32. Grace
Grace
Brandon Caulfield was thorough, if nothing else. He’d been testing this, that, and the other thing about the egg for two hours.
I fluttered my T-shirt, unable to cool myself in the heat. Henri had apologized for not having air conditioning in his home. He’d set Dr. Caulfield up in the large dining room and propped open the garden doors, so whatever breeze Prague could offer us brought the temperature down a degree or two.
The dining table had been cleared of everything except Dr. Caulfield’s tools.
The hen sat disassembled in front of him, resting on the black velvet jeweler’s mat he’d brought.
Photos and a tablet with additional documentation were stacked next to his padded case, which had held multiple testers and the lamp he’d clamped to the table’s edge.
“Gold testing confirms eighteen-karat throughout.” He placed the gold tester back into his case and made some notes in the leather-bound journal he’d brought.
“We’ve confirmed the diamonds, the sapphires, and the gold.
We’ve verified the enamel is consistent with the Saint Petersburg workshop, compared the maker’s mark on the hen’s interior hinge to those from several other eggs. ”
Since I’d discovered the egg a couple of months ago, my belief in its authenticity had gradually transformed from doubt to certainty. If it wasn’t real, why would Richter have followed me from Michigan to London to Prague?
Caulfield’s own excitement at the London pub had been enough to convince me. But hearing the tests line up one by one was different. This was science confirming what I’d hoped. Didi’s little blue egg really was a lost Imperial treasure.
I was part of history.
“I have a few more tests,” Caulfield said, pulling his magnification visor down, “but so far, everything points in the direction we’d hoped.”
Garrett stood near the garden doors, half-turned so he could see both me and Ale?, who was stationed just outside on the flagstones.
His arms were crossed over the tactical vest Pendragon had loaned him—whether his stance radiated boredom or alertness, I wasn’t sure.
With Garrett, those probably looked the same.
A memory flashed through my brain of when I’d woken up inside those arms this morning. Of his big hands on me. Of sliding down his body in the shower.
After the shower, I’d had the opportunity to watch him kit up.
The vest had a million pockets and hiding spots.
He’d let me lift it, and it must have been forty pounds with all the metal plates in it for protection.
While he couldn’t carry a gun, he was armed up, including a few knives, an expandable baton, two canisters of pepper spray, and a stun gun.
Arthur and Merlin were dressed the same, while the two Pendragon men added guns and ammo. Arthur was somewhere on the property doing another perimeter walk; Merlin was on the second floor with binoculars, moving from window to window as overwatch. Radek was positioned at the front door.
“The diamonds are so stunning. Can you see the slight irregularities in the prong work?” Dr. Caulfield tilted the hen in my direction under the light, snapping my attention back to the room.
“Machine settings would be perfectly uniform. These are handmade.” He set the hen down and made a note on his pad. “Beautiful.”
This was how the past two hours had gone. Every few minutes he’d narrate what he was doing, and even though half the terminology went over my head, his excitement was genuine. Whatever else he was, he loved this work. That part wasn’t a performance.
The rest of him, though? Every few minutes he’d drop in a question that wasn’t about the egg, like how Henri and I had found each other, whether I’d spoken to other collectors, and what my timeline was for next steps.
It was phrased as small talk, but Morganna would have called them patterns. I called them slimy, but I smiled and answered without saying much, the way I’d smile at a customer who was taking too long at the register while the line grew behind them.
Henri had been in and out all afternoon. His lawyer and assistant were in his office in another wing of the house, working through transfer paperwork, provenance chains, authentication documentation, and insurance riders.
This was really going to happen. I was going to finish my grandmother’s task from WWII. A lump formed in my throat, full of almost thirty years of memories of her, her wisdom, and everything I’d lost when she died.
Caulfield pulled his visor lenses down and turned the yolk under the magnifying lamp, comparing it against a printed photograph propped against his satchel. It showed a white egg with a hen inside, different from mine, but similar in structure.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The Hen Egg. It was the very first Imperial Egg Fabergé made for Tsar Alexander III, delivered in 1885. It’s on display at the Fabergé Museum in Saint Petersburg, so extensive documentation is available.
The genuine Hen with the Sapphire Pendant egg was presented the following year, and yours is similar enough I’m running construction checks against the known example.
” He pointed to a detail inside the yolk in front of us.
“If you notice this hinge work, it’s nearly identical to the first egg. ”
He went back to his notes. Checked the angle again. Made another note. He’d said he was almost done thirty minutes ago, but what did I know? Maybe almost done meant another hour of cross-referencing.
Caulfield set down the yolk and pressed his fingertips to his eyes beneath the visor. “Should we break for a bit? I need something to drink.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Garrett pushed off the wall, spoke quietly to Ale?, and headed toward us. “Grace, do you want anything?”
“Just coffee.”
He frowned at me, as though I’d picked the wrong answer. “In this heat?”
“Actually…” I hesitated. “Would iced coffee be too much trouble?”
“That’s more what I thought.” He winked at me. He was still frowning, still Mr. Grumpy, but that wink was just for me. “Dr. Caulfield?”
“Sparkling water with some lemon slices in it, please.”
Garrett nodded and crossed to the interior door at the far end of the dining room. He rapped once on the frame, and Henri’s housekeeper appeared a beat later. She was a short woman with steel-gray hair pinned up off her neck.
As they spoke, Dr. Caulfield pulled his phone from his pocket, swiped and tapped for a few seconds, then set it face-down on the table. “You should take a walk, stretch your legs. You’ve been sitting here all afternoon.”
“I’m fine. I’m enjoying the process.”
He smiled and went back to the hen. After a minute, his hands slowed. He glanced up at Garrett, who was waiting at the interior door. “Actually, I’d rather have lime than lemon, if they have any? Would you mind going after her?”
Before Garrett could reply, though, Dr. Caulfield’s phone buzzed against the table. He picked it up, glanced at the screen, and set it down again. He swiveled his head to glance at the garden doors.
The doors were all the way directly behind him. What was he doing?
Something…
Something wasn’t… right.
It was the same feeling I’d had in Arthur’s suite, listening to Morganna tell us about all the players in this dangerous game I’d fallen into.
I’d talked myself out of thinking Dr. Caulfield was a risk because it was just front-running.
Everyone had agreed. Garrett had agreed. Arthur had agreed. I’d agreed.
Except a slimy man didn’t stop being slimy because we’d decided his sliminess was irrelevant to our sale.
And front-running wasn’t only about selling. It was about power and greed as much as it was about selling information.
The question was: How power-hungry and greedy was Brandon Caulfield?
I lowered my voice. “Dr. Caulfield, how much do you think the egg is worth? On the open market?”
He looked up. “Difficult to say precisely until?—”
“I know Henri asked you to come here for the authentication, and he’s paying you for your services, but…” Please don’t be the bad guy. Please don’t be the bad guy. “I was approached by someone else who’s offering more than Henri will pay, and I’m considering it.”
Caulfield went still.
“His name is Werner Kessler.”
The color left his face. None of the muscles around his mouth moved, but his pupils dilated so much I couldn’t miss it.
Shit. Garrett had been right at the pub.
“Garrett!” I shoved back from the table, but the chair caught and tipped behind me.
Dr. Caulfield lunged. His hand clamped over my mouth and the other aimed for my waist, but before he locked the arm around me, Garrett was there.
He hit Caulfield from behind, got an arm under his, and hauled him off me, practically throwing him across the room. I stumbled back into the table as Garrett went for the authenticator, who tried and failed to escape.
“What the fuck do you—” started Garrett.
“Stop!” shouted a voice from the garden doors, causing me to turn.
Conrad Richter. Oh my god. Conrad Richter marched through the doors with a pistol in his hand, pointed directly at me. Where was Ale?? Why wasn’t he charging in? How had Richter gotten past him? Another man appeared, sweeping the room with a two-handed grip on his own gun.
I couldn’t look away from Richter. From the gun. I put a hand on the table next to me, which was probably the only thing keeping me upright. “Garrett?”
“Don’t move.” His voice was gentle, but it wasn’t nearly close enough to me. He must have been ten or twenty feet behind me, but if I turned to find out, I’d present my back to a man with a gun.
The second man’s gun had stopped off to my side, probably on Garrett.
“Let him go, Mr. Cruz.” Richter’s voice was low and even. “Hands up. Both of you.”
“You fucking worm,” growled Garrett.
“I’m sorry,” choked out Dr. Caulfield. “I didn’t want this. We just—we need the egg.”