Chương 2 - Những Viên Ngọc Quý và Những Bí Mật

He stopped.

“I don’t have it.”

“You work around people with money all day.”

I almost laughed.

“You think I get a percentage of their bank accounts?”

“Nora, I’m in trouble.”

“You’ve been in trouble for fifteen years.”

His voice hardened.

“I’m still your father.”

“And Samuel was yours.”

He hung up.

I sat there with the phone in my hand for a long time.

Then I put the notebook back in the drawer.

The next morning, my ex-boyfriend walked into the store.

I hadn’t seen Ryan in three years.

He looked almost exactly the same.

Same expensive haircut.

Same watch.

Same smile that always appeared half a second before he said something he expected you to forgive.

The woman beside him was new.

Tall.

Perfect makeup.

Limited-edition handbag.

Diamond tennis bracelet.

Ryan came directly to my counter.

“Nora.”

I kept my professional smile in place.

“Ryan.”

He gestured beside him.

“This is Brooke.”

Brooke looked me over.

Not rudely enough that anyone could complain.

Just slowly.

“Oh.”

That was all she said.

Ryan cleared his throat.

“We need an engagement ring.”

“Congratulations.”

Brooke sat down.

“At least three carats.”

“Any preference on shape?”

“Emerald cut.”

“Color?”

“As white as possible.”

“Budget?”

She looked at Ryan.

He said, “Around eighty.”

I brought out what fit.

Brooke rejected the first because the table looked “too wide.”

The second because she’d seen something similar on Instagram.

The third because the setting was “basic.”

By the sixth, Ryan was staring at his phone.

By the seventh, Brooke leaned back.

“So Ryan says you know a lot about stones.”

I kept the ring between the tweezers.

“I know enough to sell them.”

“He says more than that.”

Ryan didn’t look up.

Brooke opened her bag.

She removed a small jewelry box.

“My father bought this at auction.”

Inside was an emerald.

Large enough to be serious money.

Good color.

Visible fissures.

I put on my loupe.

“Can you tell me what it’s worth?” she asked.

“Not from here.”

“Is it Colombian?”

“I can’t responsibly determine geographic origin at a sales counter.”

Her mouth tightened.

“Can you tell if it’s real?”

“It appears to be a natural emerald.”

“Appears?”

“I’d need a lab report.”

“My father paid ninety thousand dollars for it.”

I looked again.

There was material in several surface-reaching fissures that caught light differently from the stone around it.

I set down the loupe.

“Was it sold as untreated?”

Brooke smiled.

“Yes.”

I slid the box back.

“Then I’d get an independent report before insuring it that way.”

The smile disappeared.

“Why?”

“Because I’m seeing signs of clarity enhancement.”

Ryan finally looked up.

Brooke laughed once.

“You think an auction house sold my father an enhanced emerald as untreated?”

“I think you asked what I saw.”

“My father had it authenticated.”

“By an independent lab?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“You’re very confident for somebody selling jewelry in a mall.”

We were not in a mall.

But I understood the point.

“I’m not certifying the stone.”

“You just said it was treated.”

“I said I see indications that make me want an independent report.”

Brooke closed the box.

“You know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think you’re jealous.”

Ryan shifted.

“Brooke.”

“No, seriously. He brings me in to buy a ring, and his ex starts telling me my jewelry is fake.”

“I didn’t say it was fake.”

“You implied my father got cheated.”

“I said get it checked.”

Brooke stood.

“We’re done.”

She grabbed Ryan’s arm.

He hesitated before following her.

At the entrance, he looked back.

“Nora.”

“Yes?”

“You haven’t changed.”

I gave him the smile he used to hate.

“Neither have you.”

Two days later, Brooke filed a complaint.

A week after that came Avery’s engagement party.

The Bennetts held it at a private estate overlooking the Hudson.

Three hundred guests.

Valet parking.

Florists who had probably never touched flowers that cost less than my weekly paycheck.

Margaret had arranged a small exhibition of family jewelry in a side gallery and asked me to talk guests through the pieces.

I was halfway through checking the inventory when my hand stopped over a ruby brooch.

The front was beautiful.

Platinum.

Old-cut diamonds.

Pear-shaped ruby.

But it was the underside that made my throat close.

A row of shallow overlapping curves ran beneath the setting.

I knew those curves.

I had practiced them until my fingers cramped.

Avery walked up beside me.

“You look weird.”

“Do you know who made this?”

“The brooch?”

“Yes.”

“No. My grandfather bought it sometime in the eighties.”

I turned it over again.

“My grandfather made it.”

Avery stared at me.

“Samuel Parker?”

I looked at her.

“You knew?”

“Ethan told me.”

Of course he had.

Before I could answer, someone behind us said, “He did.”

Ethan stood at the edge of the display.

He nodded toward the brooch.

“1988 or 1989, I think.”

“How do you know?”

“There was a photograph in an old exhibition catalog.”