Chapter 4

Julian held the pendant under an emergency light. “The clasp is wrong.”

I touched the brass loop. “I know.”

“This is a replacement.”

“The original broke the night I fled Chicago. I kept it.”

Julian’s head came up. “Where is it?”

“In my apartment. Taped inside a cookbook.”

He almost smiled. “You were always practical.”

“Practical kept us alive.”

Julian turned the pendant over again. “The original clasp. Was it just a clasp?”

I frowned. “It was silver. It had a small hinge. Daniel noticed it once. He said it looked like it could hold something.”

Julian’s face changed. “A safe deposit number.”

“What?”

“Your pendant was made in Florence. The jeweler built the clasp with a tiny compartment. Your mother used to tease me that I hid secrets in your birthday gifts.” He paused. “I never used it. But if Daniel found it, he may have put something inside.”

My stomach dropped. “Daniel had evidence against Victor. He hid it before he died. I never found it.”

Julian looked at Eli, who was watching us from the front row. “Then the original clasp may be the key.”

I thought of the tiny silver piece wrapped in tissue, hidden under the false bottom of my mother’s cookbook. I had kept it because it was the only part of the pendant I could not replace. I had never opened it. I had been afraid.

“Victor wants the clasp,” Julian said. “That’s why he’s here.”

“He doesn’t know I have it.”

“He knows you’re alive. That may be enough.” Julian handed the pendant back to me. “We need the original clasp. And we need proof of what Arthur did.”

I fastened the pendant around Eli’s neck. My fingers shook. “I have Arthur’s letter in my staff locker.”

Julian’s eyes sharpened. “The forged letter?”

“Yes.”

“Then we get it. Before Arthur realizes we have.”

From the rotunda, a door banged open. Footsteps. A woman’s voice, bright and false, carried through the hall. Mrs. Prescott.

Julian put a finger to his lips. “Stay here.”

I pulled Eli close. The original clasp was in my apartment. The forged letter was in my locker. And somewhere in the gala, Arthur Reeves was smiling at donors.