19. Erica
ERICA
Chapter playlist:
NYC Larceny — Daniel Pemberton
Tanya is crying into a throw pillow, and the worst part is, I get it.
“I’m a terrible person,” she says.
“You’re not a terrible person.” I peel the pillow away from her face before she smothers herself. “I’m the terrible person. I’m the one who talked you into this.”
“Operation in progress, ladies.” Zoe doesn’t turn around. Six monitors glow in front of her, one of them looping the same eleven seconds of an empty hallway while she works around it. “Some of us are hacking a private security network over here. Keep it down to a dull sob.”
We ignore her.
“I lied to him.” Tanya’s voice cracks straight down the middle. “The love of my life. I lied to the love of my life.”
“You didn’t lie.” I hand her a paper towel off the roll we keep by Zoe’s monitors for exactly this kind of emergency, though usually the emergency is spilled energy drink. “You omitted some details. Some very important details. But you didn’t lie.”
“He’s such a good guy.”
“He has green flags all around him. Like a parade. A very sincere, slightly derpy parade.”
“And I can’t start my marriage with…with omitted details.” She swipes under her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I’m going to tell him.”
“Tanya.” I catch her by both shoulders. “Tanya, look at me. We’ll tell Dale together. But stop for one second and think. Are you prepared to lose him?”
She doesn’t even blink.
“Better to lose him with honesty than keep him with a lie.”
Oof. That hits me right in the solar plexus.
I know my relationship with Jeremiah isn’t the same as Tanya and Dale’s.
I’ve only known the man a few weeks, and even then, we’ve only been…
what did he call it? Amantes? Well, whatever we are, it’s only a few days old.
I have no business comparing my feelings with Tanya’s.
But the sentiment still gets me. She’d rather keep him with honesty. That’s the one thing I can’t give him.
I don’t say any of that out loud. I just watch Tanya wipe under her eyes with the heel of her hand and pull her phone out of her back pocket.
“You’re calling him now?”
“I’m calling him now.”
“OPERATION,” Zoe cries. “IN PROGRESS.”
Tanya calls him now.
Dale picks up on the second ring, and the first thing out of his mouth isn’t hello.
“Hey there, Sugarplum. My Sweet Cheeks. I missed you so, so much today.”
Tanya’s whole face changes. The wobble drops out of it, replaced by something soft and lit from the inside.
“I miss you, too, Schmoopy.”
“I wub you, Pudding Pop.”
“I wub you too, Big Mac.”
“I wub you so, so much, my Pop Tart, my Honey Bunches of Oats.”
Oh boy! Did somebody miss breakfast?
Dale’s voice echoes through the whole room, not realizing he’s on speakerphone. “You’re my Squishy. My Tater Tot. My whole entire heart, Marshmallow.”
Tanya does not seem to mind the public display of food pet names, and just responds back to him. “You’re my Cuddle Dumpling. My Poochie Woochie. My Muffin Man, forever and ever, no take-backsies.”
“I cannot wait to make you my wife, my Sugar Plum Fairy. The day I get to call you Mrs. Booboo Bear, I might actually die.”
“I can’t wait either, my. My Sweetie-boots. You’re my one and only McMuffin till the end of time and possibly after.”
I reach over and take the phone before she can dissolve entirely into a puddle on the floor.
“Dale. Hi. It’s Erica.”
“Erica! Hey.”
“Hey, thanks for the shortbread. It’s incredible. I’ve had probably six pieces since this morning and I regret nothing.”
“Oh, good, it made it! Wasn’t sure with shipping this time of year.” Warmth floods his voice, easy and real. “Found a place that does it the old way, real butter, none of the sad stuff.”
“Very thoughtful of you. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Nah, I wanted to. You’re basically Tanya’s family out there.”
He is, without exaggeration, the single nicest man alive, and he has no idea his fiancée is currently three feet from a stolen Victorian jewel scan.
“I appreciate that. Thanks again.”
“Anytime. Hey, is the reception bad on your end? You guys sound like you’re in a tunnel.”
Structurally, the loft is not much more than an industrial converted auto shop, with factory windows, concrete floors, stripped brick, and open ceilings with exposed ductwork. The little furniture we do have was found on the side of the road. So basically, it might as well be a tunnel.
“Old building,” I say. "You know how DC is."
“Say no more, I spent time in Foggy Bottom for a summer that had actual asbestos, don’t get me started.” A pause, warmer, quieter, meant for Tanya and not for me. “Are you there, Honey Nut Cheerio?”
I hand the phone back. Tanya’s already drifting toward the door, voice dropping into the low, private register she saves only for him, and I watch her go, watch the door shut behind her, and think that whatever she decides to do about honesty, it isn’t happening in the next thirty seconds.
I cross to Zoe’s bank of monitors.
“She a loose cannon?” Zoe asks, chin-jerking toward the door without breaking her typing rhythm.
“Nah.”
“Are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Spending a lot of time with el hockey hot pants.”
“That was your idea.”
“You got the gala invite.” Zoe finally looks up, one eyebrow doing most of the talking. “But you’re going to another game?”
“Jealous?”
She huffs. “Yeah.”
“Wanna come?”
“Heck yeah!”
“Don’t drool on the hockey players.”
“No promises.”
Zoe goes back to her monitors without skipping a beat.
Four figures enter a private viewing room at the Bellenden.
First Ivy, then Suri and Rue. Dennis Hobbs trails behind them, wheeling in the display case containing the Friendship Jewel.
This whole meeting was set up on a wing and a prayer.
It’s a miracle we’ve gotten this far in the plan.
But my team continues to impress me at every turn.
Ivy’s going by Patricia Whitcombe today.
For all Hobbs knows, she’s the gala logistics liaison, here to walk through the unveiling plan.
She secured the private meeting by pulling out some dirt on a scheduling aide in Senator Crawford’s office, a nervous, sweaty little man who’d spent the better part of a year quietly diverting sponsorship checks into a defunct non-profit he happened to also own.
It wasn’t that difficult to bend his arm.
He made a call to the museum and, per Ivy’s instructions, played Hobbs’s ego by requesting him specifically.
Now Hobbs’s tongue is comically hanging out like a cartoon character with three beautiful women in a private viewing with him. He’s beaming. Actually beaming, his whole face lit up like the best thing that’s ever happened to his career just walked into a room wearing four-inch heels.
“Turn it up,” I say.
“Ms. Whitcombe, I have to say, when the board mentioned we’d be doing a private pre-gala review, I had no idea we’d be doing it with someone of your, ah.” Hobbs pauses to find the word, and the word he lands on is, “Caliber.”
“He’s going to hurt himself,” Zoe mutters.
And it wasn’t “the board.” Just a slimy little man in the senator’s payroll who probably got off too easily, if I’m being honest.
Ivy introduces Suri, who is posing as Dr. Adaeze Osei, a gemological consultant retained by the museum’s insurer to authenticate the condition of the jewel ahead of transport.
If Hobbs had the brain to check her credentials, he’d find them in tip-top order.
Tanya fabricated them, and then Zoe seeded them into three separate DC databases until they looked like they’d always been there.
Then Ivy made a single phone call to put Dr. Adaeze Osei at the top of the review list. These ladies are brilliant.
Rue steps forward. For this ruse, she’s the insurance assessor who Hobbs was told represents the BMAH’s best interests.
She’s running the pre-gala condition review, a job that lets her run gloved hands over every hinge and lock on the display case.
Hobbs, feeling extremely self-important and quite enamored by the professionalism these fine women display (he actually did use the words “fine women”), is falling all over himself with compliments.
Ivy doesn’t blink, just angles her head a half-degree, lets a small, warm smile land exactly where it’ll do the most damage.
Before Hobbs can say another word, she produces a small, dark wooden box, and sets it on the appraisal table, right next to the flat velvet-lined presentation tray already poised and ready for the necklace inspection.
“A small thank-you,” she says. “For accommodating the review on such short notice.”
Hobbs opens it right there in the room, because restraint has never once in his adult life been a skill he possessed. Cigars, nested in silk. His eyebrows go up. Takes one cigar out, sniffs it under his nose, and puts it back.
“Cubans. Bold choice for a two-fiftieth celebration.” He winks at Ivy. “I’ll be sure to hide these in a… discreet place.”
“I certainly hope you do,” Ivy says, and gives him another condescending smile he doesn’t clue in on.
He keeps the box open on the table, right beside the presentation tray, angled so he can keep glancing at it while he talks.
“Shall we get down to business, ladies?”
“Walk me through your protocol for the night of,” Ivy says, all business now.
“There’s a formal unveiling, actually.“ Hobbs perks up, delighted to have her attention. “It will be in the east corner of the ballroom. The case opens in front of the whole room, press gets their photos, a few remarks from the board chair. Then it stays open the rest of the evening, on a pedestal, roped off but fully visible. Big finale moment. My idea, if I’m being honest.”
“How thoughtful.” Ivy makes a note on her phone. “We’ll want to run through the whole sequence once beforehand, if that’s possible. Nothing formal, just so the timing’s clean on the actual night.”