Chapter 2 #2
Even though I’d been doing this for years, the idea of actually taking over the business and running it – actually running it – was terrifying. The responsibility weighed heavy on my shoulders. We both thought we would have more time, years and years more, until I took over.
I thought I’d have more time with her.
I’d worked out my mom was missing before the police turned up to tell me she’d been in an accident. I was spitting mad at her the whole time she was bleeding out on the sidewalk, thinking she’d taken a trip without me.
It was a Thursday, back in May, and my mom had sent me to an auction on the Upper East Side to buy a few pieces she was interested in.
I’d been given a strict budget and everything had sold for way over what I’d expected.
I was hot, uncomfortable and pissed at being outbid. I hated going home empty-handed.
As soon as I walked through the door to our apartment, and saw no sign of my mom, I knew something was wrong.
It wasn’t unusual for her to have gone out, or to still be working in her office, but in the past she’d always texted me or left a note.
I’d searched the apartment, finding her overnight bag missing, and when I checked downstairs, the shop was locked up hours before closing time.
Back in the kitchen, a book had been left out on the counter.
101 Things To Do in Lima.
It was definitely not where it was supposed to be. I’d put the book back on the living-room bookshelf, amongst all the other 101 Things To Do books that she’d collected over the years, even though we rarely traveled outside of the city other than for work or our once-a-year vacation.
The obvious conclusion was that my mom had gone to Peru, but I was pretty certain that wasn’t right – almost everything in our shop was either American or European, and South America hadn’t featured in any of our recent discussions.
In the days before she’d died, we’d talked about potentially going to England and Ireland later in the summer, and it made much more sense to me for her to head there, though I had no idea why she’d leave without me or without explaining her plans.
She wouldn’t have disappeared unless there was something serious going on, something potentially dangerous, so I’d tried – and failed – to not be upset. Hours later there had been a knock on the door, and I was told my mom had never even made it out of the city.
My world had shattered.
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing this actually worked to get rid of headaches.
I was so used to the pain now that I barely bothered taking painkillers.
I reached for the top drawer to check, just in case, but the box of Advil was empty.
I clenched my jaw and resisted the urge to throw it across the shop floor.
Just then, I heard the sound of a knock on the door.
I ignored it. If it was the mailman, he could take the metal staircase at the back of the building up to the apartment like he did every other damn day.
If it was a customer, they could come back some other time.
Despite telling myself today was the day I was going to reopen the shop, I wasn’t in the mood.
I sipped my coffee again.
A couple of minutes later, the person on the other side of the door was still knocking, and the headache that had been growing all morning was now straining against my temples.
‘Oh, fuck off,’ I muttered, pushing myself back from the desk and stomping over to the door.
It took a second to unlock and pull back the bolt, and, as I swung open the door, the girl’s fist was raised again, ready to keep pounding.
‘What do you want?’ I demanded.
Her mouth dropped open. Then her expression merged into mild annoyance. ‘Google says you open at ten. Though you haven’t been open at all the last few times I came down here and no one answers the phone …’
‘We’re closed today,’ I said, sounding more impatient than I’d intended. I always seemed to sound angry at the moment, and not always on purpose.
The girl was exceptionally pretty, with tanned skin, long, thick blonde hair and lots of gold hoop earrings in both ears, and a matching one in her nose.
In normal circumstances, I would have flirted a little.
Tested the waters. But I couldn’t make myself care about anything these days – even pretty girls.
‘You’ll never get any customers if you speak to them like that,’ she said haughtily.
‘I don’t want customers,’ I said, trying to close the door, except she’d stuck her foot in the way so I couldn’t.
‘You’re incredibly rude,’ she replied.
‘Thank you.’ I smiled.
Then she elbowed her way inside.
I sighed. If she was that desperate to buy something, I’d let her. The one thing I really didn’t mind doing was taking people’s money.
I wandered back to my desk and sat down heavily. She took a seat in one of the visitors’ chairs without being invited and glared at me as I kicked up my feet onto the desk and leaned back.
‘So what do you want?’ I asked.
She took a deep breath before launching into a speech.
‘My name is Alice De Lacy Mulligan. In October last year my grandmother’s house was broken into after she died and lots of valuable family heirlooms were stolen,’ she said in a rush.
It sounded rehearsed, like she had told this story multiple times.
‘Can you please check if any of these items have passed through your shop?’
Alice pulled a battered stack of papers out of her pink K?nken backpack and pushed them across the desk.
I didn’t take them.
‘Please?’ she said again, and her expression turned a little desperate.
‘Why aren’t the police investigating this?’ I asked. ‘There’s a database that we check for stolen goods before we buy anything.’
That was the official line, of course, though the items I frequently bought from Wilson or the Palmers and our other less than legitimate suppliers weren’t logged and reported the way they should be.
Usually stolen goods were moved on as quickly as possible, so if Alice’s grandmother’s house had been robbed in October last year, her items would likely be long gone by now.
‘The NYPD have a lot of other crimes to investigate,’ Alice said, still sounding like she was reading from a script. ‘I’m trying to help speed things up.’
With great reluctance, I took the stack of papers and flicked through them, eyes moving from one photograph to the next.
The thieves had good taste. They’d taken vases and small statues, watches and a decent amount of jewelry. It wasn’t hard to see why they’d made these choices – everything looked relatively easy to transport.
‘Why do you have these photos?’ I asked, holding up one of the pieces of paper. People didn’t generally photograph their possessions neatly like this.
‘Well, luckily for us, we had some items appraised for insurance purposes after she died.’
My ears pricked up. An appraisal followed by a theft was definitely suspicious.
‘Where were they appraised?’
‘Van der Hausen’s,’ she replied.
That was interesting. Henrik Van der Hausen ran a tight ship of one of the most respected auction houses in the city. I wasn’t surprised Alice’s family had taken their antiques to him.
‘I started visiting antique shops, consignment stores and pawn shops back in March,’ Alice said, clearly trying to fill the silence with chatter.
I attempted to tune her out as I studied the photos.
‘Even some thrift stores. I printed off a list and started visiting a few every weekend. The list was alphabetical, so Walker Antiques was near the bottom, though you don’t seem to be open very often. ’
‘There was a family emergency,’ I said vaguely, hoping she wouldn’t pry. ‘Have you found anything yet?’
Alice sighed heavily. ‘No, not yet.’
So she was running out of options, and the police were being useless. Nothing new there.
I stole another glance at Alice out of the corner of my eye.
She had vividly blue eyes that stood out from her elegant features, reminding me of an actress whose name I couldn’t quite remember. She was almost as tall as me, sort of willowy, with a delicate nose and defined cheekbones, and all that blonde hair spilling over her shoulders.
There was something in the way she held herself that annoyed me for reasons I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was the fact that she was wearing a very short, summery dress, even though it had been raining last night and the weather could turn again at any minute. That kind of optimism got on my nerves.
‘Huh,’ I said as I flipped over one of the pages.
‘Huh?’ Alice echoed, her expression shifting to desperate hopefulness.
I set the page on the desk and studied it. I recognized some of these pieces.
We didn’t often buy large collections of jewelry unless we were confident of the value of each individual piece – some less scrupulous sellers tried to hide lower-quality pieces in amongst the gems. Right from the start, though, I’d had a feeling this collection, captured in the photos in front of me, was the real deal.
Back around last Thanksgiving I’d done some of the appraising of this jewelry myself and had found maker’s marks for the most respected jewelers in the world – De Beers, Cartier, Tiffany.
But in the rush leading up to Christmas, other priorities had taken over, and I had handed the jewelry collection back to my mom so she could keep researching the items and work out what we could sell them on for.
My next few moves had to be carefully considered – if we had acquired the jewelry from one of our criminal contacts, admitting that to Alice could be disastrous for Walker Antiques, especially if the police were involved.
Then again, if we still had some of the items and had to hand them back to her, I could put in a nice fat claim with our business insurance that would help pay the bills for the next few months.
I wasn’t above a little light insurance fraud.
‘Well?’ Alice asked.