Chapter 3

Monica Sawyer stood beside him.

The sapphire brooch was pinned to her chest.

Dick's gaze moved from my face to the cookie Miles had given me, and his brow lowered.

"You don't pick up your phone, and this is what you're doing? Standing here laughing with some man?"

Miles didn't answer him. He only looked at me.

Waiting for me to decide whether to send him off.

I nodded.

"Professor Vance, I can handle this."

"All right. Call security if you need to."

Dick's face went black in an instant.

He waited until Miles was well away, then fixed his eyes on me.

"Since when does some teacher get to meddle in things between a husband and wife?"

I looked straight into his eyes.

"He didn't meddle. What I want to know is why you're in my academic building."

Monica slipped her arm through Dick's.

"Dick came with me to see the exhibition hall. Amy, don't misunderstand about the brooch. Once the event is over, I'll return it to you."

"You don't need to return it to me."

She paused, thrown.

I looked at Dick.

"Everything's already gone back to the Barnes family. Whoever you give it to, whoever you lend it to, none of that is any of my business anymore."

Dick pressed his lips together.

"Don't take it out on Monica."

"I only said whose things they are."

His voice was full of disappointment.

"You were never this petty before."

Before, whenever Monica was the least bit uncomfortable, I was the one who was supposed to give way.

Give up the restaurant, give up the seat, give up the anniversary, give up whatever line a wife was entitled to hold.

Now I don't give way, and he says I've changed.

Monica spoke up to smooth things over.

"It's all my fault. Amy just came back to work, she's probably a little on edge. This is perfect, actually. Come to the meeting this afternoon too. You used to study this field, you could help me look things over."

I meant to refuse.

But the pamphlet she held out fell open in front of me.

The first page carried a line in bold.

"The Silent Wearers: A Record of Women Returning Their Jewelry."

My blood went cold in an instant.

That was the title of the paper I'd never published, four years ago.

The people from the university, the Barnes family, and three museums sat in the conference room.

Monica had placed me at the very back.

She stood in front of the screen.

"Past jewelry exhibitions have all been about what women received. This time, I want to talk about why women gave it back."

The examples she put up, their categories and their order, all came from my paper.

Even a date I'd once gotten wrong was there.

Four years ago, I'd recorded the date on a silver school badge incorrectly.

Later someone sent me a photo of the back and pointed out the mistake.

I'd fixed it in the final version, but the old draft stayed on the hard drive at the marital home.

What Monica had put up was exactly that old draft.

When she finished, I raised my hand.

"Director Sawyer, where did the material for the third section come from?"

Her smile didn't change.

"The Barnes family's archives, and my own notes."

"Then why do your notes contain a mistake only I ever made?"

The room went quiet.

Dick looked at me.

"We're here to talk about the exhibition today, not your private affairs."

I connected my laptop to the screen.

"This is the exhibition's problem."

An email from four years ago came up on the screen.

The send time, the file name, the revision history, all of it plain to see.

I opened both the new and old versions and circled that one wrong date.

"The order of examples Director Sawyer used is identical to my old draft. This is taking what's mine."

The museum people started to murmur.

Monica turned to Dick.

"Dick, I didn't know this was Amy's file. When the assistant handed it to me, he only said it was old material."

Dick frowned.

"Which assistant?"

"Roy."

He denied it at once.

"Impossible. The hard drive in the study was never given to the collections department."

At those words, the last shred of hope inside me went out.

"So you know the hard drive is in the study."

"Of course I know."

"Last November—did Monica go there?"

Dick froze.