Chapter 8 - Someone Was Inside.
My apartment door was unlocked.
I noticed before I touched it.
Nathan and I lived in a penthouse with a private elevator and a security system that sent alerts if anyone entered while both of us were away.
There had been no alert.
Lillian stood behind me.
“Do not go in.”
I called building security.
The guard arrived two minutes later with another officer from the lobby desk.
They entered first.
Nothing appeared damaged.
No broken glass.
No overturned furniture.
No obvious theft.
Then I walked into Nathan’s office.
The blue binder was gone.
Every drawer stood open.
The small safe behind the bookcase had been emptied.
My bedroom looked untouched until I opened the closet.
A garment bag had been moved.
Behind it, a panel in the wall stood slightly ajar.
I had lived there for four years.
I did not know the panel existed.
Inside was a narrow wall safe.
The door was open.
Empty.
“What was in there?” Lillian asked.
“I didn’t know there was a there.”
She photographed it.
Building security checked the electronic logs.
Someone had entered using Nathan’s master code at 3:17 p.m.
Nathan had been at the jewelry store at 3:17.
I called him.
He answered immediately.
“What happened?”
“Why do you assume something happened?”
“Because you never call me anymore.”
“Someone used your master code to enter the apartment.”
Silence.
“What time?”
“Three seventeen.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“I know.”
“Is the wall safe open?”
My stomach tightened.
“You knew about it.”
“Emma, is it open?”
“Yes.”
He swore.
“What was inside?”
“Documents.”
“What documents?”
“My insurance files.”
I waited.
“And?”
Nathan hesitated.
“A copy of your father’s death investigation.”
“You had that in our bedroom wall.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“Did you ever consider mentioning it?”
“I considered a lot of things.”
“That is not a defense.”
“I know.”
“I’m getting tired of everyone knowing.”
He exhaled.
“Was there anything else missing?”
“The blue binder.”
“That was already gone when I returned to the store.”
“Who took it?”
“I assumed Celeste.”
“Ask her.”
“She disappeared.”
I straightened.
“What?”
“She left the store after you did.”
“You saw her at Lillian’s office.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I followed her car.”
My anger surged again.
“You followed her to my lawyer?”
“Because I thought she had the binder.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is she now?”
“No idea.”
Then I remembered my father’s warning.
Claire knows more than she told you.
“I’m going to the store.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking.”
“Emma, the store is closed.”
“Claire has access.”
Nathan went quiet.
“What did Daniel tell you about Claire?”
That question answered too much.
“You know she’s involved.”
“I know she wasn’t hired by me.”
“What?”
“She was already employed at the first location when I bought the business.”
“You told me you hired her.”
“I lied.”
“Apparently that was your full-time job.”
“She came with the lease.”
“Employees do not come with leases.”
“This one did.”
“Who required it?”
“The anonymous investor who guaranteed the property.”
My father.
I knew it before Nathan said anything else.
“Daniel?”
“I think so.”
Claire had been in our business from the beginning.
Quiet.
Reliable.
Watching everything.
“Where does she live?” I asked.
Nathan gave me the address.
Twenty minutes later, Lillian and I stood outside Claire’s apartment in Queens.
Her door was closed.
No answer.
A neighbor opened her door after our third knock.
“She left an hour ago.”
“With anyone?”
The woman frowned.
“A blonde woman picked her up.”
“Did you hear a name?”
“No.”
“Car?”
“Silver sedan.”
Celeste drove a silver sedan.
I called her.
Her number was disconnected.
Lillian called Claire.
Straight to voicemail.
Then my phone received a photo from an unknown number.
Claire sat in the passenger seat of a silver car.
Her face was turned away from the camera.
Celeste was driving.
The next message contained an address.
An old warehouse in Brooklyn that Vale Meridian had sold eight years earlier.
Underneath it were four words.
COME ALONE WITH THE STONE.
Lillian read the message.
“No.”
“It may be Claire.”
“It may be someone using Claire.”
“My father told me to follow the stones.”
“Your father also spent twelve years letting everyone think he was dead.”
“That does not make him wrong about everything.”
“It makes blind trust a terrible strategy.”
She was right.
I hated that too.
We called Nathan.
He recognized the warehouse address immediately.
“That was our old grading facility.”
“Why would Celeste take Claire there?”
“Because the original microscopes are still installed.”
The blue diamond.
The microscopic inscription.
“Can the girdle number be read there?”
“Yes.”
Lillian looked at me.
“Then we do not go alone.”
An hour later, we entered the warehouse with two private investigators from Lillian’s firm waiting outside.
The building smelled like dust and old cardboard.
Most of the lights were off.
A single lamp glowed in the former grading room.
Claire stood beside a microscope.
Celeste stood across from her.
Neither appeared restrained.
Neither appeared surprised to see us.
“You brought Lillian,” Celeste said.
“Of course I did.”
“I told you to come alone.”
“I stopped taking instructions from women who sleep with my husband.”
Celeste winced slightly.
It was the first time the insult seemed to land.
Claire stepped forward.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not telling you sooner.”
“Who are you?”
Her eyes filled.
“I worked for your father.”
I stared at her.
“In the jewelry store?”
“Before the jewelry store.”
“How long?”
“Since I was nineteen.”
“You were his employee?”
“No.”
She looked at Celeste.
“I was his courier.”
“For what?”
“The Aurora stones.”
Celeste opened her hand.
“Give us the blue diamond.”
I did not move.
“Why?”
“Because the inscription tells us which corporate archive contains the founder certification.”
“Dad said the stone was the key.”
“It is.”
“How do I know you’re not taking it to my mother?”
Celeste’s face hardened.
“Because Evelyn has spent twelve years trying to find that stone.”
Claire gestured toward the microscope.
“You can read it yourself.”
I removed the pouch from my purse.
Lillian watched both women while I placed the diamond under the lens.
Claire adjusted the light.
At first, I saw only a blue-gray edge.
Then tiny characters came into focus.
AC-17-0941-ND.
Lillian wrote them down.
“Atlantic Crown, box seventeen?”
Claire shook her head.
“Not a box.”
Celeste looked at me.
“Northstar Dominion.”
The final two letters.
N.D.
“What does 0941 mean?” I asked.
Claire’s expression changed.
“September 1941.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It’s a birth date code.”
“Whose?”
Celeste answered.
“Your grandmother’s.”
I stared at her.
My grandmother Eleanor Vale had been born in September 1941.
She had also supposedly died six years earlier.
Lillian went very still.
“Daniel said the person who built Northstar had been at every one of Emma’s birthdays.”
Celeste nodded.
“Eleanor was.”
My skin went cold.
“You’re saying my grandmother built Northstar?”
“No.”
Claire looked terrified now.
“We’re saying Northstar was built in her name.”
“By who?”
I kept the diamond in my hand.
“One more question,” I said.
Celeste glanced toward the door.
“We do not have much time.”
“You had an affair with Nathan while supposedly working against my mother.”
Claire looked away.
Celeste did not.
“Yes.”
“Was that part of Eleanor's plan?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
For once, Celeste looked embarrassed rather than superior.
“Because I hated how easy your life looked from the outside.”
I stared at her.
She continued before I could answer.
“I spent years carrying secrets for your mother, then your grandmother, then your father.”
“And you decided sleeping with my husband would balance the universe?”
“No.”
Her voice was quiet.
“I decided I wanted one thing that belonged to the family instead of another secret I had to protect for it.”
The ugliness of the answer made it believable.
Claire looked at her with disgust.
“That is not why you told me.”
Celeste turned.
“No.”
“You told me Nathan was already helping Richard.”
I looked between them.
“Helping him do what?”
Claire's face tightened.
“Moving transaction records through the stores so they looked like private-client purchases.”
The jewelry records again.
The exact records Nathan panicked when I mentioned.
“How much?”
“I don't know.”
Celeste looked at the stone in my hand.
“But enough that the store is not just evidence of the affair.”
Her eyes met mine.
May you like
“It is evidence of the takeover.”
Before either woman answered, the warehouse lights went out.
