Page 28

The morning after the visit to Hubert Verdier’s assisted-living facility, Lucas was waiting in the reception area of Aviva’s office when she arrived to work just before eight thirty. He stood up, glaring at her, when she emerged from the elevator.

“Lucas,” she said, trying to sound calm and not cornered. “What are you doing here?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Really, Aviva? You thought you could just question my grandfather-in-law about a murder and I wouldn’t want to have a conversation with you about it?”

“Aviva?” Marilyn cut in, standing up from her place behind the reception desk. “Should I call security?”

“No,” Aviva said quickly. “Lucas is a friend. This is just a misunderstanding, right?”

“You have a strange definition of misunderstanding.” Lucas glanced at Marilyn. “Look, I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to worry you. Aviva caught me off guard yesterday and—”

“Come on,” Aviva said before any more of this conversation played out in public.

Marilyn reluctantly buzzed them into the office, concern still written across her face, and Lucas didn’t say another word until Aviva had closed the door to her office and gestured to one of the chairs opposite her desk.

He didn’t sit down; he just stood there, glaring at her.

“Fine,” Aviva said, taking a seat behind her desk and trying to sound unruffled. “Say what you came here to say.”

“I thought you just had some innocuous questions about the provenance of the bracelet!” he snapped. “This is about a murder ? Exactly what game are you playing here, Aviva?”

“It’s not a game, Lucas.”

“You can say that again. Hubert is a very old man, Aviva. Are you trying to kill him?”

“Of course not,” Aviva shot back. “We’re just trying to find out the truth, and he obviously has some answers. You saw how agitated he became when we mentioned the bracelet and the little girl. Unless you want me to involve the police, I need to go back and see him again.”

Lucas’s eyes bulged. “The police ? Aviva, he had a cardiac episode after you left and the home had to call an ambulance . You think I’m going to give you my blessing to repeat that?”

Aviva felt a surge of guilt. “Is he okay?”

“Like you care.”

“Of course I care, Lucas!” She took a deep breath. “Look, I’m very sorry that we upset him so much. But if he’s the man who kidnapped and murdered Colette’s sister…” She let her voice trail off. “Please tell me he’s all right.”

“He’s all right,” Lucas said reluctantly. “It wasn’t a heart attack.”

“Thank goodness,” Aviva said.

Some of the fight seemed to drain out of Lucas. “I think it’s time you tell me the whole story, Aviva.”

Aviva hesitated, trying to decide what she could tell him.

Certainly no good would come of her revealing that Colette was a jewel thief.

“Colette and her mother were both active in the French Resistance,” Aviva said carefully.

“Someone betrayed Colette’s mother, and the night the Germans came for them, Colette’s younger sister, Liliane, disappeared.

She was later found dead, and the bracelet that had been sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping has been missing for nearly eighty years. Until it turned up in your museum.”

Lucas’s eyes went wide, and she was certain from his expression that he hadn’t known about the old man’s past. “And you think Hubert somehow betrayed your friend Colette’s family?

” he asked, sinking into one of the seats across from her desk, his anger melting into bewilderment.

“This is the Jewish family you mentioned the bracelets belonging to?”

“No, not exactly. Colette’s mother took the bracelets back from the German who stole them. And then she was betrayed by someone who may have been a French police officer—and who we think now might be Hubert Verdier.”

“Aviva, it just isn’t possible that Hubert did something to the little girl. I’ve known him my whole life. He and his wife were my grandparents’ closest friends when I was growing up.”

“That’s how you met your wife? Through your grandparents?”

He turned a bit red. “We were the only grandchildren on both sides, and we were the same age. It was always just sort of expected that we’d wind up together.”

Aviva studied him, feeling a surge of pity. Not that she knew much about marriage, but his didn’t sound like a match made in heaven so much as a foregone conclusion. It also meant that when he’d lost his wife, he’d lost someone he’d known his whole life. “I’m very sorry you lost her.”

He sighed. “I am, too. It’s had a huge impact on our daughter’s life, and I worry about her every day.”

Aviva softened. “I’m so sorry. You said she’s nineteen?”

“Yeah. She was a freshman in high school when Vanessa passed four years ago. I’m so thankful that my grandfather lived just down the block from us; he really stepped in and helped raise her when I was still trying to get my bearings.

And with my own mother gone…” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head.

Aviva blinked back tears. “Your grandfather was still alive then?”

“He’s still alive now ,” Lucas said with a small smile. “Nearly a hundred years old, and still sharp as a tack. He likes to say he’s like the Energizer Bunny. He keeps going and going.”

“And your mother? You said she’s gone?”

He smiled slightly. “Is this part of the inquisition? Or have we transitioned into the friendly conversation part of this meeting?”

“Friendly conversation,” Aviva answered honestly. “I lost my mom when I was eighteen and my dad was never in the picture, so I know what it’s like to be without parents.”

He held her gaze in a way that made her stomach do a little flip. “I—” he said, and then cut himself off with a slight shake of his head. “I’m very sorry, Aviva. What happened to your mom?”

“Car accident.” It was still hard to say the words after all these years.

“God, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without Colette,” she said, sinking into the strange sense of camaraderie she felt with others who had suffered such a formative loss. “She made me feel loved when my whole world had fallen down.”

“So you feel especially protective of her. I get that. I feel protective over Vanessa’s grandfather, too—I think that being responsible for Hubert now makes both Millie and me feel like we’re honoring Vanessa’s memory, you know?”

Aviva nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what we suspected before we went to see him.

I really am. I still think he knows something about the bracelet, and about what happened to Colette’s family, but it wasn’t fair to blindside you like that.

” She could feel heat creeping up her neck.

“I should also add that your daughter is really lucky to have you. I wish my dad had stuck around long enough to play a role in my life—but he was long gone way before I lost my mom.”

Lucas leaned forward and folded his hands around hers. “That is very much your father’s loss.” He looked into her eyes for long enough that she had to look away. “So,” he said, clearing his throat. “Do you have time for a cup of coffee? Playing verbal chess makes me thirsty.” He smiled at her.

“Coffee? Does that mean you don’t hate me?”

“It means I understand where you’re coming from. It means that I’ll try to talk to Hubert myself. And it means that now that we have all that out of the way, it might be nice to just talk with you. That is, if you want to.”

Aviva smiled. She had forty-five minutes before her first appointment of the day. “I think I would like that very much.”

Two days later, during a volunteer shift at the Holocaust center, Aviva was still thinking about the coffee she’d had with Lucas.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so listened to; he had seemed genuinely intrigued by everything she’d had to say, and he’d offered stories of his own—about how proud he was of his daughter, about how thrilled he was with the museum’s success, and about his concern over his own elderly grandfather living alone—and by the time they parted ways, she felt almost as if she’d been on a date.

He was a genuinely nice guy, and that complicated things.

She could see the wheels turning in Colette’s head; she wanted the bracelet back.

Now that Aviva knew Lucas better, though, she couldn’t let that happen.

If an enormously valuable piece disappeared while on loan, the Diamond Museum’s reputation would be tarnished, and Lucas would be ruined.

“Okay, out with it,” she said to Colette once they were alone in the Holocaust center’s copy room, stuffing mailers for an outreach campaign.

“Out with what?” Colette asked innocently as she folded a flyer into an envelope and sealed it.

“Out with whatever it is you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Who said I wanted to talk with you about anything?” Colette said, avoiding Aviva’s gaze as she stuffed another mailer.

“Come on. You’re thinking about stealing that bracelet, aren’t you?”

“But that would be illegal, dear,” Colette said sweetly. “I certainly wouldn’t mention it to an attorney if I had plans to do something like that.”

“Colette,” Aviva said firmly, “you can’t steal from Lucas.”

Colette was quiet for a moment as she filled and sealed a few more envelopes. “Getting attached to Lucas O’Mara is a bad idea, Aviva.”

“Why?” Aviva demanded. “I finally meet someone who seems kind and decent, and you want me to forget about it so that you can steal from him?”

“Please keep your voice down, dear,” Colette said, finally looking up. “And no, Aviva. It’s that I wonder whether he really is the decent, kind man you think he is. That family is hiding something, and he’s right at the center of it.”