Chapter 5 - MY MOTHER'S NECKLACE
My mother died when I was eleven.
Cancer.
Quietly.
Slowly.
I remembered almost everything about her except the sound of her voice.
The necklace was different.
She wore it every day.
Silver chain.
Small oval sapphire.
After she died, Dad kept it in his desk.
Then after his car accident, Regina said the necklace had disappeared with his other valuables.
She lied.
Again.
Michael found the jewelry manufacturer through an old receipt from my father's files.
The sapphire wasn't actually a sapphire.
It was a custom casing.
Inside was a micro-storage chip.
Expensive technology for the time.
My father had hidden data inside my mother's necklace because he knew nobody would consider it evidence.
Except Regina had known.
“How?” I asked.
Michael looked at the old photographs.
“Your father said he trusted her.”
Enough.
Regina had probably watched him hide it.
Zach wandered into the study carrying crayons.
“I made Aurora something.”
Michael started to send him back to bed.
I stopped him.
“What?”
He handed me a drawing.
Three stick figures.
Michael.
Me.
Zach.
Michael had an enormous square body and angry eyebrows.
I had yellow hair even though mine was brown.
Zach stood between us holding both our hands.
Above us he'd written:
MY NEW FAMILY MAYBE.
Something painful tightened in my chest.
“It's beautiful.”
Michael read it over my shoulder.
His expression softened.
Then he crouched beside Zach.
“We talked about Aurora not being your fiancée.”
Zach frowned.
“Because she's too old for me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Michael looked relieved.
Then Zach added, “You can marry her instead.”
Michael stood so quickly I nearly choked on my coffee.
“Bed.”
Zach giggled as he ran away.
I covered my face.
“Your son is terrifying.”
“Apparently hereditary.”
The joking stopped when Michael's security chief arrived.
They had traced Regina.
She used a motel outside Newark.
By the time Michael's men arrived, the room was empty.
But she had left something behind.
A torn piece of paper.
Coordinates.
And a date.
Michael entered the coordinates.
A warehouse near Red Hook.
One of Carlo Moretti's old properties.
The date was tomorrow.
“What happens there tomorrow?”
Michael's expression darkened.
“An auction.”
“What kind?”
“Private.”
“Illegal?”
“Very.”
He had spent years shutting down Carlo's old smuggling channels, but fragments survived.
The warehouse was supposedly abandoned.
Someone had restarted operations without Michael knowing.
“Regina is selling the necklace?”
“Probably.”
“Then I'm going.”
“No.”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“No.”
“My father died because of whatever is stored on it.”
“Which is exactly why you don't walk into a criminal auction.”
I stood.
“Michael, I have spent eight years letting Regina decide what I was allowed to know about my own family.”
“That doesn't make walking into danger intelligent.”
“And hiding in your house doesn't make me safe.”
He stared at me.
I stared back.
Finally, he exhaled.
“You stay beside me.”
“Fine.”
“If I say leave, you leave.”
“We'll negotiate.”
“No.”
“Fine.”
The auction wasn't selling jewelry.
When we arrived the following night, the necklace wasn't listed anywhere.
Instead, a handwritten catalog contained lot numbers representing information.
Bank accounts.
Political files.
Shipping records.
Blackmail.
Then I found Lot 17.
DANIEL BELL ARCHIVE.
Starting bid: $2 million.
And beneath it:
Includes evidence concerning the murder of Carlo Moretti.
I looked at Michael.
“Your uncle was murdered?”
May you like
His face had gone completely still.
Because according to everything he had ever been told, Carlo died from a heart attack.
