Chapter 10
I sat on the edge of the bed with the locket in my palm. The bedroom light was the warm one I'd left on, the one over the nightstand that made the whole room yellow and soft. Outside the glass doors the city was still there, humming, but I had closed the blinds.
The envelope Ethan had pointed me toward was on the comforter beside me, already opened. Inside was the single sheet of paper I'd signed three weeks earlier for what Richard had called a foundation tax filing. My signature was at the bottom in blue ink. Under it, someone had practiced it again in pencil, light, then erased it. You could see the indentation if you tilted it.
I hadn't touched the locket yet except to lift it from the dark wood cabinet under the marble counter. It was heavier than I expected for how thin the chain was.
I held it up by the chain and let it turn. The oval caught the light. The floral border I'd thought was just engraving was precise, too precise. Tiny roses and leaves stamped around the edge, but at the bottom, near where the point of the oval narrowed, the pattern didn't line up. One leaf overlapped another in a way that looked like a seam.
I ran my thumb over it. The metal was cool. I pressed the edge and felt nothing. Then I turned it over.
The back was flat, brushed gold, with my initials faintly scratched in the center. V.M. Victoria Monroe. The letters were shallow, hand done. Not factory.
It was the front that was wrong.
I took my phone and turned on the flashlight and held the locket close under it. The engraved border had a hairline crack that ran almost all the way around the oval, hidden inside the deepest groove of the engraving. You wouldn't see it unless you were looking for it. I tried to catch it with my nail.
It didn't move.
I went into the bathroom and got the small sewing kit I kept in the drawer. The needle was thin enough. I slipped the tip into that groove at the bottom and pressed gently.
There was a soft click.
The front face of the locket popped up a millimeter. It was hinged at the top. I hadn't even seen the hinge because it was cut to look like another leaf.
Inside, it wasn't a place for a photo.
The bottom half was a solid piece of gold with my signature cut into it. Not engraved in the decorative sense. Cut deep, precise, like a stamp. Victoria Monroe in the exact loop I used, the V that I always made too tall, the a at the end that I never closed all the way. It was my signature turned into a relief. Along the bottom edge of that same piece, three tiny teeth stuck out, even and sharp.
I stared at it for a long time before I understood what I was holding.
It wasn't jewelry.
I pulled the paper from the envelope again and laid it flat on the bed. I held the open locket next to it, the signature inside the locket aligned with the signature on the paper. They were identical. Not similar. The same pressure, the same tilt. The locket was the master.
Richard hadn't kept me close because he liked me. He'd kept my signature close. He'd had it made into something he could press into wax, into a notary plate, into whatever foundation lock needed a physical key. The diamond necklace had been for show. This was the replacement that actually worked. That was why the diamond was gone after that night on the balcony. This fit in a safe deposit box. This could be worn and no one would question it.
My hand started to shake a little. I set the locket down on the paper so I wouldn't drop it.
I remembered the private dressing suite at the foundation tower. The door with the old-fashioned keyed lock next to the electronic pad. The kind that needed both a code and a physical key. Ethan had laughed when I asked why they still had it. He'd said his dad was old school.
I picked the locket up again and closed it. It clicked shut and the seam vanished back into the floral border. From the outside it looked like nothing, a pretty oval locket a woman might wear to dinner.
I closed my hand around it. The chain pooled in my palm and the metal warmed against my skin.
For the first time since I'd seen those messages on Lucy's phone, the pieces didn't just feel wrong, they fit. The papers Ethan held in the entryway, the chat that said keep Victoria close, the TV image of my mom on the slopes eighteen months ago when all of this had been arranged without me. It was all built around this small thing.
May you like
I slipped the folded paper back into the envelope and slid the envelope into the drawer of the nightstand. I didn't put the locket back on. I set it in the small dish on the dresser where I kept my earrings, open, so the signature inside was visible. I needed to see it there, not hidden around my neck.
I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I had what I'd been looking for without knowing what it was. I had my name, forged, and the tool they used to do it. I didn't need to ask anyone else what it was for anymore.
