A man dressed in a double-breasted suit directed the crowd to the far wall, where a continuous, long glass case was flanked by guards and lit from above with bright light.

“Please feel free to peruse the Pavlin Private Collection, on exhibit in its entirety for the first time . . .”

Gemma’s heart began to beat fast. She was so close. She couldn’t believe she’d finally get to see her mother’s engagement ring again. The last time she’d touched it had been in the chaotic days following her parents’ deaths. Her maternal grandmother, Constance, an imposing woman with a tiny thin frame and blond hair that never moved in even the stiffest wind, had been the one to break the news of the accident to Gemma. Surreal days blended into one another, as Gemma wandered her grandparents’ palatial apartment on Park Avenue, irrationally waiting for her mother to come get her. Out of habit, craving the ritual of watching her mother do her hair and makeup for a night out, she ventured into Constance’s bedroom. Shockingly, she saw her mother’s pink diamond engagement ring resting on a crystal dish on the dresser. This, more than anything else, made the news of her parents’ deaths seem real. At the sight of that ring separated from her mother, she burst into tears. Trembling, she slipped it onto her finger. Then, hearing her grandmother’s footsteps, she just as quickly slipped it off.

“It will be yours someday,” her grandmother said. “It’s what your mother wanted. So, something to look forward to when you’re grown up.”

Well, now she was grown up. But she’d had almost no contact with the Pavlins for the past fifteen years. They never reached out to her, and Nana discouraged her from contacting them—or asking too many questions.

“You’re better off without those people,” she’d said.

Gemma was confused. Wasn’t she herself one of “those people”?

She fell into the makeshift line of reporters, noting that even the jaded Manhattan press was quietly reverent in the face of such treasures, some—but not all—of which she recognized. The Daisy necklace, a graduated series of circular-cut diamond daisies, each set with a circular-cut yellow diamond bombé pistil, spaced by chrysoprase leaves with circular-cut diamond trim; the Lemon Drop, a detachable pear-shaped fancy yellow diamond, 9.66 carats, attached to a colored diamond neck chain, mounted in gold-plated platinum; the Constance, an art nouveau enamel and multi-gem heron designed with a cushion-cut aquamarine and cabochon opal body, extending blue and green plique-á-jour enamel wings, enhanced by cabochon rubies and calibré-cut emeralds, accented by gold wirework detail.