Chapter 4
Isabella ordered an independent inventory review the next morning.
Not Claire alone.
An outside appraisal firm.
Rachel insisted.
“If this involves internal misconduct, nobody can later say your employee manufactured the result.”
Isabella agreed.
That decision offended Claire less than Isabella expected.
“I’d do the same thing.”
The review began with acquisition records, repair logs, insurance schedules, and photography dating back three years.
By afternoon, the auditors found the first inconsistency.
Six pieces had been sent to restoration vendors during the previous eighteen months.
All six had returned.
But two restoration photographs did not match earlier high-resolution images exactly.
Tiny differences.
A prong angle.
A scratch beneath a clasp.
One irregular solder line.
Claire stared at the images.
“Those may not be the same settings.”
“Are the stones real?” Isabella asked.
“We have to test them.”
The first piece was genuine.
The second contained real diamonds but a replacement central sapphire of slightly lower quality.
Value difference: approximately $90,000.
Not catastrophic by family standards.
Still theft if intentional.
The paperwork showed Preston had signed the restoration return.
Diane had witnessed the insurance inspection.
Isabella felt something colder than anger.
The brooch replica was no longer an isolated prop.
Someone had already been moving between genuine pieces and convincing substitutes.
That evening, Isabella went home early.
Sophie was sitting at the kitchen table drawing gemstones with crayons.
She looked up.
“Is Aunt Diane mad?”
Isabella took off her jacket.
“She’s upset.”
“Because I told?”
“No.”
Sophie stared at the purple circle she had drawn.
“Aunt Diane said nobody likes tattles.”
Isabella sat down beside her.
“When did she say that?”
“At Grandma dinner.”
Three weeks earlier.
Isabella remembered the dinner.
Diane had taken Sophie through the gallery room after dessert because the child loved “sparkly rocks.”
“What did you tell?”
Sophie shrugged.
“Uncle Preston had boxes.”
Isabella kept her voice even.
“What boxes?”
“Like yesterday.”
May you like
Foam-lined transport boxes.
The broken seal at the exhibition suddenly mattered more.
