The sighting at the party was the first time she’d seen him since he took a leave of absence from school. Through the haze of alcohol, she couldn’t process it. Instead of seeing her ex-boyfriend, someone from the past, she was jolted right back to the headspace she’d been in when she last saw him. Since they hadn’t had a fight or a proper breakup, there was no closure. Even though she was happy with Sanjay, in the back of her mind Noam was still an open wound. And when he leaned forward and kissed her, she let him. It felt natural. It felt like . . . a punctuation mark. And if their hostess, Monica Del Mar, hadn’t seen them from across the room, that’s all it would have been. But then Monica told Sanjay.

Now, sitting alone in her apartment four months later, she was still paying the price.

Her phone rang, a number she didn’t recognize.

“Hello,” she said, standing up from her workbench for the first time in hours. Her back ached, and her thumb was turning black and blue from where she accidentally hit it with a hammer. Still, she’d gotten in a full day of metalwork; she had to replenish her stash of necklace chains for her Old New York collection. They were distinct, thicker than a typical necklace chain. Some were oval-link chains, some more industrial-looking edge link. All were finished with her signature lobster-claw clasp with GEMMA engraved in script.

“Hello, may I speak to Gemma Maybrook?” a female voice asked.

“This is Gemma.”

“Gemma, my name is Sloan Pierce. I work at Whitmore’s Auction House in the jewelry department. I believe you were at the Pavlin & Co party last week?”

“Um, yes. I was.”

“I noticed you because of your question about the Electric Rose. It seems we share an interest in it. Do you have time to chat over a cup of coffee?”

Gemma’s first instinct was to say no; the call violated her sense of privacy, her strong desire to stay under the radar when it came to her connection to the Pavlins. But maybe this woman was willing to tell her what Elodie Pavlin had not been: where to find her mother’s ring.

“Sure,” Gemma said. “Let’s talk.”

Elodie hated meeting with the accountants. Numbers didn’t lie; no matter how brightly the showroom glittered, the health of the company was determined by the spreadsheets and executives on the top floor. And today, the news was not good.

“That’s two bad quarters in a row,” her accountant said.

“I’m not an accountant, but I’m quite capable of counting to two,” Elodie said dryly. “There’s no need to panic. We’ve already seen a bounce from all the party publicity.”