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The opening of the European Masters of the Twentieth Century exhibit at the Diamond Museum was just the kind of event Colette was accustomed to attending for the purposes of jewel theft, so to arrive dressed to the nines without that sort of mission left her feeling unmoored.

“You okay?” Aviva asked as they walked up to the museum’s front door, which stood open, the sound of classical music drifting out into a crisp Boston evening.

“Honestly?” Colette said. “Not at all.”

“We don’t have to go in,” Aviva said.

Colette took a deep breath. “Of course we do.” She took Aviva’s hand, drawing strength from the contact, and together, they walked through the door.

The party was already in full swing, jewel brokers and wealthy donors sporting formal wear and sipping champagne. Waiters circulated with trays of hors d’oeuvres while a string trio played Bach in the corner.

But for the dozen security cameras blinking overhead and the two black-clad guards circling the room, this would be a jewel thief’s dream.

Everyone in the room appeared to have pulled out the very best from their personal collections; diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires glittered everywhere in big, gaudy pieces made to show off.

Around the room, behind the security glass of display cases, sat another two dozen twinkling pieces, each bathed in its own pool of light.

There was a ring that featured the largest ruby Colette had ever seen, a diamond choker with a sapphire heart, and even a silver-filigree tiara dotted with hundreds of tiny diamonds and amethysts.

Colette and Aviva took a quick lap around the room, peering into each case, and when they had finished, Colette felt exhausted. “Where’s the bracelet?” she asked Aviva.

Aviva opened her mouth to answer, but her reply was cut off by the arrival of a handsome young man a bit older than Aviva, with gray-streaked dark hair, a square, stubbled jaw, and eyes the color of sunlit emeralds. Colette recognized him immediately from his photographs.

“Aviva, I’m glad you came,” he said in a deep voice that matched his rugged good looks, and Colette had to put a hand over her mouth to cover the laugh that bubbled up within her.

No wonder Aviva had acted so evasive the day before when Colette had asked her about the museum.

In person, Lucas O’Mara looked like a Superman -era Christopher Reeve.

“Lucas,” Aviva said, her tone even but a flush creeping up her cheeks, “this is my friend Colette.”

Lucas turned his gaze on her, and Colette searched his eyes, trying to figure him out.

She prided herself on her ability to read people, a trick of the trade she’d had to develop long ago.

She had expected someone with a guarded expression, his smile hiding some level of cunning.

But he didn’t look like that at all. “Colette,” he said warmly.

“Welcome. I’m Lucas O’Mara, the museum director. ”

“So I hear,” Colette said. Lucas’s apparent kindness had thrown her, as had the way he felt instantly familiar. “Forgive me, but have we met before, Mr. O’Mara?”

Lucas searched her face. “I don’t think so. Are you in the industry, Ms.…?”

“Colette is fine,” she said quickly, because it was bad enough that he knew her first name.

“Colette, then. And please, call me Lucas.” He smiled at her, and she liked him even more for treating her like an equal, not like an old lady, as so many others did.

“Lucas,” Aviva cut in, “we know you’re busy and don’t want to keep you. But Colette and I were wondering if you might be able to point us toward the bracelet you showed me yesterday. The one from the magazine.”

He smiled again, revealing deep dimples. Of course he had dimples. “Certainly. Right this way.”

Aviva gave Colette a wide-eyed look as they trailed after Lucas, who strode purposefully through the crowd, smiling and greeting guests as he led them toward the entrance to another exhibit room.

Colette was still trying to puzzle out where she’d seen him before.

She tended to stay away from gatherings of jewelers, so as not to become a familiar face, but perhaps she’d spotted him in passing at Marty’s shop, or at one of the handful of other stores where she occasionally sold pieces.

“Here we are, ladies,” Lucas said, gesturing into the back room. “The exhibit’s cornerstone pieces are on display in here. You’ll find your bracelet along the back wall.”

Your bracelet. The words felt oddly accurate, and Colette did her best not to react.

“Thanks, Lucas,” Aviva said, and Colette noticed that the two held each other’s gazes a beat longer than necessary. “Ready?” Aviva asked after Lucas finally smiled at them and walked away to mingle.

But Colette barely heard her, for the couple standing near the back wall of the secondary exhibit room had shifted, revealing the jewelry case behind them.

Even from across the room, she could see it, glimmering in the light, beckoning to her like a beacon to the past. Hardly aware of Aviva hurrying after her, she floated across the room.

And then, at once, she was standing in front of the bracelet she had last seen seventy-six years ago, separated from it by merely a barrier of glass. It was just as she remembered it, a near mirror image of the bracelet she’d kept all these years, its diamonds beckoning to her.

She could feel the low moan that rose from her throat but hadn’t realized she had grown unsteady on her feet until Aviva put a hand on her back to brace her. “It’s all right,” Aviva whispered in her ear.

“No,” Colette said softly, staring at the bracelet. “It isn’t all right at all.” To the bracelet, she whispered, “Where have you been? What did you see?” The couple who’d been admiring the piece gave her a pitying look; she knew she sounded like an old bat who’d lost her marbles.

But one thing was certain: if the bracelet could talk, it would tell Colette where it had come from—and what had happened to her sister all those years ago.

Now that the bracelet was here, really here, she was more determined than ever to find the answers—and to reunite the butterfly wing with its other half at last. It was one final thing she could do for her mother and sister. Perhaps then she could find some peace.

“Colette?” The museum director had appeared at her side at some point, and when he touched her elbow, she jumped, snapping out of her reverie. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

She looked into his eyes and there was something about the penetrating concern in his gaze that reached inside her, to a well of grief she hadn’t known was so deep. Before she knew it, she was crying, tears sliding down her cheeks.

“To whom does this bracelet belong?” she asked, and something changed in his expression then, a shuttering, like the curtains had been drawn and they were standing in darkness.

“The owner has asked to remain anonymous,” he said, the warmth gone from his tone.

“Please. I must know.” Her voice was raspy with desperation.

“I’m afraid I can’t break that confidence.” He was watching her now, appraising her, and she felt unsettled by it. And then, all at once, she could see it; there was something personal about the bracelet to him, and he was bothered that she was asking questions.

“Is it yours , Lucas?”

He blinked a few times. “Why would you ask that?”

She stared at him, trying to see through him. But the uneasy silence dragged on too long, and Aviva broke it by stepping between them, clearing her throat, and saying something to Lucas in a voice too low for Colette to hear.

Lucas gave her one last look, a strange blend of defensiveness and pity, before mumbling an excuse and drifting away.

“Colette?” Aviva asked after a moment of silence.

“The museum director,” she said flatly, not taking her eyes off the bracelet. “Lucas O’Mara. He’s hiding something.”

And then, while the party swirled around her, Colette simply stood and stared, her palms pressed to the glass, studying the piece of her past she had been certain was gone forever.

Aviva sat at her desk the next morning, her head pounding.

She’d been rattled by seeing the normally unflappable Colette so anguished and insisted upon sleeping in Colette’s guest room, just in case Colette needed her.

But Colette hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even mustered an objection to Aviva’s attempts to dote on her, and that worried Aviva as much as anything else.

Never in the whole time Aviva had known the older woman had Colette allowed herself to be taken care of, but last night, she’d stared mutely at the wall while Aviva laid out pajamas for her, put toothpaste on her toothbrush, and tucked her into bed like a small child.

Aviva hadn’t slept a wink, and around 5:00 a.m., she had pulled out her laptop, settled in at the kitchen counter, and, yawning, wrote up a quick article for the center’s newsletter. She’d emailed it, along with a few photographs of the bracelet, to Chana just before seven o’clock.

Thirty minutes later, Colette had shuffled into the kitchen, hair mussed and dark circles under her eyes, looking as if she hadn’t had a moment of sleep, either. “How about I take the day off and hang out with you?” Aviva had offered as she made coffee.

Colette looked at her dully. “Thank you, dear, but I’d prefer to be alone.”

Now, Aviva gazed at the monitor of her office computer, frowning. Colette’s words last night about Lucas O’Mara knowing something had rattled her. Colette was never wrong about people.

She bit her lip as she opened a search window and typed in Lucas’s name.

She had looked him up to get a sense of him before she turned up at the gallery, but her search had been cursory: a standard background check to verify that he didn’t have a criminal record, and a Google search to see if his name had popped up in any articles related to the jewels he featured at the museum.