“For starters, the double layer of mesh is lovely and makes the face of the pendant decorative—but it’s an odd choice. It looks less like silver than it does like two layers of woven metal sintered together.”
“Sintered? Explain.”
“You mean I can teach you something?” she teased.
“Fee, I’m not laughing. What does sintered mean?”
When she heard the taut note in Ryan’s voice, all Fiona’s amusement vanished. “Sintering is a process where metal mesh is laminated together in a high-temp furnace under mechanical pressure in an inert gas environment.”
Ryan did a double-take. “How the hell did you know that? It sounds über technical and scientific, like it’s coming from me rather than from you.”
“I’m smart. Plus, I took lots of adjunct courses. One of them was in materials science.” Fiona’s brows drew together in puzzlement. “Ry, the sintering process that was used to make the front of the heart is not something that’s normally used in jewelry-making. It’s used in industrial metal fabrication.”
Ryan’s blood was thrumming through his veins. “Go on.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not.”
“Check the entire necklace,” Fiona instructed. “Look for a 925 marking. That’ll tell you if the pendant is made of genuine sterling silver.”
Ryan searched closely. “Nope. Nothing. Again, not surprised.”
Fiona made a frustrated sound. “I wish I were holding the piece so I could weigh it. Is it lighter than the pendants you’ve handled before?”
A grunt. “Pendants aren’t exactly my thing. How would I know?”
“Okay, fine.” Fiona sighed. “Does it feel hollow?”
Ryan placed the necklace in his palm and shifted it around. “No. But it doesn’t feel like it’s solid through and through.”
“It’s not sterling. I’d bet on that—and I’d win.”
More certain than ever that he was on the right track, Ryan pressed on, watching his words carefully. Fee had no knowledge of Caitlin’s text to their mom, nor to the fact that Caitlin was the one who’d sent it. And it was imperative that she not find out.
“Fee, what about the diamonds, especially the center one. Anything there out of whack?”
“I was just getting to that. The placement of the center diamond looks weird, and it looks more synthetic than real.”
“You mean like cubic zirconium?”
“No. I mean like not jewelry at all. There’s not even a setting holding the stone. From what I can make out, it looks to be attached from the inside out. Honestly? This isn’t something a silversmith would create. It’s something an engineer would create, with its decorative quality an afterthought.”
“Or a diversion,” Ryan muttered.
“What does that mean?”
It means that Caitlin is a lot smarter than even I realized, Ryan thought to himself.
Fee was clearly getting exasperated. “Are you planning on filling me in on what you’re looking for?”
“Later.” Ryan sidestepped the question. “I need to follow through on this by myself. In the meantime, not a word about anything we said or did tonight to anyone. Okay?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. And Fee? Thanks.”
He ended the call, waiting impatiently for his home screen to reappear. Once it did, he went straight for BUGGY, the highly sophisticated bug detecting scanner app that he’d created and installed on his cell phone.
