“What the hell are you doing?” Nicola clutches her purse to her chest.
“Nothing, just…” Joey says, taking a careful step over the bag. Nicola backs up, as if Joey is about to lunge at her. “I was looking for you. The door was open. I thought—”
“The door was not open.”
“It was. I just wanted to come and bring you a coffee.”
Nicola looks around her, waving her hands in exaggeration. “Where is it?”
“I left it downstairs. But I was just about to go get you another one.”
Nicola eyes her. “I am calling the police,” she says finally, digging through her purse.
“No.” Joey grabs her wrist, and the look of shock and fear that Nicola gives her makes her let go quickly. “Please. I was just leaving.”
Joey looks back down at the suitcase on the floor. She remembers what she saw and decides to change tack. She reaches down and snatches up what she found in the suitcase. “What are you doing with this?” Nicola looks wrong-footed, and Joey uses it to her advantage. “This painting was hanging in my coffee shop.”
Nicola frowns, but she lowers her hand from her purse. “Give me your phone,” she says.
“Excuse me?”
“Your phone. I do not want pictures or video recordings of this. Give it to me.”
Joey puts up two surrender hands and then reaches slowly into her back pocket. “Here.” She offers up the phone. “Look, I don’t care what you stole.” Joey chucks the painting and the carved bear onto the bed. “I want to know where you got this.” Joey takes a chance by holding out the ring. “Just tell me honestly. I won’t tell anyone about yourlittle habit. I don’t care. I just need to know where the ring came from.”
There’s a silence during which the rain barrages the window. Nicola could still call someone. She could simply shout, and Kathy would be up here in less than a minute. Joey accusing her of being a thief would be so inconsequential; it’s not as if Nicola couldn’t just apologize and return everything and take Joey down for breaking and entering.
“I will put them back,” says Nicola. Joey’s not sure she believes her, but she honestly doesn’t care. The way she’s looking at Joey tells her that this is far from the first time she’s stolen. The objects—everything besides Quinn’s ring—may not have any monetary value, but drawing attention to them could do real damage to a glamorous public figure like Nicola Bianco. Joey waits.
“Almost as soon as I took it, I realized it was strange,” she says, clearly on the verge of distress. She’s trying to hide it but she’s gripping the shoulder strap of her purse so hard her knuckles are turning white. “The inscription,” she says at last. “It’s that girl’s name. Quinn.” The way she says it sounds likequeen. “I recognized the name when Elena mentioned her the other day. I was so curious because I thought,There’s no way the girl in Elena’s story is the same girl whose name is on this ring. It makes no sense. So I came to see you. I thought, you are a café owner in a small town. You will know. And you recognized the ring right away. I did not even have to ask. I knew then that it belonged to her. I just did not understand how he—”
“He?Who’she?”
“I wanted to find out what happened to her, so I pretended I needed to learn about her for research for a role, but that man, her father, he was so angry. He tried to push me. I had to run.”
“Who did you take it from in the first place?” Joey asks, but she thinks she knows already.
Nicola’s eyes are focused on hers. “He and I have been friends for almost twenty years. He has never said anything about this place or anyone he knew here. Not once. I don’t know how he got it.” Her voice is growing cold with every word, a lake freezing over. “Then I thought,Maybe he knew her some other way. Maybe he somehow knew the girl, and I tried to ask him without asking him, you know? And it suddenly became clear.”
“What became clear?”
Nicola smiles mirthlessly. “That he was lying.”
Joey suppresses a chill. “Where is he now?”
Nicola waves an insistent hand. “I don’t know. And I don’t care.”
“Listen to me, do you think…?” Joey speaks slowly. “Is he the kind of person who could…kill someone?”
For a second, the question hangs in the air between them. How could either of them know this?
Nicola is clearly horror-struck. “You have to go,” she says quickly.
“Wait, please. Where can I—”
“He will know it was me who told you.” She makes a show of striding toward the door.
“Nicola, wait.”
