I return to my hotel suite and kick off my heels. The reunion feels like a performance I've walked away from, leaving Dereck and his daughter to clean up the mess of their own humiliation. The suite is quiet. I stand at the window, looking out at the city lights, and feel nothing but the cool satisfaction of a debt finally called in.
But there's something nagging at me. A detail I can't shake. I reach up and touch the pendant at my throat. My mother's pendant. It's been with me for thirty years, a talisman I've worn through every triumph and setback since she pressed it into my palm.
I unclasp it and hold it under the light. The jade catches the glow, but something about it feels... off. Not wrong in a way I can name, but different from how I remember it feeling in my mother's hands. The weight, perhaps. Or the way the light moves through it.
I set it on the nightstand and stare at it. I've had it cleaned professionally twice in London, but never examined closely. The memory surfaces suddenly—my mother's fingers, thin and strong, closing mine around the pendant. 'This is yours,' she said. 'It's proof that you come from women who survive.'
I pick up my phone and dial a number I've had saved for years.
'Mason Reed,' he answers, his voice crisp and professional even at this late hour.
'Mason, it's Carolina Greene. I need your expertise on something. Can you meet me tomorrow morning?'
There's a brief pause. 'The Carolina Greene? Of Greene International?'
'The same. I have a personal piece I need authenticated. Discreetly.'
'Of course. My office at Sotheby's, nine AM.'
I end the call and look at the pendant again. Sleep doesn't come easily.
The next morning, I arrive at Sotheby's precisely at nine. Mason Reed is waiting for me—a tall man with silver-rimmed glasses and the careful hands of someone who spends his life handling priceless objects. He leads me to a private room with specialized lighting.
'What can I do for you, Ms. Greene?'
I place the pendant on the velvet cloth between us. 'My mother's jadeite. Imperial green. Family heirloom. I need to know what I'm looking at.'
Mason examines it under different lights. He uses a jeweler's loupe. He measures. He tests. His expression remains neutral, but I see the slight tightening around his eyes.
Finally, he looks up. 'Ms. Greene, this isn't imperial green jadeite. It's synthetic resin, acid-washed to mimic the appearance of jade. The base stone is worthless.'
I don't move. I don't blink. 'How long would it take to swap a genuine stone for a fake? Without the owner noticing?'
'If it was done by someone with access to the piece, and the owner wasn't expecting it...' He hesitates. 'Minutes, perhaps.'
I nod. 'Thank you, Mason. That's what I needed to know.'
Back in my suite, I sit on the edge of the bed and hold the fake pendant in my palm. The truth crashes over me in waves. The pendant my mother gave me—her final gift—was stolen. Replaced with a worthless imitation. And I never knew.
I think of Dereck's face at the reunion. The practiced sincerity. The ring he kept all these years. The lies he told himself and others about our marriage. About me. About everything.
Something breaks inside me. I cry. Not for the girl I was. Not for the marriage I lost. I cry for my mother, who died believing she had given me something precious—something that was stolen before I could fully understand what it meant.
The tears come without warning and without shame. I let them fall until there are none left. By morning, my eyes are dry and my resolve is absolute.
I pick up the secure phone and dial Wes.
'It's me,' I say when he answers. 'I need you to find something for me.'
'I'm listening.' His voice is steady, reliable. The voice of the man I've built over twenty years.
'The pendant my mother gave me was a fake. Find me where the real one is.'
There's a brief silence. 'I already know,' he says. 'I've been tracking Armstrong family assets for years. The real pendant was placed in Halo Bradley's coffin as a burial offering.'
I close my eyes. Of course. The final insult. The ultimate theft.
'Send me everything,' I say. 'Every document. Every record. I want to know exactly what happened and when.'
'I'll have it to you within the hour.'
I end the call and stand at the window. The sun is rising over the city. I touch the fake pendant one last time, then drop it into the trash can. It clinks against the bottom, worthless.
My mother's real pendant is buried with the woman who helped destroy my life. And I'm going to get it back.
