Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER MY FATHER ERASED
“No.”
The word came from Preston and me at the same time.
Eleanor lowered herself into a chair.
“My father didn’t have a brother,” I said.
“He did.”
“I would know.”
“Daniel made sure you wouldn’t.”
Preston laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“So what are you saying? Iris and I are cousins?”
The thought hit me with such force I nearly dropped Dad’s watch.
Eleanor immediately shook her head.
“No.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpened.
“Explain.”
“Harrison Hale and Daniel Dunn were raised as brothers. Harrison was adopted by Daniel’s parents when he was six.”
I could breathe again.
Barely.
“Why change his name?”
“Harrison married into the Hale family and took his wife’s surname. By then, he and Daniel had stopped speaking.”
“Why?”
Eleanor looked toward the necklace.
“Money.”
Of course.
Except nothing that night was ever that simple.
“My husband Charles, Daniel, and Harrison started buying estate jewelry together when they were young. Charles had capital. Daniel understood stones. Harrison understood buyers.”
“And you?”
“I kept records.”
Rafe asked, “When did Hartwell become involved?”
“Later.”
Eleanor folded her hands.
“They began helping families sell valuable pieces through gallery fundraisers. It was legitimate at first.”
“At first,” I repeated.
“Harrison discovered how easy it was to substitute stones.”
Preston’s face hardened.
“You’re accusing my father of running a theft operation for decades.”
“I’m telling you what happened.”
“You hated him.”
“Yes.”
The bluntness surprised all of us.
Eleanor looked at Preston.
“I hated him because I was afraid of him. Those are not the same thing.”
Preston went silent.
Eleanor continued.
“When Daniel discovered the substitutions, he confronted Harrison. Harrison denied everything.”
“And Charles?”
“Believed Daniel.”
“Then why didn’t they go to the police?”
“They were gathering proof.”
I looked at Dad’s letter.
“The diamonds are the receipt.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Daniel discovered the substituted stones could be traced through microscopic inventory markings. If he could match the stones in Harrison’s possession to Hartwell records, he could prove everything.”
“What happened?”
“Someone planted stolen stones in Daniel’s workshop.”
My chest hurt.
“He became the suspect.”
“Yes.”
“And then he died.”
Eleanor looked down.
“Yes.”
Preston walked away several steps.
“My father wouldn’t kill anyone.”
Nobody answered.
He turned.
“Say something.”
I understood his anger better than I wanted to.
Sixteen years believing one version of your father.
Then strangers dismantling him in a ballroom.
I knew exactly what that felt like.
“I don’t know what Harrison did,” I said.
Preston looked at me.
“But I know what it feels like to hear people decide who your father was before you understand the evidence.”
His face changed.
Just slightly.
It was the first kind thing I had given him all night.
Maybe the first he had earned in years.
Rafe asked Eleanor, “Why commission Iris’s necklace?”
Eleanor looked at me.
“Because I found one of Daniel’s old notebooks after Charles died.”
My pulse jumped.
“What notebook?”
“It contained a design.”
“The necklace?”
“Yes.”
I stared at the diamonds on the table.
“That design was mine.”
“The final design was.”
Eleanor’s voice softened.
“But the central setting came from Daniel.”
I remembered sketching it.
A strange double-prong structure that had come to me while sorting Dad’s old tools.
Or so I had believed.
“You planted the sketch.”
“I placed his notebook among the things your mother gave you.”
Anger rose again.
“You manipulated me into making it.”
“I hoped you would recognize something.”
“I didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then why buy it?”
“Because once you made the setting, I realized what Daniel had designed it to do.”
Rafe stepped closer to the necklace.
“Hold something.”
Eleanor nodded.
“A stone with a hidden inscription.”
My heart pounded.
“The center diamond.”
“Yes.”
“But somebody switched it.”
“Yes.”
“Who has the real one?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafe said, “The person who stole the replica might think Iris transferred the marked stone into it.”
That explained the studio break-in.
One answer.
Two new questions.
Who had the diamond?
And what exactly was written on it?
Preston sat down heavily.
“My father has a collection.”
We all turned.
“What kind?” Rafe asked.
“Loose stones.”
Eleanor went still.
Preston noticed.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“He keeps them in his office.”
Rafe’s expression sharpened.
“Where?”
“Our family house in Bryn Mawr.”
Preston looked sick.
“I’ve seen them since I was a kid.”
I asked, “Did he ever tell you where they came from?”
“Estate purchases.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Preston whispered, “God.”
For once, I wanted to touch his shoulder.
I didn’t.
Rafe’s phone buzzed.
Nico spoke from across the room.
“We identified the person from Iris’s studio footage.”
I had almost forgotten the hooded figure.
“Who?”
Nico turned his phone toward us.
The image was grainy but clear enough.
A woman lowering her hood.
Gray-blond hair.
Thin face.
I knew her.
“June?”
My voice cracked.
My assistant.
The woman I had defended minutes earlier.
Rafe looked at me.
“You said she worked for you four years.”
“She does.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
I called.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Preston said quietly, “Maybe she’s involved.”
“No.”
The word came too quickly.
Rafe didn’t argue.
Instead he asked, “Why did June take only the replica?”
“Because she knew exactly what she wanted.”
I stopped.
Something Dad had taught me.
Trust what you made with your own hands.
I grabbed my phone and opened photographs from the replica construction.
Zoomed in.
The fake center stone.
Then I saw it.
A tiny dark line inside the cubic zirconia.
Not an inclusion.
Something embedded beneath the setting.
“What is that?” Preston asked.
I enlarged it.
My hands began shaking.
“A strip of metal.”
Rafe looked at Eleanor.
“Daniel’s design?”
She whispered, “Maybe.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone turned.
“I made that replica three weeks ago. Dad couldn’t have put anything inside it.”
Rafe understood first.
“June did.”
We returned to my studio before dawn.
Nothing had been disturbed except the cabinet.
June’s workbench was perfectly clean.
Too clean.
I opened her bottom drawer.
Peppermints.
Reading glasses.
A photograph.
I pulled it out.
June, much younger.
My father beside her.
And in June’s arms was a little girl.
Maybe four years old.
On the back, Dad had written:
JUNE + LILY. SAFE NOW.
I heard movement behind me.
Eleanor had followed us.
When she saw the photograph, she grabbed the edge of the desk.
“You know her,” I said.
Eleanor stared at the child.
“Yes.”
“Who is Lily?”
Her answer came slowly.
“June’s daughter.”
“What happened to her?”
Eleanor looked at Rafe.
Then at me.
“She disappeared sixteen years ago.”
My blood went cold.
“When?”
“The night your father died.”
I looked again at the little girl.
Around her wrist was a silver bracelet.
Tiny stars.
Something about it bothered me.
I had seen it recently.
Very recently.
Then I remembered.
The hooded person in my studio had reached toward the camera.
The sleeve had pulled back.
A silver bracelet.
Tiny stars.
I enlarged the security footage.
My heart stopped.
The woman who stole the replica wasn’t June.
She was too young.
And she was wearing the bracelet from the photograph.
“Lily didn’t disappear,” I whispered.
Rafe stared at the screen.
“No.”
I looked at the child’s photograph again.
May you like
Then at the adult face from my studio.
“She came back.”
