Chapter 13
I wasn’t in a better mood by the next morning.
The last thing I wanted was to lose momentum, especially since I’d been able to crack all the clues up to now without too many issues.
Alice accosted me before I got to the coffee pot. She had already done her hair and makeup for the day, but she was still wearing her pink pajamas with red hearts printed on them. Every day it was getting harder to convince myself I didn’t have a ridiculous, hopeless crush on her.
Like with most of my feelings, it was easier to suppress them than to act on the effect Alice had on me. My life was such a mess, it didn’t feel right to bring someone into that – especially not someone like Alice, who was too bright and joyful to be dragged down by my misery.
‘I need to go see my family today,’ Alice said.
‘Okay,’ I muttered, reaching around her to the cupboard with the mugs. There was half a pot of coffee left, which meant Alice had drunk half herself, and that explained why she was currently twitching like a chipmunk on cocaine.
‘Do you want to come with me?’
‘To meet your mom?’
‘She’d love you!’ Alice enthused.
I shook my head. ‘You go and spend time with her. What are your plans?’
‘Her and some other family members have booked brunch at the Beekman. I’m going to see if I can get any more information about Abigail from them.’
‘Just be careful what you say,’ I said, suddenly nervous. ‘I don’t want things to get any more complicated than they already are.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ she said, a little defensively.
I gulped my coffee and immediately regretted it.
‘We have cream and sugar,’ Alice said pointedly.
I brought the mug protectively to my chest. ‘It doesn’t need diluting.’
‘No wonder you’re so bitter,’ she said, teasing me. Despite wanting to flirt back, I hadn’t been awake long enough to come up with a good response.
Alice came to lean against the counter next to me. ‘What are you going to do today, then?’ she asked. ‘Anything fun?’
‘I’m going to …’ It took me a second to make a decision.
I still had a few loose ends to investigate, and I wasn’t sure where to start.
‘Review where we’ve been so far. Check over all the clues to see if I’ve missed something.
Do some more research on the Statue of Liberty and the island.
Hopefully my mom didn’t really want me to go all the way to Paris. ’
Alice was already shaking her head. ‘That doesn’t make sense, though. Everything has been centered on the city and the Titanic so far. If we went anywhere else it would be Southampton, in England. Or Belfast.’
‘Great. England and Belfast are no closer,’ I muttered.
‘Don’t tell me you get plane sick as well as seasick?’
‘Fuck off, Alice.’
She laughed, bright and loud, and I resisted the temptation to push her shoulder. Then I gave in and shoved her anyway.
‘I need to go get changed,’ she said, stretching.
‘You do that.’
I finished my coffee and checked my emails while Alice got ready to go. Signor Giordano had finally replied to my message about the diamond earrings, and I could tell from his tone that he was very interested, so I took my time writing a reply to him.
‘What do you think?’ Alice said, swishing back into the kitchen wearing a yellow dress with daisies on it, wedge sandals and a big rattan purse.
‘You look lovely, dear,’ I said drily, imitating an old sitcom husband.
‘Thank you, darling,’ Alice said with a sunny smile. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Have fun.’ I waved at her absently as I switched tabs to another article on the Statue of Liberty.
I had all the other clues laid out: the tour tickets for Grand Central, the letters from the Fabergé book, the Morse code from the paperwork at Van der Hausen’s, and the Lady Liberty magnet from Pier 54.
There wasn’t a clear link between any of them, as far as I could tell.
The locations were built during different time periods, by different architects, and financed from different sources.
Each clue was a direction on where to find the next.
The types of clues were all different too, and didn’t relate to each other in any meaningful way.
I flicked back and forth on my iPad between the notes and photos I’d taken. However much I was stuck on the idea of the magnet being a more obscure clue, I had to consider the possibility that I’d been right the first time – I had to go back out to the island.
The thought of getting back on the ferry made me feel seasick in advance, and I was a little disappointed I wouldn’t have Alice to fuss over me this time. I tried not to think about it too much as I tapped in my credit card information and bought a new ticket.
Overnight, a thick band of humidity had crawled over the city, promising an incredibly uncomfortable experience on the subway.
I twisted my hair into a tight bun to keep the wisps off the back of my neck and dressed in my lightest clothes.
Then I threw on sunglasses, shoved my phone into a crossbody bag, along with the Lady Liberty magnet (for luck) that I’d hastily reassembled this morning, and left the apartment.
When I emerged from the subway into Battery Park I was sweating, and I bought a bottle of water from a cart, mostly to run it back and forth across my forehead to cool me down.
The journey back out to the island was marginally better than the day before, only because I could keep my eyes closed the entire time and concentrate on my breathing instead of holding a conversation.
It seemed busier today than it had yesterday, and I realized a little too late that it was Saturday morning.
Moving through the crowds, I walked straight over to the museum, knowing that was the more likely location.
I took a slow loop around it, trying to open my mind to new possibilities, and paying close attention to each display.
This was a modern museum – it had only opened a few years ago, and it was sleek and cool and clean, not the kind of place with nooks and crannies you could hide something in. The clue would either be hidden in plain sight, like the Lady Liberty magnet, or hidden under another layer of security.
The thought of security had me approaching one of the museum stewards, an older guy wearing a carefully pressed uniform. He had a pair of glasses on a chain round his neck and a neat gray mustache.
‘Excuse me,’ I said.
He smiled at me warmly. ‘Can I help?’
‘Hopefully.’ I returned the smile. ‘Do you sell this, by any chance?’
I held up the magnet, and he propped his glasses on his nose to study it.
‘Oh, yes. You’ll find them in the gift shop. It’s just down that hallway, past the restrooms and the lost and found.’
I could swear a lightbulb went off over my head.
‘Thanks very much,’ I said.
The lost and found. For fuck’s sake. I had lost something – the jewelry – and was trying to find it. If I was right, this was a riddle of sorts, both a play on words and the physical location of the next clue.
Suddenly I felt alive, electric, yet filled with a strange regret that I didn’t have Alice here with me. I desperately wanted to call her, to let her know I’d figured it out.
The lost and found department was a white door nestled into a white frame along a white wall, with only a small plaque to inform people of what was hiding behind it.
Unsure of the protocol here, I knocked lightly on the closed door and wondered how long I would have to wait until someone answered it.
It only took a moment for the door to swing open.
A woman wearing the same uniform as the older guy outside smiled at me. ‘Good morning! How are you?’
‘Good, thanks. I’m looking for something that was … erm … left here.’
‘Come on in.’ She held open the door for me and I stepped into a small room that had a few chairs in it and a hatch at the back, like at a restaurant, that was currently open so I could see the rows of shelves behind. ‘Can you give me a description of the lost item?’
Oh shit. I definitely should have given this more thought.
‘My name’s Kendra Walker,’ I said, wondering if that would get me anywhere.
A small, pinched line appeared between the woman’s eyebrows.
‘Why does that name ring a bell?’ she mused.
‘I’m going to be honest with you,’ I said, and she folded her arms over her chest in a move so similar to my third-grade teacher, Mrs O’Sullivan, that I was momentarily terrified of being sent to the principal’s office.
‘Go on,’ she said, studying me like I was bacteria in a petri dish.
‘My mom has set me this … challenge,’ I said. ‘And one of the clues brought me here.’
She snapped her fingers. ‘That’s why I know your name.’
Before I could reply she spun on her heel and marched through a door that led into the hatch room. I hovered, not sure if I was supposed to wait here or follow her, or if I was in trouble.
It didn’t seem like I was in trouble. Not yet, anyway.
I waited for a couple of minutes, because it only took that long for the woman to reappear in the hatch window.
‘Here,’ she said, looking smug and pleased with herself. She held out a white envelope with my name on it. ‘Kendra Walker. I knew I’d seen your name before.’
‘Thank you.’ I rushed over to take the envelope off her.
‘Could I just check your ID? Not that I have any idea how you’d know that there was an envelope here with your name on it if it didn’t belong to you, but …’
‘Sure.’ I fumbled for my wallet and handed her the card, which she barely glanced at before giving it back to me, along with the envelope. ‘I don’t suppose you know any details of how it ended up in lost and found?’
‘Well, I could check the log, if you like?’
I wasn’t sure what that would tell me, but any information could be helpful.
‘That would be great. Thank you.’
She pulled up a laptop and started scrolling.
‘Walker, Walker … Ah, here you are. Yes, it was handed in to us on April twenty-eighth.’
April twenty-eighth. So she had been working on this for at least a couple of weeks before she died.
‘Does it say who found it?’