by Colt, Elodie
I look to the left to see what has captured his attention, but other than a woman with a white terrier on her leash, there’s nothing interesting to see. I glance back at the guy as I pass him. He doesn’t look as if he’s reading. And who the hell wears sunglasses when it’s cloudy? Weird dude.
My feet pound on the ground as I take the next corner, and I notice blue lights flashing in front of a bank. A cluster of people has already formed, all of them straining their necks to get a glimpse of the commotion. Just as I speed past, two cops hurl a guy in shackles into their car, and I swear my pendant feels heavier all of a sudden.
The Feds storming Crawford Crescent. Brooke’s face smeared with tears. Nick catching her as she sags against the wall. Vincent’s rueful smile as the shackles click into place. Bystanders taking pictures as they drag him out.
My blood pressure shoots up, and my harsh breaths rattle over my lips as I hit the pavement faster.
Vincent Crawford has a long track record. It wasn’t the first time they nicked him, just as it wasn’t the first time he pinched something, but it was the first time they locked him up for so long, he might not recognize his sons anymore when the state sets him free.
How the hell could he do this to his family? How the hell could he have been so reckless?
Nick was twelve, for God’s sake, and I was barely legal. Brooke didn’t know shit about jewelry and art dealing, so the job as CEO of Crawford Crescent fell into the hands of the only one who knew how to handle this business.
Me.
“Oh, my gosh, that dress is amazing!” a girl gushes, elbowing her friend to draw her attention to the wedding gown displayed in the storefront window.
I nearly falter. Fuck. It looks exactly like the one Aiko wore the day she strode up to the altar.
The memory of her clad in white slams into me with the force of a diamond cutter, my forearms twitching as I fist my hands. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that Aiko was never meant to be my future, no matter how deep she cut me the day I caught her screwing that guy in the gallery’s restroom, my heart still yearns for the Japanese beauty with eyes nearly as black as her onyx hair.
Everyone loved her carefree attitude. She had a sense of humor that delighted people. Aiko was a great addition to our team—ambitious, talented, smart, eloquent. Her social skills were amazing. She drew every client in with her flamboyant and confident nature. Sadly, I didn’t see that she was playing me just like she was playing them.
My stomach churns with roiling heat as I fight the primal urge to hit something. I’m running so fast now, my lungs burn with the crisp air. Sweat drops down onto my lashes, but I soldier on, desperate for the pain in my feet to drown the pain in my heart.
Just as I round the next corner, I crash full force into a body, and I slap my hand against the brick wall to steady myself at the last second. Something heavy thuds to the ground.
“Yo, dude! Are you fucking crazy?” the sixteen-something kid yells, rubbing his shoulder.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I say between breaths. I bend down to pick up his bag, but he snatches it before I can grab the strap. “Are you okay?”
The kid glares at me and flips me the bird.
“Fucking uptight snobs…” he mutters before he swaggers off.
I stare after him, still hacking for air as I brace myself against the wall for support. What gave me away, I wonder? Not my no-name running gear, but probably the Omega Speedmaster dangling on my wrist.
I’m not like them! I want to scream.
No? Prove it! a voice in my head counters.
Pushing away from the wall, I drag a hand down my sweaty face and wipe my palms on my pants. A homeless man in rags cowers on the ground a few feet away, cocooned in his misery. His face is as wrinkled as crumpled tinfoil, and his eyes are as empty as the sixth nook in my office.
Not giving it a second thought, I unclasp my watch and toss it at him. It lands with a soft thud on the tattered blanket covering his legs. Before it dawns on him that I just made him four-thousand dollars richer, I’m already gunning for the next corner.
I trudge back to my car as if on autopilot. And when I pass the café, the weird guy is still there, newspaper in hand and eyes on one of the upper floors of the opposite building as if waiting for someone.
Or maybe… stalking someone?
~~~
After getting my shit back together during the one-hour drive back to Manhattan, I take the side entrance to the gallery. I can hardly use the front door, waltz in all drenched, and pollute the pervasive scent of luxury and opulence with my sweat.
My phone blinks with a missed call from Carl. He desperately wants me to sign up for this fuck-buddy program. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he feels guilty about how things blew up between Aiko and me. Not that he had anything to do with it, even if I like to blame his damn dating agency for my divorce.
“One-thousand, not ten-thousand!” Brooke bellows from one of the backrooms. “What the hell am I supposed to do with ten-thousand brochures? If you can’t count the zeroes in this business, you’re in the wrong place, young lady!”
“I’m so sorry…” I hear Valerie sob. “It won’t happen again, Mrs. Crawford.”
“No, it won’t,” Brooke snaps. “Because next time, you’re fired!”
With a dramatic exit, she throws a stack of brochures in the air letting them flutter down around her as she struts out, her spine rod-straight in her belted burgundy dress.
I pretend I didn’t hear anything as I make my way to the elevator, but she stops me before I can vanish behind the metal doors.
“You’re late,” she hisses, and I don’t miss her condemning glare as her eyes rake down my dirty appearance.
“I quit my nine-to-five job fourteen years ago,” I drawl in a nonchalant tone, flipping back a sweaty strand of hair.
Her nostrils flare, and I can see the effort it costs her to swallow the spiteful remarks hovering on her tongue. Valerie scoots out of the room, shoulders hunched and close to breaking into tears. Brooke ignores her.
“Susan called,” she informs me. “She wants to talk to you about an exhibition next year.”
“I’ll call her back,” I say as the elevator doors close to take me to my apartment on the twenty-sixth floor.
After a quick shower, I slip into a slim-fit, gray suit, wrap a tie around my neck, and make my way back down.
Don’t look up, I think when I enter my office. Don’t look up.
I do. Nook number six is still empty. A disappointment and a relief at the same time.
With a heavy sigh, I plump into my chair and fish out my phone to call Susan.
“Susan’s Treasures, hello?” comes a rough but cheery voice from the speaker. Gathering from the blow of air whooshing in the background, she’s puffing a cigarette.
“Hi, Susan. It’s Nathan.”
“Nathan, my boy!” she gushes, and I can hear a door closing so she can talk to me in private. “I haven’t heard from you in ages. Where have you been all this time?”
“Uh, you know…busy, as usual.”
A good thing she has bad eyesight. I jog past her store every day, but it’s been months since I’ve visited her. I love her with all my heart, and her jewelry collection is insane, but I can’t handle her wacky ways when I’m down in the dumps.
“Nonsense,” she grumbles with a cackle. “I see you running like mad every morning, boy. I might be old, and my glasses are as thick as the varicose veins in my calf, but I’m not blind yet.”
I throw a hand in the air and let it slap down on my leg. “Busted.”
“You know, it’s funny that Vincent took the same running route every day before he landed in jail.” Another puff of smoke blows against the phone. “Guess now he’s making his rounds in the prison yard.”
I laugh, relaxing back in my chair. “What can I do for you, Susan?”
“I was thinking about conducting a fundraiser next year,” she muses.
“That’s a great idea. What for?”
There’s a hiss in the background as she stubs out her cigarette. “A school, a hospital, a community center… Hell, I don’t care. I just want to get rid of some of the old stuff.”
“I’ll put Brooke on it,” I say. “She’s chaired a lot of fundraisers in the past.”
“Perfect. How much lead time do you need?”
“Depends. We usually start with a one-hour preview so the guests can inspect the artwork before we start the live auction. How many lots?”
“A hundred and fifty maybe.”
“In that case, the auction would last about two hours. Nick can lead it if you want. He knows how to engage the crowd.” I pause to grab a pen from my desk and jot down some notes on a sheet of paper. “If you want a high-profile social event, we need about six months for the coordination. We’ll do the auction here in the gallery. Nick will take care of the equipment and displays, Brooke can take over catering, invitations, and all the marketing stuff, and I’ll see what I can donate from our collection.”
Susan chuckles and lights another cigarette. “I knew you were my man for this, Nathan.”
“Always happy to help,” I say with a smile. “Give me a few days to check this out, then I’ll drop by with Nick, and we’ll go over the items.”
“Sounds like a plan.” A doorbell jingles in the background. “Oh, I’ve got a customer. Talk to you soon, Nathan. And thanks for everything.”
“Anytime. Bye.”
Ending the call, I toss my pen onto the desk and lean back in my chair. Brooke will be elated to hear about the fundraiser. Nothing better than some good PR. After the disaster with Vincent that turned him from ‘the famous art dealer’ to ‘the notorious art stealer’ overnight, our reputation hit rock-bottom, and while I did my best to restore it, the company still suffers from the occasional ambiguous headline.
My gaze darts back to the empty nook, my fingers toying with the pendant around my neck. I still remember the day I stood in this office with Vincent, his arm draped around my shoulders as we admired the Manhattan skyline.
“Dad? Can you promise me something?” I ask.
His ice-blue eyes twinkle with a smile as he glances down at me. “Anything, Nathan.”
I bite my lip, brushing a finger over my pendant. “Promise me that you’ll never steal again.”
A beat of silence follows before Dad squeezes my shoulder in a reassuring gesture, but his eyes are on the horizon when he says, “I promise, my boy. I promise.”
That promise? All smoke and no flames. Six years after they caught him the first time for pinching a handful of diamonds, they busted him up again for pinching a ton of diamonds. As if he hadn’t already been filthy rich…
Biting the inside of my cheek, I stand from my chair and amble over to the art niche in the wall, as usual halting in front of the sixth nook.
That stupid number.
When I was six, Nick was born, and Brooke shunted me aside. When I was twelve (six years later) Vincent landed in jail for the first time. When I was eighteen (same number of years) they stuffed Vincent into an orange suit a second time, one he would wear for many, many years. When I was twenty-four (I can stop counting now, right?), Brooke had a horrible car accident and was in the hospital for weeks. When I was thirty (no comment), I tied the knot with Aiko—and divorced her six months later.
See? The number six is always a bad omen.
“Brooding time is over, brother,” Nick announces when he struts into my office, jerking me out of my reverie.
He stops a foot in front of me with a black velvet box in his palm. Snapping it open, he reveals an 18-karat two-tone gold Buccellati ring.
I smack my lips. “Darling, it’s too soon for a proposal.”
“Damn, what am I going to do with it, then?” Nick mutters, feigning hurt. “Oh, I know.”
Shuffling over to the shrine, he unlocks the display case with a key and gently places the ring on the blue velvet pad in the sixth nook. After locking it again, he steps back to admire his work. I rub my chin, chuckling. This piece is worth three-thousand dollars. Four at the most. Not worthy of this throne.
“This isn’t an adequate replacement,” I voice my thoughts.
“I know.”
I step up to him, and we both stand there staring into the not-empty-anymore nook.
“Do you even remember it?” I ask Nick in a solemn voice. He was twelve when the ring went missing.
Nick levels a stare at me. “You mean the 0.23 inch alexandrite in a 14-karat gold bypass setting with a diamond halo and tanzanite gems embedded in the shoulders?”
I peer at him in surprise.
“‘Emerald by day, ruby by night,’” he recites. “The alexandrite—named after Czar Alexander the Second—changes from turquoise under daylight to purple under incandescent light. This unusual color change happens because the chromium level of the stone is balanced right between the levels found in both rubies and emeralds. It was first discovered in the 1830s in Russia’s Ural Mountains, but the mines there ceased production, so it’s very rare nowadays.”
A moment of silence follows his speech.
“Well done, brother.” I clasp his shoulder. “You really did your homework.”
“Of course, I did. I’ve got my degree in history of arts now,” he says with a shrug, and my head snaps back to him.
“You did it?”
Nick spreads his arms. “Passed with flying colors.”
I pull him in for a brotherly hug. “Congratulations, man. Now, you finally know the difference between carat and karat.”
“Funny.” Nick punches my shoulder in a playful gesture.
“Wanna celebrate tonight?”
“I wish I could, but I’m off to Arizona for the Tucson Gem & Jewelry Show this evening. But we can celebrate on Sunday. Mom already booked a reservation for a family dinner.”
I groan. “Can I have a rain check on that?”
“Not unless you want her to strangle you with her Cartier necklace.” Nick grins. “Alright, I’ve got a shit-ton of work waiting on my desk. See ya around.”
Speaking of work, I still have to wade through some numbers, but I’m too drained to concentrate on that right now.
My gaze wanders to the Buccellati ring. I want to grab it and throw it out the window. It doesn’t belong there. Nothing does. This nook will always belong to the alexandrite—the one Vincent found when he traveled to Russia and used for a ring he designed himself.
But it won’t come back. And I guess it would look stupid to leave the nook empty for eternity.
When I was a kid, Vincent used to say, ‘Each day is a gem. Each different in kind, size, and color. Each yours to polish.’
Funny that every day in my life is an exact replica of the one before. They are all the same to me. Long and dull and embarrassingly predictable.
I grab my phone and call Carl. He picks up on the second ring.
“Sign me up, Carl.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I gruff out, waving my ladle at Mom’s picture on the wall. “This is your fault. If you’d just let Doctor Ivanov do what was necessary, we could have skipped this shit.” I jam the ladle back into the pot, sauce splashing everywhere. “And I would have never stumbled into Luka fucking Sokolov in the first place…”
I grab a knife and attack a bell pepper, the chop-chop-chop in sync with the kicks of rage in my gut. Bristling, I fling the heap of vegetables into the sizzling pan and throw a pinch of spices on top.
“But no,” I go on with my rant, my voice changing octaves like the sirens of an ambulance as I wrench open a cupboard. “You had to drag it out until it was too late.” Reaching for the plates, I pull two out and bang them on the counter. “Just like you did when you finally had the guts to tell me about my real father.”
I slam the cupboard shut.
Briefly closing my eyes, I press a fist against my trembling lips as I try to keep my temper in check.
&n
bsp; “Shit…”
I steal a glance at the framed picture of Mom with her warm, brown eyes and her everlasting red-lipstick smile. Sadly, I didn’t inherit her best genes—not her brunette hair, not her chest size, not her loving nature.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my throat closing up. “Of course, it wasn’t your fault. That shit’s on me…”
I prepare the rest of my meal in brooding silence.
I’ve spent the last few days drowning in self-loathing. And racking my brain about Silent Sins. And then loathing myself even more because, the longer I’m putting this damn program on the back burner, the more I realize what a fucking mess I am.
All because of a man who fell so disastrously in love with me, he wasted away in the pits of madness.
I’ve built a fortress to keep him out of my life, making the walls high and wide and indestructible, but the thicker they became, the more it became clear that I was digging my own grave.
I slowly stir the red beans boiling in the pot, my mind firing off in a hundred different directions. Instead of finishing the translations that were due this week, I’ve plowed my way through eNtimacy’s website and every crumble I could find about Silent Sins. Analyzing the numbers. Studying the FAQs. Surveying the reviews. Double-checking every damn fact. Fuck, I can recite the Terms & Conditions by now.
eNtimacy doesn’t leave anything to chance—I have to give them that much. There are concealed parking lots at each venue and only minimal communication with the staff, if any. Regular HIV tests are mandatory, and all rooms provide condoms—easily visible and accessible, of course. The subscription includes a one-hour meeting, and after that, one date every two weeks with each date lasting two hours.
The stuff going on behind the scenes of Silent Sins is beyond belief. Dozens of psychologists conduct research to find the best matches. They want you to provide a big-ass pile of information in advance, but Silent Sins assures absolute confidentiality (I triple-checked that). None of the ‘highly valuable propriety information’ will reach the public—not your name, not your occupation, not even your hair color. Your match knows nothing about you. At least, not until the first meeting.