The Necklace That Should Have Burned
Chapter 05 - The Necklace That Should Have Burned
Chloe touched the necklace as if it might save her.
It did not.
Diamonds were useful in rooms where people mistook shine for innocence. Mateo’s dining room was not one of those rooms.
“From whom?” Adelaide asked again.
Her voice sounded calm.
She did not feel calm.
She felt nine years old and twenty-six at once, standing beside a hospital vending machine while Evelyn explained that the accident had taken many things. Your mother’s bracelet. Her necklace. Some photographs. You must learn not to cling, Adelaide.
Adelaide had tried.
She had become excellent at unclenching her hands around what had already been taken.
Now Chloe wore one of those stolen things against her throat.
“I don’t remember,” Chloe said.
Mateo set down his wineglass.
“You don’t remember who gave you diamonds?”
Chloe lifted her chin.
“I receive gifts.”
“Frequently?”
Preston leaned back with a little smile. “Careful, Moretti. That sounds like jealousy.”
Mateo finally looked at him.
The temperature in the room seemed to lower.
Preston’s smile survived, but only because pride held it upright.
Adelaide kept her eyes on the necklace.
“It has a mark near the clasp,” she said. “A tiny crescent scratch. My mother caught it on a kitchen drawer and cursed so loudly my father dropped a coffee mug.”
Rockford closed his eyes.
There.
Pain.
Real pain.
Adelaide had almost forgotten her father could feel it.
Evelyn rose. “This is grotesque. We came here in good faith—”
“No,” Mateo said. “You came here because I allowed it.”
Evelyn sat back down.
Chloe laughed, but her voice had thinned. “Take it, if it means that much to you.”
She reached behind her neck.
Mateo stopped her.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Excuse me?”
“It is evidence now.”
The word changed the room.
Rockford stood so abruptly his chair struck the floor behind him.
“Evidence of what?”
Mateo did not answer him.
He spoke to Adelaide.
“Do you want to leave?”
Everyone looked at her.
For once, the choice was not being made over her head.
That made it almost impossible to answer.
“No,” she said.
Mateo nodded.
Then he turned to Rafe, who had appeared near the doorway at some silent signal Adelaide had not seen.
“Call the jeweler.”
Within an hour, an elderly man named Mr. Lasker stood in Mateo’s study with a magnifying loupe pressed to one eye. Chloe sat rigid on the sofa, necklace removed and sealed in a small velvet-lined tray. Evelyn held her purse with both hands. Rockford looked ruined. Preston had suddenly remembered another engagement.
Cowardice, Adelaide thought, had excellent timing.
Mr. Lasker examined the clasp.
“Yes,” he said at last. “I repaired this piece in 2007. Margaret Jones. She came herself.”
Rockford covered his mouth.
Evelyn whispered, “That proves nothing.”
The jeweler looked offended.
“Madam, jewelry proves many things. People lie. Gold remembers.”
Adelaide liked him immediately.
Mateo asked, “When did it next come to you?”
Mr. Lasker hesitated.
He glanced at Evelyn.
Then at Chloe.
“Eight years later. Mrs. Evelyn Jones brought it in for cleaning. She said it had belonged to her late sister.”
“My late sister?” Evelyn snapped.
The jeweler blinked.
“That is what you said.”
“I never—”
Mateo opened a folder.
Rafe placed a printed receipt on the desk.
Evelyn’s signature appeared at the bottom.
Rockford stared at it as though signatures were insects.
“Evelyn,” he said.
She rounded on him. “Do not perform outrage now.”
A silence followed.
Long.
Ugly.
Mateo leaned forward slightly.
“What does that mean?”
Evelyn pressed her lips together.
Adelaide understood suddenly that her stepmother had not meant to speak.
Fatigue had opened the door.
Truth had stepped one foot inside.
Rockford looked away first.
Chloe stood. “We are leaving.”
“No,” Mateo said.
Chloe froze.
“You are guests in my home,” he continued. “Not prisoners. You may leave when I’m done asking questions.”
“That sounds like prison with better curtains.”
Adelaide surprised herself again.
She laughed.
Softly.
Chloe looked at her with hatred.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.” Adelaide removed her glasses, cleaned them with the edge of her sleeve, and put them back on. “I think it’s the first honest thing you’ve said tonight.”
Mr. Lasker cleared his throat.
“There is something else.”
Mateo turned.
The jeweler pointed to the necklace.
“This clasp was modified.”
“Modified how?”
“Not by me. Someone added a hollow chamber behind the setting.”
Adelaide stopped breathing.
“A chamber?”
Mr. Lasker looked at her with unexpected gentleness.
“Your mother chose old-fashioned pieces. Sentimental, not discreet. This alteration came later.”
Mateo gestured once.
The jeweler used a fine tool and pressed a point near the clasp.
A tiny plate shifted.
Something fell into the tray.
Not a jewel.
A thin strip of film, curled tight with age.
Evelyn made a sound like a prayer strangled halfway out.
Rockford whispered, “Margaret.”
Adelaide stared at the film.
Her mother had not merely kept evidence.
She had hidden it where grief itself would guard it.
Mateo’s phone buzzed.
He read the message, and his face hardened.
“What?” Adelaide asked.
He handed her the phone.
The message contained only an address.
Maverick Street Garage.
May you like
And beneath it:
Ask who cut the brakes.
