I look at the crystal and at the watch.
I press my thumb slowly across the crystal's flat face and I think about Nathalie in my meeting room the first day, the blazer, the prepared answers, and the thing that had nagged at me from that first moment that I had never been able to name. I think about her in the cell, and how she had seemed familiar in a way I had attributed to her face, her eyes, and had never looked further than that.
I pick up the watch and I bring the crystal to the gap again, slower this time. I press it gently into the space.
It slots in perfectly.
I stare at it and I pull the crystal back out. I hold it in my palm and I set both of them down. I sit on the edge of the bed and I press both hands over my face.
It doesn't mean anything.
It might mean something.
It's the morning of Nathalie's wedding and I am holding a piece of glass that may or may not have come off my watch the night a stranger saved my life in a parking garage two years ago.
Nathalie had this crystal; was the woman who saved me, the woman I was searching for. Was that Nathalie?
I go to the connecting room and push it open. Renzo is in front of the mirror with one cuff link in and one out, he looks at me in the reflection.
"Chop, chop," I tell him.
He turns. "What?"
"Muoviti."Move it."You're driving. Tell the men to follow immediately."
He looks at my face and puts the second cuff link in without a word and picks up his jacket.
I put the crystal and the watch in my breast pocket and I press my hand against them for a moment and I think,it probably isn't her.
But what if it is?
I walk to the elevator.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nathalie
"Left side first," the woman says, reaching for the buttons at the back of the dress. "Hold still."
Her name is Sofia and she has been in the house for two weeks disguised as a maid. She is one of Renzo's best and in the bustle of wedding preparations nobody had looked at her twice. Nobody looks at maids. I had counted on that.
"There," Sofia says, stepping back. "Turn around."
I turn and I look at myself in the mirror and I look at the dress. It was a strapless, v-neck gown. About three top designers had worked on it. The door opens and father comes in with Gerald a step behind him.
"Every major outlet is covering it," he announces, coming toward me with his hands spread wide to take me in. "It's trending, Nathalie. All of it." He shakes his head like a man whocannot quite believe his own good fortune. "You have made me proud."
"I'm glad," I tell him.
Gerald steps forward and holds out a folded paper and my father takes it and hands it to me, "Your speech. Read it word for word. Don't improvise."
I unfold it.
It is long. Paragraph after paragraph about what a devoted father he had been, what a wonderful childhood he had given me, how much I owed him, how proud I was to be his daughter. The words are clearly written by someone who does this professionally.
My mother's name does not appear once.
"Of course," I tell him, folding it back. "I won't disappoint you."
