Chapter 14 #2
“I won’t,” Kennedy replied, shaking her head.
“Claire already told that to me and explained why. She’s right.
He’ll think that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
Or he might think I know something I’m not saying.
” She smiled through her tears. “She and I both know that you’re trying to beat the FBI. That’s just who you are.”
Ryan threw back his head and laughed. “So the two of you are gossiping about me, huh? Should I worry?”
“Uh-uh.” Kennedy looked at him with wisdom and maturity beyond her years. “She gets that same expression on her face when she talks about you that you get when you talk about her. At first, I thought that was yucky. But now, I think it’s kind of romantic.”
“Do you?” Ryan’s chest tightened at the tenderness of Kennedy’s young heart. “I’ll tell you a secret: So do I.”
“I’m glad. She’s really special. And not just because she’s a claircognizant. She cares about people. She cares about you.” Kennedy leaned forward conspiratorially. “Be good to her. She’s what Mommy calls ‘a keeper.’”
Ryan’s lips twitched, and he ruffled Kennedy’s hair. “Your mommy’s right. And don’t worry. I’m not dumb enough to let Claire go. So you can get used to having her around.”
“Good.” Kennedy settled back against the pillows. “Ryan—I know I keep asking you this, but you’re going to find Mommy, right?”
“Right,” Ryan confirmed. “Like you guys said, I plan to win this contest. So trust me. I’ll bring your mommy home.”
Kennedy’s eyelids began to droop. “I’m glad I have you and Aunt Maureen to watch out for me—until Mommy’s home. Then she’ll take over, the way she always does.”
With that, Kennedy was asleep.
Ryan sat quietly, thinking about Kennedy’s words, and reflecting on the fact that Caitlin had implied much the same thing in her text message.
I’m watching Kennedy. Are you?
Ryan’s gaze fell on the silver pendant, lying safely just as Kennedy had placed it.
I’m watching Kennedy…watching Kennedy…
Ryan’s spine straightened. How? How was Caitlin watching Kennedy? Not figuratively, but actually.
She’d chosen those exact words, so they were no coincidence. And it was counterintuitive to believe she’d used them to throw FI off track, make them believe the text was coming from the killer. No. She was conveying a message to them, one she wanted to keep hidden from the killer’s probing eyes.
With a flash of insight, Ryan realized how obtuse he’d been when the truth was staring him in the face.
“Idiot,” he muttered under his breath. He picked up the heart-shaped pendant that Kennedy wore every waking minute, turning it over in his hands and carefully studying its intricate design.
Two layers of delicate mesh, with the letter K in the center.
The letter was made up of tiny pavé diamonds.
The center diamond, where all the arms of the letter met, was larger than the others.
Almost as if it were a camera lens.
Ryan grabbed his cell phone, making sure that Kennedy was sound asleep before he texted his sister.
Fee—I need to FaceTime with you now. Can you free up and get to your workshop? Could be urgent. R
Not thirty seconds later came the responding text.
Ready and waiting. Call.
Ryan did just that, easing silently out of Kennedy’s room, pendant in hand, and shutting the door partway. He leaned against the adjacent wall, squatted, and slid to the ground until he was in a sitting position, his back braced.
Then, he initiated the FaceTime.
A moment later, Fiona’s face showed up on his iPhone screen.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “I was just about to call it a night.”
“Shh,” he whispered. “I’m in the hall right outside Kennedy’s room.
She finally fell asleep. I don’t want to wake her.
” A pause as he considered the fact that the killer’s henchman might be listening.
Fine. Let them. The worst that could happen is that they’d realize he’d figured out Caitlin’s communication device.
He’d deal with that fact when it became necessary.
“Ryan?” Fiona pressed.
“Sorry. We’ll keep our voices low, but loud enough so we can still hear each other. We’ve got ground to cover.”
Fiona turned her palms up in question. “Am I supposed to understand what you’re talking about?”
Ryan shook his head. “No. You’re supposed to help me figure something out. Consider it a jewelry consult.”
He held up the pendant, bringing it as close to the screen as possible. “Are you on your tablet or your laptop?”
“My laptop.”
“Good. That’ll give you the broadest visual. Sorry we can’t do this in person, but obviously, I can’t take the chance of disappearing for hours with Kennedy’s precious possession, which, these days, is her only constant.”
Fiona nodded, eyeing the necklace. “Can you make the image sharper somehow?”
“Yeah.” Ryan applied one of his special filters to do just that. “Better?”
“A lot.” Fiona’s practiced eye studied the face of the pendant. “What do you need to know?”
“Anything you can tell me about how this was made. Also, if you see something unusual or different.”
“For starters, the double layer of mesh is lovely and makes the face of the pendant decorative—but it’s an odd choice. It looks less like silver than it does like two layers of woven metal sintered together.”
“Sintered? Explain.”
“You mean I can teach you something?” she teased.
“Fee, I’m not laughing. What does sintered mean?”
When she heard the taut note in Ryan’s voice, all Fiona’s amusement vanished. “Sintering is a process where metal mesh is laminated together in a high-temp furnace under mechanical pressure in an inert gas environment.”
Ryan did a double-take. “How the hell did you know that? It sounds über technical and scientific, like it’s coming from me rather than from you.”
“I’m smart. Plus, I took lots of adjunct courses.
One of them was in materials science.” Fiona’s brows drew together in puzzlement.
“Ry, the sintering process that was used to make the front of the heart is not something that’s normally used in jewelry-making.
It’s used in industrial metal fabrication. ”
Ryan’s blood was thrumming through his veins. “Go on.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not.”
“Check the entire necklace,” Fiona instructed. “Look for a 925 marking. That’ll tell you if the pendant is made of genuine sterling silver.”
Ryan searched closely. “Nope. Nothing. Again, not surprised.”
Fiona made a frustrated sound. “I wish I were holding the piece so I could weigh it. Is it lighter than the pendants you’ve handled before?”
A grunt. “Pendants aren’t exactly my thing. How would I know?”
“Okay, fine.” Fiona sighed. “Does it feel hollow?”
Ryan placed the necklace in his palm and shifted it around. “No. But it doesn’t feel like it’s solid through and through.”
“It’s not sterling. I’d bet on that—and I’d win.”
More certain than ever that he was on the right track, Ryan pressed on, watching his words carefully. Fee had no knowledge of Caitlin’s text to their mom, nor to the fact that Caitlin was the one who’d sent it. And it was imperative that she not find out.
“Fee, what about the diamonds, especially the center one. Anything there out of whack?”
“I was just getting to that. The placement of the center diamond looks weird, and it looks more synthetic than real.”
“You mean like cubic zirconium?”
“No. I mean like not jewelry at all. There’s not even a setting holding the stone. From what I can make out, it looks to be attached from the inside out. Honestly? This isn’t something a silversmith would create. It’s something an engineer would create, with its decorative quality an afterthought.”
“Or a diversion,” Ryan muttered.
“What does that mean?”
It means that Caitlin is a lot smarter than even I realized, Ryan thought to himself.
Fee was clearly getting exasperated. “Are you planning on filling me in on what you’re looking for?”
“Later.” Ryan sidestepped the question. “I need to follow through on this by myself. In the meantime, not a word about anything we said or did tonight to anyone. Okay?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. And Fee? Thanks.”
He ended the call, waiting impatiently for his home screen to reappear. Once it did, he went straight for BUGGY, the highly sophisticated bug detecting scanner app that he’d created and installed on his cell phone.
He opened the app, waiting until it was ready, then held his phone up to the front of the pendant, moving it slowly around. The mesh had more than enough pores to allow sound to penetrate and reach what Ryan was looking for.
A minute passed.
Then, as expected, the single beep sounded. That meant that, whoever the engineer was who Caitlin had worked with had made sure that a microelectromechanical system, i.e. a MEMS microphone, was buried inside the pendant.
Caitlin wasn’t only watching, she was listening.
As someone else might be.
Ryan turned off BUGGY. He had to handle this next part subtly and effectively. Caitlin had to understand—loud and clear—what he needed from her. Conversely, he couldn’t alert any eavesdropper to the same.
Which meant using verbal code words, words that would be meaningless to anyone other than Caitlin.
He thought for one long minute, before a self-satisfied grin curved his lips.
Holding the pendant the appropriate distance away, and with the front of it averted so no one could see he was sitting right in front of it, he said, “I’m heading home now, Mom.
I’m beat. After working round-the-clock for days, I could sure use a pick-me-up.
How about when I visit Kennedy tomorrow afternoon, you surprise me with my favorite dessert? ”