Chapter 5 - THE FAKE EMERALDS
The jeweler opened the velvet pouch.
He didn’t need long.
Ten seconds.
Maybe fifteen.
Then he looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
My stomach dropped.
“It’s fake?”
“The stones are lab-created. The metal is plated.”
I stared at the necklace.
It looked exactly right.
The same oval center stone.
The same small diamond pattern.
Even the clasp was copied.
“How good is the copy?”
“Very good.”
“Good enough to fool me?”
“If you weren’t examining it closely? Yes.”
I sat back.
My mother’s necklace had been replaced.
Which meant Adrian hadn’t simply taken it.
He had arranged a duplicate.
That took planning.
“How much would the original be worth?” Naomi asked.
The jeweler hesitated.
“Depends on provenance.”
“Approximately.”
“Two to four million.”
I closed my eyes.
My mother had told me it was valuable.
She never told me that valuable.
Celeste sat beside me.
“Why didn’t you know?”
“My mother didn’t talk about money.”
The jeweler examined the clasp again.
“There’s also something unusual.”
“What?”
“The original would likely have markings if it’s from the period I suspect.”
“What period?”
“Nineteen-thirties. Possibly French.”
I suddenly remembered a photograph.
My grandmother.
Paris.
Wearing the necklace.
I stood.
“I need my mother’s storage boxes.”
Naomi stopped me.
“Where?”
“Warehouse in Connecticut.”
“Does Adrian know about them?”
“I don’t think so.”
Then I corrected myself.
“I don’t know what Adrian knows anymore.”
We drove there before sunrise.
The storage unit smelled like cedar and old paper.
I found the box after twenty minutes.
Family photographs.
Letters.
My mother’s passports.
At the bottom sat a cream envelope.
CLAIRE.
My name.
In my mother’s handwriting.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a letter.
Claire,
If you are reading this because someone has asked about the emeralds, do not sell them until you speak to the Moreau family.
I stopped.
“Celeste.”
She looked up.
“What?”
I handed her the letter.
Her face changed.
“What is it?”
“Read.”
She did.
Then she sat down.
“My God.”
“What?”
Celeste looked at me.
“My grandmother knew your grandmother.”
The room went silent.
She pulled out her phone.
“There’s an archive photograph in my family office.”
“Of what?”
“A jewelry commission.”
She found it.
Black-and-white.
Two women standing beside a worktable.
One was Celeste’s grandmother.
The other was mine.
Between them lay my necklace.
Under the photo was a typed caption:
ELISE MOREAU AND HELEN LINDEN — PRIVATE COMMISSION, 1947.
I stared.
“My grandmother designed it?”
Celeste nodded slowly.
“With mine.”
Naomi read the rest of my mother’s letter.
Then stopped.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“There’s a second page.”
I took it.
My mother had written one final paragraph.
The necklace was never only jewelry. The original ownership certificate grants the Linden woman who possesses it a retained royalty interest in the Moreau emerald motif whenever commercially reproduced.
I looked at Celeste.
She looked stunned.
Naomi whispered:
“Claire, if that clause survived…”
“How much?”
Celeste answered.
“Potentially millions.”
And suddenly Adrian stealing my necklace made sense.
May you like
He hadn’t taken it for Vanessa.
He had taken it because somebody finally told him what it was worth.
