19. Erica #2
“Of course. Whatever you need.” Hobbs says it fast and eager. “Anything for the gala. Big night for the museum. Big night for me too, frankly. Director candidacy’s coming up in the fall, and a flawless gala is exactly the kind of thing the board remembers.”
“I’m sure it’ll be memorable,” Ivy says, and there is not one flicker on her face to suggest how memorable it is actually going to be.
Beside her, Rue works the perimeter of the case, two gloved fingers tracing the seam where the glazing meets the frame.
“Glass-clad polycarbonate, three-ply.” She speaks into the tablet propped against her forearm.
“Forced-entry rated. No spalling if it ever took a hit, which means no glass fragments flying inward to trip the photoelectric beams even if somebody got stupid with a hammer.” She taps a spot low on the frame.
“Extruded aluminum housing, not steel. Interesting choice.”
“Is that a problem?” Hobbs asks.
“Not particularly.” Rue doesn’t look up. “Just noting it.”
“She’s noting it, all right,” I murmur. Zoe snorts.
“Vibration sensor’s mounted inside the frame itself, not the glass, so it reads the whole housing as one unit.
Pressure pad under the base too.” She glances up at the lighting rig without moving her head far.
“And I’d bet real money there’s a seismic trigger tucked in there, given how twitchy that fixture is. ”
Hobbs practically puffs up. “I pushed for that upgrade myself when I took over Provenance. Plus a humidity regulator most people don’t even know to ask about.” He says it like he’s handing her a gift. “I don’t cut corners on something like this.”
“Biometric lock’s engaging properly?” she asks.
“Like a dream. No keys anywhere near this case anymore. Card readers are for department stores.”
“Do you think she can get past all that?” I ask Zoe.
Zoe lets out a big sigh. “Remains to be seen. She might have to replicate the whole dang case, and I’ll bet it’s heavy as heck.”
“That’s gonna cost a pretty penny.”
“Don’t underestimate Rue just yet. The idiot just said the case would be open for photographs.”
“We’ll need a bigger distraction,” I say. “Where did you say the Argentinians are sitting?”
“Seating chart’s over there,” she says with a wave of her hand.
I find the seating chart and look for Jeremiah’s name. According to this, he and his plus-one (me) are at table three. The Argentinians are four tables over. It’s my job to make sure they don’t leave that room.
“May I?” Suri asks, and Hobbs practically trips over his own feet unlocking the case again.
He gingerly lifts the necklace out, cradling it with both hands and sets it down on the small velvet presentation tray. Right next to the cigars. Seriously, we couldn’t have planned this any better.
Suri leans in with her loupe.
“Widow’s teardrop setting, silver-topped gold, hand-wrought.” She tilts it toward the light, angling for the clasp. “There’s a maker’s mark here, right where you’d expect it on a piece of this era. See the cartouche? The little stamped shield the mark sits inside.”
“I, ah, hadn’t noticed that, actually,” Hobbs says, leaning in far closer than the moment requires, mostly, I suspect, because leaning in lets him stand shoulder to shoulder with Ivy.
“Most people don’t. It’s meant to look like a flourish in the design.” Suri sets the loupe against her eye. “Shield cartouche narrows it to a handful of London workshops working in this period. And here, the assay mark. Leopard's head, which confirms London."
“Fascinating,” Hobbs says. He finds absolutely none of it fascinating and all of it a very good excuse to keep standing near Ivy.
“And here.” Suri’s voice lowers to a half-whisper, as though she’s only just speaking to the necklace, like a lover… not unlike how Jeremiah whispers in my ear.
“Date letter. Unique font, unique cartouche shape.” She works the clasp open and shut once, twice, testing the give in the hinge. “Clasp mechanism’s original, too.”
A beat. “Weight, somewhere around forty to forty-five grams total, call it just over an ounce and a half.”
“That is compliant with my records,” Rue says, tapping on her screen.
“Tarnish is exactly where it should be, worked into the millegrain, the kind you can’t fully polish out no matter how good your jeweler is.
Gold’s still warm underneath, right where the silver’s worn thin at the edges.
I’d want it under a scope properly before I sign off, but nothing here contradicts the file. ”
“Suri’s utterly terrifying,” Zoe says, with real affection. “I love her.”
Hobbs claps his hands together once, entirely too pleased with himself. He admires the cigars one more time, closes the lid, and tucks the box under his arm like he’s already deciding how to sneak it out of the museum. “Well. I think that covers everything on my end. Anything else you ladies need?”
“I think we have everything,” Ivy says, and glances, just once, toward the camera.
"Everything," Zoe echoes satisfactorily, hitting a key that means recording, archived, done.
I watch the feed a moment longer. The necklace is back in its biometric or whatever locked case. Hobbs walks Ivy toward the door with his hand hovering an inch off her back, the way men do when they want credit for chivalry they haven’t actually performed.
Rue gives the case a passing glance one more time.
And Hobbs has no idea he’s been playing the perfect fool for a room full of women he’ll never see coming. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when it all goes down.
Tanya comes back inside after her lovey-dovey call with Dale, and she’s back to her normal self. She probably just needed some Dale the Muffin Man therapy.
I could use some Jeremiah therapy myself. Does that make me needy? I was just having breakfast with the man a mere two hours ago.
I spend the rest of the day debating how much I can realistically be honest with him. I get where Tanya’s coming from, I really do. If someone is that special, you don’t want any secrets between you.
I go through the motions the rest of the day. Suri has her workstation spread out over two tables. She came back from the museum with renewed focus and has hardly rested since. We’ve been forcing pizza into her mouth while she mumbles, “Trust the process.”
Rue and Tanya are huddled over what I assume are plans for a replica display case, although I think Rue has a sense of personal professional pride and wants to try lifting the jewel the old-fashioned way.
The day slides into night, and I hardly sleep a wink.
I lie on my side on the fold-out with the window cracked, listening to a siren two blocks over rise and fade.
I think about Dale, how he’s not very much unlike Jeremiah in the fact that they’re both bound by a strict personal code of doing the right thing and being a good man, with boundless, wagging-tail enthusiasm. Admittedly, Dale has a bit more Ted Lasso puppy energy than Jeremiah, but it’s close.
Similar to Jeremiah, Dale was Mark-adjacent. Tanya went and fell in love with the guy anyway.
I think of how she said it was better to lose him with honesty than keep him with a lie.
My thoughts bang around my head loudly until I finally doze off just before dawn.
When I wake up mid-morning, I’m resolved to give Jeremiah what I can.
A shred of honesty for now. If he takes it well and doesn’t run for the hills, I’ll ease him into the whole me.
Slowly. I can’t very well just blurt out that I’m basically the morally gray character in his Captain America story.
I decide to send him a text, because every single time I run the scene in my head I get to the part where his face changes, and I can’t watch that happen live. I don’t have it in me.
me: lets play 2 truths and a lie. go
me: 1. im secretly a time traveling alien sent from the year 2417 to study earth hockey culture
me: 2. im never giving the gill power hat back its mine now
me: 3. my dad is in prison
I read it back twice and stall, thumb hovering over the send arrow like it’s going to detonate. Then I hit send before I can think better of it, set the flip phone down and stare at the water stain on the ceiling.
Then I wait. And wait.
Nothing. No reply.
I wait until the morning turns into the afternoon.
Still nothing.
I suppose silence is the only answer I can expect.