Chapter 3 - 2:17 IN THE MORNING
I grabbed the watch before anyone could stop me.
The metal was cold.
The scratch beside the winding crown was still there.
I had made that scratch myself when I was nine, trying to open the back with one of Dad’s jewelry tools.
He had laughed instead of getting angry.
“Everything precious gets a mark eventually, Bug.”
Bug.
Nobody had called me that since he died.
I turned the watch over.
FOR DANIEL — IRIS.
The engraving was crooked because I had insisted on doing the last letter myself.
“This is his.”
Rafe said nothing.
I looked at Nico.
“The man carrying this. Who is he?”
“He won’t give a name.”
“Take me to him.”
“No,” Rafe said.
I turned on him.
“You don’t get to say no anymore.”
“He participated in an attack on you.”
“He has my father’s watch.”
“That makes him more dangerous, not less.”
“Or it makes him someone who knows what happened.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened.
I stepped closer.
“If you want me to believe one word you say tonight, take me to him.”
That did it.
The man was being held in a gallery office with two of Rafe’s men outside.
He was younger than I expected.
Late thirties.
Bleeding from the lip.
Terrified.
The second he saw the watch in my hand, his face changed.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
He looked at Rafe.
“Look at me.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“It was given to me.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know her name.”
Her.
Rafe caught it too.
“What did she look like?”
The man shook his head.
“I never met her.”
“Then how did she give you the watch?”
“It was in the package.”
“What package?”
“Instructions. Cash. Photo of the woman.”
He nodded toward me.
My stomach twisted.
“What were you supposed to do?”
“Grab the necklace during the blackout. Take the east stairs. Hand it to somebody outside.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I never said I was smart.”
There was something painfully ordinary about him.
Not a professional thief.
A desperate man.
Rafe saw it too.
“How much?”
“Twenty grand.”
“For a necklace worth five times that?”
The man laughed bitterly.
“For keeping my house.”
That silenced the room.
“My wife died last year. Medical bills ate everything.”
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
I wanted to hate him.
It would have been easier.
Instead I asked, “Why was my father’s watch in the package?”
He swallowed.
“I was told if anything went wrong, I should show it to you.”
“Why?”
“She said you’d understand.”
“I don’t.”
“There was something else.”
Rafe’s expression sharpened.
“What?”
“A card.”
Nico searched the man’s coat again.
Nothing.
The thief shook his head.
“I left it where she told me.”
“Where?”
“Inside the east stairwell clock.”
Ten minutes later, Nico removed the decorative wall clock from the stairwell.
Behind it was a cream envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Not printed.
Handwritten.
I knew the handwriting.
I had seen it on birthday cards and grocery lists.
Dad’s.
My fingers trembled opening it.
Inside was one sheet of yellowed paper.
Iris—
If this ever reaches you, it means I failed to keep you away from this.
I sat down.
Rafe stood across from me.
I kept reading.
The diamonds are not the crime. They are the receipt.
I looked up.
“What does that mean?”
Rafe didn’t answer.
The letter continued.
Trust what you made with your own hands. Not what people tell you it is worth.
And remember what I taught you about flawed stones.
There was no signature.
Only a tiny drawing at the bottom.
A diamond with a line through its center.
I stared at it.
Then at the necklace.
“The inclusion.”
Rafe understood immediately.
“The original center diamond.”
“My father used to teach me that inclusions were fingerprints. No two stones were exactly alike.”
I stood.
“Whoever switched the center stone didn’t just want to hide a camera.”
“They wanted the original diamond,” Rafe said.
“Why?”
Rafe looked toward the old letter.
“Because your father may have hidden something in it.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
I thought about microscopic laser inscriptions.
Serial numbers.
Gemological markings invisible without magnification.
Then I remembered the replica stolen from my studio.
“The fake necklace.”
Rafe looked at me.
“What?”
“The replica had the same visual flaw.”
“You copied the inclusion?”
“I copied everything.”
His expression changed.
“Who asked you to?”
“Eleanor.”
Silence.
My stomach sank.
Rafe asked, “When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Exactly?”
I thought back.
“After I delivered the original necklace for inspection. She called the next morning and asked for the replica.”
Rafe looked at Nico.
“Who had possession of the original overnight?”
Nico was already checking.
I knew the answer before he said it.
“Hartwell Gallery.”
Kessler.
We found him in the medical room.
When I showed him my father’s letter, his face went white.
“I didn’t switch the stone.”
“I didn’t ask that.”
He looked cornered.
Rafe leaned against the door.
“Start talking.”
Kessler removed his glasses.
“Charles Ashford hired Daniel Dunn as an outside appraiser seventeen years ago.”
My heart pounded.
“For what?”
“Donations.”
“What donations?”
“Jewelry donated to Hartwell.”
Kessler rubbed his forehead.
“Daniel discovered stones were being replaced before pieces were auctioned.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafe’s voice went cold.
“You’ve worked here twenty-two years.”
“I was a junior registrar then.”
“Who had access?”
Kessler looked at me.
“Charles Ashford.”
My stomach dropped.
Eleanor’s husband.
The man in the photograph with Dad and Rafe.
“So Charles was stealing?”
“No.”
That reversal hit hard.
Kessler continued.
“Charles discovered it too.”
“Then why was Dad investigated?”
“Because somebody planted stones in Daniel’s workshop.”
I felt suddenly unsteady.
My father hadn’t been a thief.
Someone had made him look like one.
Rafe’s voice softened.
“That’s what Daniel was going to tell me.”
I turned.
“You knew?”
“I knew he said he was being framed.”
“And you did nothing?”
“I was twenty-two years old, Iris.”
“You were already DeLuca.”
His face hardened.
“Not the way you think.”
There was pain there.
Old pain.
“My father was still alive. I had no authority he hadn’t given me.”
“And Daniel died.”
“Yes.”
“Car accident.”
Rafe looked at the watch in my hand.
“That’s what they called it.”
The room went silent.
“What do you call it?”
Rafe answered carefully.
“A warning.”
My stomach turned.
“Who was being warned?”
“Charles.”
“Why Charles?”
“Because three days after your father died, Charles stopped investigating.”
I thought of Eleanor.
Her wealth.
Her kindness to me.
The necklace.
“Did Eleanor know?”
Kessler looked down.
That was answer enough.
I left the medical room and found Eleanor alone in the ballroom.
Most guests were gone now.
She stood beside the display table where my necklace rested.
For the first time since I had met her, she looked old.
Not elegant.
Not powerful.
Just tired.
I held up Dad’s watch.
“Did you know my father?”
Her eyes filled immediately.
“Yes.”
The word nearly broke me.
“How well?”
“Very.”
“Did you know he was framed?”
“Yes.”
I stepped backward.
“You let me believe he was a thief?”
“No.”
“My mother spent years hearing people whisper.”
“I know.”
“You bought my necklace. You promoted my work. Was all of that guilt?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
She looked at the center stone.
“Protection.”
“From whom?”
Her lips trembled.
“From the person who killed your father.”
Rafe moved closer.
“You know who it was?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she looked directly at Preston.
He had followed us into the ballroom.
His face went pale.
Eleanor whispered, “His father.”
Preston stared at her.
“What?”
“Harrison Hale.”
“No.”
“Preston—”
“My father knew Daniel?”
Eleanor’s eyes filled with grief.
“Your father knew all of us.”
Preston shook his head.
“You’re lying.”
Then Eleanor said the sentence that changed everything.
“Harrison wasn’t just Daniel’s business enemy.”
May you like
She looked at me.
“He was Daniel Dunn’s brother.”
