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“I’m afraid she isn’t in yet, Colette,” said Marilyn, who’d been Aviva’s legal assistant for the last decade. “It’s still quite early, even for Aviva.”

Colette checked her watch and realized that, although it felt like she’d already lived several days since she’d gotten out of bed this morning, it was only a few minutes after eight o’clock.

“What are you doing there already, Marilyn?” Colette asked, flustered.

Marilyn laughed. “My granddaughter has a baseball game this afternoon. I figured I’d get a jump start on the day so I could leave early.”

Colette closed her eyes for a second. What would it be like to have grandchildren to shape one’s life around?

It had been entirely her decision not to have children, but it still stung sometimes to realize how much she had missed.

“I hope her game goes well, Marilyn. Can you tell Aviva I’m coming in to see her? ”

“Is she expecting you?”

“Probably,” Colette replied, for Aviva would know very well that she wouldn’t be able to leave their conversation last night unfinished.

“Great. We’ll see you in a bit, then.”

Colette disconnected and picked up the magazine again in disbelief. The bracelet twinkled back at her, even as her eyes clouded over with tears.

When Aviva arrived at work that morning, her assistant, Marilyn, looked up with a smile. “Colette called,” she chirped, and Aviva resisted the urge to scream.

“Thanks, Marilyn,” she said with a polite smile, breezing past her without asking if Colette had left a message. She couldn’t handle thinking about it before she was on at least her second cup of coffee.

Aviva’s office was on the seventeenth floor of a high-rise downtown.

When she’d graduated from law school in her early twenties, it had initially been her plan to begin a career here as an attorney specializing in copyright law, but it had taken her only a few years to drift back to the life she’d led with her mother before the accident.

The Boston Center for Holocaust Education had been her mother’s first child, and Aviva found that when she began to volunteer there she could still feel the ghost of her mother with her. She had expected the constant reminder to hurt, but it had done the opposite; it had been a balm for her pain.

Now, the senior partners knew that Aviva was as dedicated to her hours at the center as she was to her legal work, which meant that they gave her some leeway to volunteer but also that she would probably never make partner.

Surprisingly, that was just fine with her, and as a result, she spent nearly as much time volunteering with Colette as she did working with clients.

But apparently, she had never really known Colette at all.

How was it that the woman who’d become like a second mother to her had actually been stealing jewels for nearly her entire life?

The words had spilled out of Colette last night like water from a broken dam, and Aviva hadn’t known what to say.

She was an attorney, charged with upholding the law.

And while she understood that Colette’s motives were good, theft was theft, wasn’t it?

Stealing was a crime, and from the sounds of it, Colette had no plans to stop. Where did that leave Aviva?

Marilyn buzzed Aviva fifteen minutes after she arrived at the office that morning to tell her that Colette was in the waiting area, hoping to speak with her.

“I don’t want to see her,” Aviva said stiffly.

“That’s what she said you’d say,” Marilyn replied. “She also said she’s brought apples and a nice big hunk of cheddar and is prepared to wait you out.”

Aviva closed her eyes and shook her head. Of course Colette would arrive to an ambush with her own personal picnic. “Tell her she’ll be waiting for a while.”

“Will do,” Marilyn chirped. Then, in a lower voice, she added, “Though whatever’s going on, Aviva, I’m certain Colette means well. You know that.”

“I don’t know anything anymore, Marilyn.”

She hung up and spent fifteen minutes reading through a contract one of her clients had received the day before, but the words swam before her eyes. Finally, she picked up her phone again. “Marilyn?” she asked when her longtime assistant answered. “Exactly how determined does Colette look?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like is she I’ve-brought-my-little-French-lunch-to-make-a-point determined? Or I’m-staying-until-security-drags-me-out-of-the-building-kicking-and-screaming determined?”

“Oh, well, the latter if I had to guess,” Marilyn replied cheerfully.

Aviva sighed. “No use delaying the inevitable, then. Can you send her in?”

“Sure thing.”

Aviva hung up and lowered her forehead to the desk with a groan. That was the position she was in a few seconds later as Marilyn showed Colette in. “She’s all yours,” Marilyn murmured before backing out and pulling the door closed behind her.

Aviva didn’t bother raising her head. “If you’ve come to apologize—” she began.

“Apologize?” Colette repeated in disbelief. “Aviva, I regret putting you in a difficult position, but I can’t say I’m sorry for a lifetime of trying to do some good.”

Aviva finally raised her head, narrowing her eyes at Colette, who, despite the vehemence of her tone, looked guilty and nervous. “Some good?” Aviva repeated. “People do good by volunteering for nonprofits or creating scholarship funds. Not by becoming criminals.”

“People do good in many different ways.”

“Not in that way!” Aviva shot back. “Colette, laws exist for a reason! What if everyone in society decided they could just steal from one another whenever they wanted to?”

“That’s why my family has always lived by the strictest of codes,” Colette said. “I have never once stolen for personal gain.”

“Yes, and I’m sure that would hold up in court.”

Colette shrugged. “They’d have to arrest me first.”

Aviva stared at her like she was crazy. “Have you already forgotten the visit from the detective last night? They’re the ones who arrest people, you know.”

Colette held up her wrists. “Do you see handcuffs here?”

Aviva exhaled in annoyance. “Not yet .”

“May I have a seat?” Colette asked. “Or are you going to make me stand the whole time?”

“I don’t remember asking you to stay,” Aviva muttered, but when Colette just raised an eyebrow, Aviva gestured to one of the chairs across from her desk, and Colette took a few steps forward and sat down, wiggling her narrow hips around a bit until she was settled in the seat.

“Comfortable?” Aviva asked without bothering to keep the edge from her voice.

“Very much so,” Colette said agreeably. “I’ve always liked these chairs.”

“I’m so happy I can accommodate you.” Aviva leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. She didn’t even know where to begin. “So tell me. Stealing. How exactly have you been able to ‘do some good’?” She made air quotes around the words.

Colette looked hurt. “I see you don’t believe me.”

“I believe that you believe it,” Aviva conceded. “But how much good can you actually do by stealing a few trinkets here and there?”

“They’re hardly trinkets.”

“Fine, then—baubles? What would you call them?”

“I’d call them more than thirty million dollars’ worth of jewels that have gone to charity over the years, straight from the wrists, necks, fingers, and pockets of cruel people,” Colette said, sitting up a little straighter in her chair and looking Aviva right in the eye.

Aviva felt her jaw fall open. “Thirty million ?” she repeated, aware that her voice had gone up an octave. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Colette shrugged. “It’s been a long career, dear.”

Aviva stared at her for a long time, trying to put the pieces together.

If Colette was telling her the truth, she was surely one of the most successful jewel thieves in America—not to mention someone whose illegal activities would land her in prison for the rest of her life if she was caught.

It put Aviva in a terrible position. “Colette,” she finally said, trying to stay calm, “if you have really stolen thirty million dollars in jewels over the years, you’re in a huge amount of trouble. ”

“If they can pin anything on me. Which they won’t be able to. I’m very careful.”

Aviva could feel a headache coming on. “Colette…”

“Yes?”

“I mean… Again, assuming that you’re not exaggerating, how much good have you really been able to do, balanced with the amount of risk you’ve taken?”

“Ah,” Colette said, sitting back in her chair. She seemed to be considering something.

“What is it?” Aviva finally asked when Colette still hadn’t spoken.

“I never told your mother,” Colette said slowly, “because I always worried that she wouldn’t understand.”

“Understand what ?”

“Aviva, I suppose it’s time you know that it was stolen jewels that funded the opening of the Holocaust center.”

Aviva blinked at Colette rapidly, trying to process what the woman was saying.

“You look a bit like you’re having a stroke,” Colette said mildly.

“I’m sorry, but I could have sworn that you just said the Holocaust center was founded by money that came from illegal criminal activity. The center that my mother dedicated her life to, and that I’ve worked for since I was a teenager.”

“That’s right, dear,” Colette said calmly.

“It’s how I continue to fund it, too. It’s vital you understand, though, that the only money I’ve ever funneled to the center comes from avowed Nazis and neo-Nazis.

If they’re foolish enough to align themselves with such an abhorrent way of thinking, it’s only fair to use their money to fund Holocaust remembrance. ”

“But…” Aviva couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“I know it’s a lot to absorb. I was up all night worrying about it, thinking about whether to tell you. But then something happened this morning, and it forced my hand. I need to ask you a favor, and I don’t feel I can do that without being honest with you.”

Aviva felt dazed. “A favor ? You want me to do you a favor?”

Colette nodded. “Marty came over this morning with some news and—”