Chapter 2 - WHAT WAS INSIDE HER BAG
~1,100 words
“Bring me her bag.”
Nobody moved.
For one second, I honestly thought Adrian meant someone else.
Then his eyes shifted to me.
“Rachel.”
Isabella clutched the evening bag against her chest.
“She will do no such thing.”
Adrian’s expression didn’t change.
“You fired her thirty seconds ago.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t employ her.”
Isabella blinked.
“She works in this house.”
“My house.”
The words weren’t loud.
They didn’t need to be.
A few guests looked down at their plates.
I suddenly understood why people said Adrian DeLuca could make a room smaller simply by entering it.
Isabella stared at him.
“Are you humiliating me over a piece of jewelry?”
“No.”
He placed the cufflink beside his untouched wineglass.
“I’m asking why something made from my missing brother’s ring was lying outside a locked room in my house.”
Her face tightened.
“And I’m asking why a matching piece of enamel is hanging from your purse.”
Nobody breathed.
I didn’t move toward her.
Whatever Adrian expected, I wasn’t going to wrestle a bag away from his fiancée in front of twenty-six dinner guests.
“I’m not touching her,” I said.
Adrian glanced at me.
Fair enough.
He looked back at Isabella.
“Put the bag on the table.”
“No.”
Something changed in his eyes.
Not rage.
Hurt.
That was worse.
“Isabella.”
She looked around the room.
For the first time all night, she didn’t look elegant.
She looked cornered.
Then she set the bag down.
“Everyone leaves.”
Adrian leaned back.
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“You wanted Rachel fired for finding a cufflink.”
His voice stayed calm.
“Now she stays.”
Isabella looked at me with enough anger to make my stomach tighten.
But underneath the anger was fear.
That mattered.
Finally, she unfastened the clasp herself.
The first things she removed were ordinary.
Lipstick.
Keys.
Phone.
A silk handkerchief.
Then her fingers stopped.
Adrian noticed.
“So did I.
“What’s underneath the handkerchief?” he asked.
Isabella swallowed.
“Something that belonged to my father.”
“Take it out.”
She pulled out a small burgundy velvet box.
Vittorio shifted in his chair.
It was barely noticeable.
Adrian noticed anyway.
“What is it, Uncle?”
“Nothing.”
Adrian looked at him for another second before turning back to Isabella.
“Open it.”
She did.
Inside was another cufflink.
Plain gold.
Same shape.
Same weight, judging from the way it sat against the velvet.
But this one had no crest.
Only a shallow oval depression where something had once been mounted.
I stared.
“They’re a pair.”
Adrian picked up the cufflink I had found and placed it beside the one in the box.
They matched perfectly.
Vittorio whispered something under his breath.
Isabella heard him.
“So you recognize them.”
Vittorio’s face hardened.
“I recognize a cufflink.”
“No.”
Her voice shook now.
“You recognize these.”
Adrian looked between them.
“What exactly is going on?”
Isabella reached deeper into the bag and removed a folded photograph.
She hesitated before handing it to him.
It showed three men standing beside a dark sedan.
The photograph was old.
Fourteen years, maybe more.
I recognized Adrian immediately, only younger.
Beside him stood Nicholas.
I knew because I had seen one old family photograph in the staff office before Isabella ordered it removed.
Nicholas looked different from Adrian.
Softer around the mouth.
Almost amused by whatever was happening beyond the camera.
The third man was unfamiliar to me.
Isabella touched the photograph.
“My father.”
Adrian looked up.
“Thomas Crane.”
“Yes.”
I knew the name.
Everybody who worked around the DeLucas long enough heard old names.
Thomas Crane had managed finances for Adrian’s father.
He died two years earlier.
Adrian turned the photograph over.
Nothing was written there.
“Why do you have this?”
“I found it after my father died.”
“Along with the cufflinks?”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you show me?”
Isabella’s face changed.
Because she knew there was no safe answer.
Adrian set the photograph down carefully.
“We are twelve days from our wedding.”
“I know.”
“You’ve had evidence connected to Nicholas in your possession for two years.”
“I didn’t know what it meant.”
“But you knew enough to hide it.”
She looked away.
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Why were you upstairs?”
There it was.
The question that had been sitting underneath everything.
Isabella pressed her lips together.
“I was looking for something.”
“In my locked study?”
“Yes.”
A murmur moved around the table.
Adrian ignored it.
“What?”
“I’m not discussing this in front of everyone.”
“You chose the audience when you tried to fire Rachel for finding what you dropped.”
Her eyes flashed.
“I was protecting myself.”
“From what?”
She didn’t answer.
I looked at the velvet box again.
A thin black residue lined one corner.
Enamel.
The chip on Isabella’s bag hadn’t necessarily come from the cufflink tonight.
It could have come from the box.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
Adrian looked at me.
“There’s something underneath the cufflink.”
Isabella’s hand moved too late.
Adrian lifted the plain cufflink.
Beneath it was a folded piece of paper.
Old.
Yellowed near the edges.
Isabella closed her eyes.
Adrian unfolded it.
I saw the header before he did.
And my stomach dropped.
BENNETT & SON JEWELERS
CLEVELAND, OHIO
My father’s shop.
For a moment, the room disappeared.
I saw his narrow storefront.
The old green awning.
The wooden stool behind his bench where I used to sit after school.
His hands holding tweezers beneath a magnifying lens.
Adrian looked at me.
“Bennett?”
My voice barely worked.
“My father.”
Isabella stared at me.
“What?”
“That was my father’s business.”
I reached for the paper.
Adrian handed it over.
The handwriting at the bottom was unmistakable.
Samuel Bennett.
Dad.
The date was fourteen years earlier.
Three days after Nicholas DeLuca disappeared.
My hands began shaking.
The repair description read:
Gentleman’s gold signet ring. Damaged black enamel. Crest removed at customer request. Crest mounted to formal cufflink. Companion cufflink fabricated to match.
I read it twice.
Then I saw the handwritten note squeezed into the margin.
Dad always wrote tiny reminders on complicated jobs.
Customer nervous.
Not owner of ring.
Arrived with second man who remained outside.
I looked lower.
Dad had written one final line.
Dark Cadillac. Illinois plates.
Then seven characters.
VIT-700.
Vittorio’s chair scraped against the floor.
Adrian slowly turned toward his uncle.
Vittorio’s face had lost every trace of color.
Adrian lifted the receipt.
“Was that your Cadillac?”
Vittorio didn’t answer.
“Uncle.”
Isabella whispered, “Tell him.”
Vittorio looked at her sharply.
That was when I understood something.
She wasn’t afraid only of Adrian.
She was afraid of Vittorio.
Adrian understood too.
His voice dropped.
“Fourteen years ago, Thomas Crane took my brother’s ring to Rachel’s father three days after Nicholas disappeared.”
He held up the receipt.
“And according to Samuel Bennett, you were sitting outside.”
Vittorio stared at the gold cufflink.
Then at Adrian.
Finally, he said,
May you like
“You have no idea what Nicholas was about to do.”
---
