The next attempt is the earrings. I brought them and the bracelet home with me last night, thinking I might finally throw them away. Now I spread them out on my coffee table, looking at them for a long time. They’re beautiful, antique pieces, and the thought of not owning them feels almost painful, now that I do. I want to wear them, badly.
What if they really are just from a client, and I’m putting myself through all of this for nothing?
I photograph them from multiple angles and run reverse image searches, scroll through high-end jewelry websites, compare them to pieces from Tiffany, Cartier, Harry Winston.
Nothing matches exactly, but the style is similar to a collection I find on a boutique jeweler's website—a small shop in SoHo that specializes in estate pieces and vintage jewelry. I call them.
"I'm trying to identify a pair of earrings," I say when someone answers. "They're gold with small diamonds, very delicate. I think they might be from your shop?"
"We get a lot of estate pieces in," the man says. "If you could bring them in, I could take a look, tell you if they're ours."
"And if they are? Could you tell me who purchased them?"
A long pause. "I'm sorry, but we don't share client information. Privacy policy."
Of course. I knew that was going to be a dead end from the start—I would never share client information, either. I thank him and hang up.
I spend two hours going through the timeline of gifts, writing everything down in chronological order. The Thai food—how did they know my favorite order?—the book, the flowers that matched the painting, the bracelet, the earrings, the rose.
Each gift reveals something. Whoever this is has been watching me for a while. Long enough to know my routines, my preferences, my art. Long enough to have found a way into my apartment.
The thought makes my skin crawl.
I consider hiring a private investigator. I even google a few and read over their websites, looking at their rates. But they’re expensive, and while I technically could afford it, I stare at the last website for a long time and then close my laptop.
That feels like finally accepting that something very bad is happening. That this isn’t a client sending gifts, or me forgettingto close a window. I’m being stalked. The rose solidified it—I didn’t leave that there, and no one but me has a key to my apartment.
Maybe a private investigator could do something. But what then? Do I move? That would take an even larger chunk out of my funds, especially since I’d have to pay a year’s rent to break the lease. My savings would be decimated, and finding another apartment would make the financial implications even more dire. What if the stalker followed me to the next place? I could get a restraining order, but… against who? Like the police said, there’s been no overt threat. A private eye could give me information, but probably not any real, actionable help.
I stare at the black rose on my counter, where I moved it this morning so I wouldn't have to look at it while trying to sleep. "Who are you?" I whisper to it.
It doesn't answer.
—
The auction is that evening,and I almost cancel.
I'm in no state to be professional, to smile and make small talk with Manhattan's elite while my mind is elsewhere. But I need to prove to myself that I can still function, that whoever is doing this to me hasn't completely derailed my life.
So I shower, put on a sleek black evening dress and do my makeup with a light hand, and then… almost as an afterthought, before I can stop myself, put on the vintage earrings and bracelet.
They’re beautiful. They should be worn. And I tell myself that maybe if I wear them, if I normalize them, I can make myself believe that they were just a gift from a grateful client. I’vereceived expensive gifts before after closing a sale or finding a rare piece. It could just be that.
Itneedsto just be that.
The auction house is in a converted warehouse, with exposed brick and high ceilings. Champagne is flowing by the time I get there, appetizers circulating on small trays, and I snag a crisp with creme fraiche and caviar even though my appetite is nonexistent. The room is buzzing with conversation and laughter, the sounds of people who have money and want everyone to know it.
I find my client, Richard Maxwell, near the front, holding a glass of champagne. He’s old money with a young wife, and plenty of enthusiasm about art even though he has no real knowledge about it. He’s joked before that that’s why he pays me, so he doesn’t need to know. He doesn’t collect because he loves a particular artist, but because it's what people like him do, He likes the status of saying he owns a Basquiat or a Blanche, because his decorator told him his penthouse needed "statement pieces."
"Mara!" He greets me too loudly, pulling me into a one-armed hug that I tolerate because he pays well. "You look stunning. Doesn't she look stunning, Katie?"
His wife—his third wife, twenty years younger than him and clearly bored—gives me a tight smile. "Lovely."
"I've been looking at the catalog," Richard says, pulling it from his jacket pocket. "That Kahlo in lot fifteen—what do you think?"
I take the catalog and flip to the page, grateful to have something concrete to focus on. "It's a good piece. The estimate is conservative—I'd expect it to go for at least thirty percent over."
"Should I bid on it?"
