Chapter 2
By the next morning the rain had stopped, making way for wispy clouds and a blue sky that seemed to ask, What rain?
I lay in bed for far longer than I wanted to, knowing I hadn’t had enough sleep to get through the day, as demonstrated by the headache brewing behind my eyes. It didn’t matter how long I sprawled, staring at the ceiling, I knew I wasn’t going to get back to sleep.
Insomnia had become a constant companion since my mom had died.
I’d only come back here yesterday evening after I’d forced myself to get up and leave the safehouse apartment I’d been staying in during my depressive episode.
It was that sudden burst of energy that had carried me home to dump my bags, then head straight back out to find Marcus and catch up on what I’d missed out on.
If nothing else, I’d been able to confirm that the safehouse was indeed safe – even though I was sure people like Marcus would have been keeping an ear to the ground about my whereabouts, no one had found me.
Being back in my own bed was nice, though the knowledge my mom wasn’t about to come and knock on my door to get me moving was almost enough to let the sneaking tendrils of grief take hold again.
I finally forced myself to get up and go through my morning routine, feeling raw and emotionally hungover. Even knowing that I was going to have to pay a visit to our Wall Street bank and walk past Federal Hall at some point, I hadn’t been prepared for how hard it was going to hit me.
I showered and brushed my teeth, detangled my hair and shoved some product through it to turn the frizz into curls.
Then I got dressed in jeans and a clean shirt.
My mom would never have run the business in jeans, even black ones, but she wasn’t here to tell me to get changed, and I couldn’t find the energy to put together a more appropriate outfit.
I still felt queasy after my mini panic attack last night, so I made coffee and transferred it to a travel mug.
Then, because I was feeling guilty about the jeans, I went into the bathroom to swipe mascara over my eyelashes.
After last night, I felt like it was time to start facing up to the things that had been scaring me.
I’d taken the first, worst step by going back to the place where my mom had died, and in a weird way that had given me the strength to tackle other little things.
Taking care of myself and my appearance made me feel like I was doing something my mom would approve of, and I knew that reassurance would help me face the rest of the day.
Wearing business-appropriate clothes was a step for another time.
I’d lived in our apartment above Walker Antiques for most of my life.
It was only a couple of years ago that my mom had encouraged me to redecorate my bedroom, replacing the intense goth phase I’d gone through in my mid-teenage years with more calming and neutral décor.
Though I was still a goth kid at heart, I had to admit the makeover was an upgrade, especially since it had come with a king-size bed.
At the last second, I remembered the diamond earrings Wilson gave me.
By the time I’d finally gotten home last night, I was cold, exhausted and emotionally wrung-out, so I’d dumped my wet jacket, sneakers and clothes in the kitchen before crawling into bed.
I went to retrieve the jewelry box from my still-damp jacket pocket to take it downstairs so the earrings could be logged and put away.
The building’s internal staircase deposited me at the back of the shop, with my mom’s office accessed by the next door along.
I had only been into her office a handful of times since she’d died, and only when I absolutely had to.
I’d keep avoiding it for as long as possible.
For now, almost everything in there was last touched by her. Every time I went in I changed that.
Walker Antiques was nestled among the little cluster of antique shops between Union Square and Washington Square Park.
It was part of a row of stores with red-brick fronts, and the shop stretched further back than most people realized, letting visitors discover little side rooms full of treasures the more they explored.
My mom had taken over the shop when her father passed away, around thirteen years ago, just after I’d started school.
My grandfather was a clocks guy, and for years that was what the shop had been known for.
Clocks and watches. My mom was more interested in jewelry, and over the years, our focus had shifted to align more with her tastes than his.
That meant installing jewelry cases that we’d bought from another antiques store that was closing down, adding to the Aladdin’s cave vibes.
The shop was piled high with art, porcelain and furniture alongside the jewelry and clocks – enough variety to draw in a broad range of customers.
The main cash desk was near the front of the store, so my mom could see when someone came in, and it was organized chaos.
It was the same as her office out the back, but no one ever saw that.
I’d tried, several times, to get her to upgrade the shop’s filing systems to something more modern and digital, though I never managed to convince her.
When she’d inherited the shop from her dad, she had kept things as familiar as possible for the regular customers.
But I’d always said that as soon as I took over the business I would change everything, throwing away the old paper files and receipts and the filing cabinets that stored them and bringing the shop into the twenty-first century.
And then overnight the shop had become my sole responsibility, and I hadn’t touched a thing.
I’d been filled with sudden empathy for my mom for not wanting to change anything her dad had established while gripped by the grief of losing him.
It was much easier to make those promises when the ghost of your parent wasn’t watching over your shoulder.
The changes were on my ever-growing to-do list. I’d get to them. Eventually.
The desk was, naturally, an antique – a huge, old, walnut writing desk with a leather blotter and drawers with brass locks.
It had a couple of secret compartments too, which had entertained me endlessly as a child.
I sat down in the comfortable old chair and swung back and forth a few times.
Then I set the jewelry box down on the desk and pulled the log book over to record last night’s transaction.
Diamond earrings. 1920s. $8,500. VW. SS.
‘SS’ stood for ‘shop safe’, so I’d know where the hell I’d put the damn things when I came to look for them later. Since I was hoping to sell them on quickly, it made the most sense to keep them here, in the shop, rather than putting them in storage somewhere off-site.
I pulled the shop laptop out of one of the desk drawers and took my time crafting the email to my contact in Italy about the earrings.
I had to tread carefully, because Signor Giordano was ancient and hated it when I jumped straight to business.
He wanted a story, drama, romance – something to get deeply invested in, rather than just photos and a price.
In our previous correspondences, I’d spun plenty of completely fake stories to help me close the deal.
It was kind of fun actually, trying to work out what was too much and which details were just enough to tug at his heartstrings.
Once he was captivated and we had a deal, I’d forge the documentation he’d need to sell the items in the European market.
I cracked my knuckles and worked up a tale about a tragic bride who died before her wedding day, with the diamond earrings a wedding present her fiancé had never had the chance to gift her. It was cheesy, for sure, but plausible.
I wouldn’t send photos until the next email. This was all part of the game I played with Giordano. It always took several back-and-forth emails before the topic of him actually buying the item came up, but the payoff was worth the drawn-out negotiation.
Then I logged on to our online banking system and transferred Wilson his eight and a half grand from our numbered account in the Bahamas to his numbered account in Switzerland.
With that done, my next job was opening the front door. Except I just couldn’t find the inner strength to do it. Dealing with the public demanded so much energy and I wasn’t sure if I was actually ready to be nice to anyone.
I sipped my coffee and listened to the familiar, out-of-sync ticking of dozens of old clocks. Comforted by the sound, I could almost pretend that things were the same as they’d always been, and the nightmare of the past couple of months hadn’t happened at all.
Technically, closing the shop for a short time wasn’t the end of the world. Practically, though, I still had bills to pay. Quite a few bills. Bills that were now stacking up.
If Signor Giordano bought the earrings, that would take the pressure off, and, with the generally high price of antiques, I only needed to sell a few pieces each week to cover our bills.
But being closed had upset that delicate balance, and the difficult truth was that I needed to get back on track soon, otherwise the hundred-year-old business I’d inherited would fall into bankruptcy.
Then there was the last note my mom had left for me before she went out the night of her death. It was stuck to a book:
Kendra, do inventory!!
Love Mom
I ran my thumb over her inked instruction, feeling guilty again. I hadn’t done inventory – the long, tedious task of checking every item in the shop, including the safe, against our records, making sure our sales data was correct and nothing was missing.