Chương 5
“There aren’t dukes in Westchester.”
“That is your response?”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re on my phone. Like, on news. Your face is blurred, but it’s you. That cardigan makes you look eighty.”
Mara pressed a hand over her eyes.
Noelle’s voice softened. “Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did you steal it?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
The speed of the answer made Mara lower her hand. “That’s it?”
“You alphabetize spices and return shopping carts in snow. Jewelry theft would be a surprising development.”
Mara laughed once, then started crying.
She cried quietly because the walls looked thin. Noelle stayed on the phone without trying to improve the moment. A nurse called her name, and she shouted back that she was coming.
“Tell me where you are,” Noelle said.
“I’ll text you.”
“Do not talk to rich people without a lawyer.”
“I don’t have a lawyer.”
“Then don’t talk to rich people. That part still works.”
After they hung up, Mara opened the cedar box she had carried to work in her tote bag.
She had never intended to show Evelyn the letters that day. She had brought them because leaving them in the apartment felt unsafe. That was the explanation she preferred.
The uglier explanation was that she had wanted the truth near her.
She spread the six letters across the hotel bed.
Thomas’s handwriting slanted sharply to the right. He wrote on hotel stationery, notebook paper, the back of a menu. The first letter apologized for not meeting Sofia at a diner in Tarrytown. The second asked whether she had eaten. The third complained about his father and then crossed out half the paragraph.
The fourth mentioned the necklace.
I found someone who can make it without asking why, he had written. Not the real stones, obviously. I’m reckless, Fia, not criminal. It will look enough like hers to make her furious, which I admit is part of the appeal. Mostly I want you to have something nobody can make you return.
The fifth letter was frightened.
My father knows there is someone. Grace knows more than she says. I keep waiting to become the man who can tell them, and each day I wake up as myself.
The sixth was dated June 11, 2003.
The little rumor deserves a name. I deserve whatever you decide after that. Give me until Friday. I will tell my mother first.
Friday had been June 13.
The necklace was engraved June 12.
Thomas died June 27.
Mara read the dates again. There were fourteen missing days.
Her mother had kept no letters from them.
At midnight, Grace called.
Mara let it ring twice before answering.
“We need the originals,” Grace said.
“Hello to you, too.”
“The photograph is on national sites. A reporter found your mother’s arrest record. They are describing you as the daughter of a former Vale employee involved in a jewelry theft.”
Mara sat up. “The charge was dropped.”
“Dropped charges still make headlines.”
“Then issue a statement saying she was innocent.”
“We do not yet know that.”
“You know she didn’t steal the original.”
“We know there were two necklaces.”
“You knew that before tonight.”
Silence.
Mara held the phone tighter. “You knew.”
“I knew Thomas had talked about having something made. I didn’t know he did it.”
“You recognized the necklace.”
“I recognized the possibility.”
“That’s why you asked who had seen it.”
“That is what any responsible person would ask.”
“No. A responsible person would ask why your mother ripped my uniform.”
Grace exhaled. “We can pay for counsel for you.”
“I’ll find my own.”
“With what?”
There it was. Not cruelty exactly. Accounting.
Mara looked at the hospital bills in the cedar box. “The same way my mother did.”
“That is unnecessary.”
“So was asking if I had a number.”
Grace was quiet long enough for Mara to hear traffic on her end of the call.
“There are things you don’t know about Sofia,” Grace said.
“Then tell me.”
“Not over the phone.”
“Because you care about privacy?”
“Because people record conversations.”
Mara looked at the red recording symbol on the screen. Noelle had shown her how to use an app after a landlord dispute. She had started recording when Grace called.
“Smart,” Mara said.
“Will you meet tomorrow?”
“Somewhere public.”
“My office.”
“That isn’t public.”
“A restaurant, then.”
“No.”
Grace’s patience cracked. “Where?”
“The jewelry store that made the necklace.”
Another silence.
“It closed years ago,” Grace said.
Mara looked at the fourth letter. Thomas had not named the jeweler.
“How do you know which store?”
Grace ended the call.
Mara slept for less than an hour.
At six, she showered, ate cold potatoes from the catering container, and searched public business records. The original family jeweler, Levin & Sons, had operated on Madison Avenue until 2014. A grandson, Noah Levin, now ran a small appraisal office near Union Square.
Mara sent him photographs of both the necklace and the engraving. She did not mention the Vales.
He replied twenty minutes later.
Please do not clean, repair, or alter the piece. The workmanship may be identifiable. I can see you at eleven.
Grace sent six messages before eight.
Mara answered only one.
Levin Appraisals, 11 a.m.
Grace replied: Do not go alone.
Noelle arrived at the hotel in scrubs, carrying coffee and a plastic grocery bag full of Mara’s clothes.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“So do you.”
“I work nights. It’s intentional.”
Noelle took off her shoes, crawled onto the far side of the bed, and listened while Mara explained the two necklaces.
When Mara finished, Noelle drank half her coffee and said, “So your possible dead father copied his mother’s emerald to propose to your mother, then died before telling anybody, and the rich family had your mother arrested.”
“That’s one version.”
“It’s a bad version.”
“Bad morally or bad logically?”
“Both. Also, why did your mother keep it?”
Mara looked at the emerald lying on the desk.
May you like
“I don’t know.”
“Why did she never tell you?”
