Chapter 8
Alice led me to the other side of the apartment where I hadn’t had any need to go yet.
Her aunt’s bedroom was as lavishly decorated as the rest of the place, with purple velvet and gold fixtures.
I stepped round Alice and into the walk-in closet where designer purses were stacked five rows high and a large dresser in the middle of the room had suspiciously narrow drawers at the top.
I pulled one of them open and hit the jackpot.
‘Holy shit,’ I murmured.
Sienna’s jewelry was laid out in rows, in what looked like custom-designed spaces for each piece. She seemed to like earrings – big, bold earrings in bright colors that looked like they were made by modern artists but probably didn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy.
‘If this is her everyday stuff, I wonder what the hell is in her safe,’ I said, turning back to Alice, who laughed.
I pulled open the next drawer, and now we were starting to get somewhere.
‘Can you take a photo of this?’ I said to Alice before I touched anything.
‘Why?’
I glanced over at her. ‘So we can make sure we put everything back in the right place.’
‘Oh.’ She pulled out her phone and took a few pictures from different angles. ‘That bracelet would have been a twenty-first birthday present,’ she said, pointing to a diamond tennis bracelet held in a Perspex case. ‘It’s a tradition in my family.’
I gently pulled off the case and left it on the top of the dresser so I could wipe away my fingerprints later. It paid to be careful with these things.
The tennis bracelet was stunning and covered in chunky diamonds. I set it aside and moved on to the next drawer.
‘Tiaras, really?’
Alice elbowed me out of the way. ‘They’ll be for big events, charity galas, that kind of thing.’
‘But tiaras.’
‘Stop being such a snob.’
‘Me?’ I gasped. ‘I’m a snob?’
She laughed at me and lifted one of the tiaras out of the drawer. ‘This is Cartier. I recognize it.’
‘Great, that will work.’
It took me a few more minutes to gather a nice little collection of items, sticking to diamonds – we’d started with them and so it would make more sense to the man appraising them.
With any luck, Van der Hausen’s would assume this was just a continuation of the items Alice had inherited from her grandmother.
I’d brief her on what to say just in case they pressed for details.
‘Anything else?’ Alice asked.
‘No, this is enough. We need something to transport it all in, though.’
‘There should be bags or boxes around here somewhere.’
She checked a few drawers and then brought out some soft cloth bags, tucking each piece in its own bag before scooping the tiara into its box.
‘I don’t have anything that locks,’ Alice said.
‘That’s okay. We’ll just need to be careful not to get mugged.’
‘Oh, great,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’m glad New York has such a reputation for people not getting mugged.’
We exited Sienna’s bedroom and Alice bypassed the kitchen and living room for the last bedroom, another that I hadn’t seen into yet.
It was still decorated in Sienna’s signature loud style, but it was full of Alice’s familiar summery attire that had been dumped on the floor or draped over chairs and the dresser.
So she was messy. It was annoying that I found that cute.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching as she grabbed a leather satchel-style backpack and carefully tucked Sienna’s jewelry inside.
Alice looked up at me, then frowned.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘What’s our story going to be?
‘Friends from school? Or I could be your personal assistant?’
Alice laughed. ‘I’m not important or wealthy enough for a personal assistant, Kendra.’
I kept my instinctive response – that she was a lot wealthier than me – to myself.
‘So, friends?’
‘That makes sense,’ she agreed. ‘You can be Maddie Lawson.’
‘Who’s Maddie Lawson?’ I asked, fighting back a tiny twist of jealousy that was totally unwarranted.
‘A girl from high school. She won’t mind. Actually, I think if she ever found out that we used her name to sneak in somewhere, she’d be thrilled.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll be Maddie.’
Alice sat down on the edge of her bed, pushing away a wobbly pile of clothes to make space. I still didn’t step further into the room.
‘Do you have any ideas about where in the building the next clue might be?’ Alice asked.
‘It could be anywhere. But …’
‘But?’ Alice pressed.
‘I’m wondering if it might be connected to the appraisal. I think keeping focused on the jewelry case is the right direction, at least to start with. If that doesn’t work, we can expand outwards.’
‘Got it,’ she said. ‘So, do you want to see if we can get into the same meeting room where the original appraisal was done?’
‘That couldn’t hurt,’ I agreed. ‘What about your paperwork? How was it given to you?’
‘It was emailed to us. My mom printed out copies when I started going to shops around the city asking about the jewelry.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Did you go anywhere else in the building during the appraisal?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘The only reason I was there was because I was going out for lunch and shopping with my mom after the appointment. My aunt took all the items back to my grandmother’s house so we didn’t have to lug them around with us.
I’m not sure any of this is that helpful information, though. ’
‘You never know,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to get a better picture of your time at Van der Hausen’s.’
‘Makes sense. More importantly, though, we need to come up with a plan for once we get inside tomorrow.’
Alice got up and stretched, and I followed her back to the kitchen. It had turned into a good planning space.
‘I’m obviously the decoy, right?’ Alice said as she hopped onto a bar stool.
‘Yeah, I need you to distract them so I can investigate.’
‘So do you need me to help get you out of the room so you can look for the clue elsewhere or do you need me to get this Yearwood guy out so you can search the appraisal room?’
Either situation may be necessary. ‘Both,’ I said.
‘Okay.’ She sighed. ‘Great.’
‘Let’s have a signal,’ I decided, walking over to the oven and then back toward Alice. Pacing helped me refine my ideas. I flicked up one finger. ‘One for I want to leave the room. Two for you need to leave.’
‘That works,’ she agreed. ‘Although, you could always just ask where the bathroom is.’
‘Could be tricky. People only take a certain amount of time in a bathroom.’
Alice blinked at me. ‘Maybe you ate some bad seafood.’
‘Ew, Alice,’ I said, and she laughed.
‘What? It’s possible.’
‘Well, I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.’
‘Why would I need to leave you alone in the room?’ Alice asked. ‘I need a decent reason.’
‘We might just have to improvise,’ I said. ‘But you could always ask to look at some of their other pieces. Actually, we should find out what they have in stock. It wouldn’t be unusual to trade in what you have for something else.’
Alice cocked her head to the side. ‘I inherited these pieces; they’re not my style – I want to trade them.’ She nodded, clearly liking that story.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you’re okay with this? I don’t want you to flake out halfway through.’
She glared at me. ‘I’m not going to flake on you, Kendra. I want my jewelry back.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Saying what?’
‘You’re almost certainly not as good a liar as I am,’ I said with a smirk.
I was teasing her, and we both knew it, but she fell for it anyway.
‘I’m not going to fuck up,’ she said, leaning in intently – so close I was forced to shuffle back. Alice grinned, clearly satisfied.
‘Then we have work to do.’
We spent the rest of the day putting together our own floorplans of Van der Hausen’s – we’d both been inside, so between us we had a decent idea of the building’s layout, and there were a handful of images of certain rooms online.
Alice was more familiar with the private meeting rooms area, where appraisals took place, and I knew the auction space better.
We both had less sense of the layout of the actual shop, though that didn’t matter so much. I had no intention of going in there.
Alice held up to my prodding and questioning better than I thought she would – she could actually think on her feet and improvise, which I was sure would come in handy.
But even though we worked through several different scenarios on how to get around, and more importantly get back out of, the building, I couldn’t be certain how it was all going to play out.
We were going to have to rely on texting each other depending on how it all went down.
I’d have to be on top of my game too when we went into the auction house, ready to react to any opportunities that would allow me to snoop around.
My confidence had taken a knocking in recent times, especially with the stalking having progressed to physical violence – that was enough to make anyone twitchy – and connecting the jewelry to my mom’s death, but I was determined to give this my best shot and not let outside noise throw me off the hunt.
The next morning, I raided Alice’s closet to find something appropriate to wear to the appointment, eventually picking a pair of tailored trousers the color of rich toffee.
Then I layered on a crisp, white, button-up shirt.
Alice had taken a critical look at me and dug out a chunky gold necklace to complete the look.
It was an outfit I’d never be seen dead in, which meant it would work as a good disguise while I pretended to be Maddie.
There was still a risk that someone at Van der Hausen’s would recognize me as Kendra Walker of Walker Antiques, though with Henrik out of the country, there was less chance of that.
Wearing makeup was a pain in the ass but necessary if I didn’t want anyone to see the bruising under my eyes. I applied a bunch of products to my face until I’d done a fairly good job of hiding the fact that I’d recently been beaten up.
‘Are you ready?’ Alice called, knocking on the door.