aurelia Collar was supposed to become the centerpiece of the Vale Foundation’s traveling exhibition. Her father had delayed the exhibition twice, then agreed to lend the collection to Mercer House for a six-week preview before the national tour.
Elodie had come to decide whether she could stand seeing strangers admire it.
She still did not know.
Thomas guided everyone toward a seating area behind a velvet divider. Marissa refused to sit. Her companions took the low black sofa, leaving space between them as if distance might become evidence later.
The companion nearest Elodie introduced herself without being asked.
“I’m Kira.”
Her voice was softer than it had sounded while laughing.
Marissa turned. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I’m just—she’s a kid.”
“She was a kid thirty seconds ago when you were laughing.”
Color rose along Kira’s neck.
The other woman, Noelle, kept her phone pressed against her thigh. Her thumb moved over the dark screen.
Thomas noticed.
“Ms. Graves, I need to ask whether you recorded inside the boutique.”
“No.”
Julian said, “I saw your phone up.”
“I was checking the time.”
“With the camera pointed at the cabinet?”
“It wasn’t.”
Marissa exhaled sharply. “Can everyone stop acting like this is a criminal investigation?”
Noelle stared at the floor.
The central necklace case stood only a few feet away. One of the yellow stones trembled almost invisibly against the velvet, disturbed by the vibration of footsteps. Elodie’s mother had designed the links to move with a wearer’s breathing. “Jewelry shouldn’t sit on a woman like a punishment,” she had once said.
Elodie reached for the black pendant at her own throat and found it hidden under her coat. Her fingers closed over the small gold oval. The back was scratched where she had dropped it on the bathroom tile two weeks after the funeral.
Thomas asked Julian to bring water.
“No,” Marissa said. “What you’re going to bring is someone from legal.”
“There is no one from legal on-site.”
“Then call them.”
“This does not require legal counsel.”
“You locked a door and allowed a minor to accuse me of having no class while a customer filmed it.”
“I did not allow her to do anything.”
“That’s worse.”
Elodie sat in the chair nearest the divider. Her legs were too short for her heels to rest comfortably on the floor. She hated that chair.
Thomas crouched slightly so he would not be towering over her, a gesture that might have been kind if he had not done it so carefully.
“Miss Vale, does your father know you’re here?”
“No.”
The answer altered him more than the card had.
“Is someone expecting you?”
“My driver thinks I’m at the library.”
Thomas stood.
“Please don’t call my father.”
“I’m afraid I have to.”
“You don’t.”
“Elodie.”
He rarely used her first name. The familiarity made her feel younger than being called a child had.
“The boutique is responsible for you while you’re on the premises.”
“You weren’t responsible for me five minutes ago.”
Julian, returning with a silver tray, stopped just inside the seating area.
Thomas took the glass from him, set it down without offering it to anyone, and said, “That is fair.”
Marissa made a quiet sound of disbelief. “Are we having a growth moment now?”
Kira looked at her. “Marissa.”
“What?”
“Maybe don’t.”
May you like
Marissa stared at her companion for two full seconds. Whatever arrangement held the three women together shifted slightly.
Elodie noticed because her mother had taught her to notice jewelry buyers. Not whether they were rich. Whether they touched one another when nervous, whether spouses interrupted, whether someone checked a price before complimenting a piece, whether admiration belonged to the object or to being seen near it.
