“Clare, accusing someone else won’t help.”
I turned toward her.
She wore the concerned expression she used whenever she wanted to hurt me in front of witnesses.
For three years, she had suggested smaller things. That I did not understand the family. That my father’s hospital bills had been conveniently timed. That accounting was a useful profession for a woman who married into money.
She never said anything plainly enough to let Adrienne hear the insult without my explaining it.
Tonight, she had finally been given a stage.
“I printed the confirmation this morning,” I said.
Adrienne’s eyes moved to the papers on the table.
“Then find it.”
Marco checked the blue folder.
It was not there.
I knew it was not there before he reached the last page. I had left the confirmation clipped to the visitor ledger outside Arthur’s office because the receptionist had asked for it.
Someone had arranged a meeting.
Someone had removed the meeting.
And my husband was waiting for me to explain the disappearance as though I had designed it myself.
“Check my email,” I said. “The confirmation came last night.”
“We have,” Adrienne answered.
A cold space opened beneath my ribs.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the message isn’t there.”
I stared at him.
Then I remembered the notice I had received that afternoon about maintenance on the family trust’s email system.
At the time, I had dismissed it.
Now every ordinary detail of my day seemed to be turning around and showing me a different face.
Victoria gave a quiet sigh.
“If there were financial pressures, dear, we could have helped.”
“There aren’t.”
“Pride makes people do unfortunate things.”
I looked back at Adrienne.
“Are you asking whether I stole those diamonds?”
He said nothing.
Two seconds passed.
I know because the tall clock beside the library door ticked twice.
It was not long enough for anybody else to notice.
It was long enough to end the marriage I thought I had.
Marco closed the briefcase.
“Nothing here, sir.”
The younger guard returned from upstairs carrying my overnight bag.
I had packed it that morning for the weekend Adrienne and I were supposed to spend together. Two nights away. No board calls. No trust meetings.
Adrienne had promised to make breakfast.
I had laughed and told him that romance did not require another attempt at pancakes.
The guard placed the bag on the floor.
I watched him lift out a folded sweater.
Then a book.
Then the blue dress I had chosen because Adrienne once said the color made my eyes look warmer.
Marco crouched beside him and kept his voice low.
“Just the compartments.”
There were no diamonds.
There was nothing that did not belong to me.
For one foolish moment, relief moved through me.
I looked at Adrienne, waiting for him to step forward. To say that this had gone far enough. To acknowledge what he had allowed.
Victoria spoke first.
“Well, of course she wouldn’t keep them here.”
Marco stood.
“Ma’am—”
“She could have passed them to someone.”
I looked at her handkerchief.
Her fingers were still.
Everybody else in the room had moved, shifted, hesitated.
Victoria had been comfortable from the beginning.
“Would you like my shoes next?” I asked. “Or should we continue the search right here?”
“Clare, stop,” Adrienne said.
That was when the last of my hope became something colder.
“Why? Your aunt has waited three years for this. Let her finish.”
Victoria’s face changed.
Only a little.
Enough.
I reached for my earrings.
Adrienne took a step forward as I placed them beside the ring.
“What are you doing?”
“Making this easier.”
The bracelet came next.
Christmas Eve. His hands warm around my wrist. His mouth against my hair.
I set it down.
Then the necklace.
He had given it to me before the wedding, beneath the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge. He had been nervous. Adrienne Duca, who could negotiate a company acquisition without blinking, had needed three attempts to fasten the clasp.
I remembered telling him he could simply ask for help.
I unclasped it without any.
The gold watch followed.
Then the car key.
“I’m returning everything,” I said, “that you might someday decide I stole.”
His face had lost its color.
“Don’t do this.”
“You already did.”
I picked up my briefcase.
“My attorney will contact yours tomorrow.”
Adrienne caught my wrist.
It was not a violent grip.
It was still a hand stopping me from leaving.
I looked down at it.
“Are you keeping me here until I confess?”
His fingers opened.
Marco stepped away from the door before I reached it.
I had no coat. My coat was upstairs, in the closet beside Adrienne’s, and I could not bear to go back for it.
