Page 57 of The Expat Affair

I look to Thomas, trying to catch his eye, but he’s studiously avoiding mine. Sem hangs on his legs like a monkey.

I dump the crayons onto the coffee table and push to a stand, willing my voice not to shake. “Willow Prins.Aangenaam.” Nice to meet you.

“Let’s talk in my study, where it’s quieter,” Thomas says, and I realize with a start that I’m included in this conversation. This man is here to questionbothof us. Thomas drapes a hand over Sem’s head, nudging him onto the floor. “Martina, will you get Sem to bed, please? We need a few minutes alone with our guest.”

Martina comes bustling out of the kitchen. “Of course, of course. Go.” She untangles Sem from Thomas’s leg and shoos us in the direction of the stairs. I avoid her questioning gaze, though I won’t be able to escape it later. Martina doesn’t like what this after-hours visit means, either.

Silently, Thomas leads us upstairs to his study, a moody room on the back side of the house. Ebony wood paneling, thick rugs of gunmetal gray, heavy curtains on the windows that even during the daytime keep the room as dark and cool as a cave. He flips a switch by the door, and the lamps and wall sconces flicker to life.

He waves at the matching mohair chairs in front of his desk. “Detective Boomsma found something you need to see. Something that belongs to us.”

I drop into the stool. “Okay.”

My husband isn’t the type of person to talk in riddles, so I have a pretty good idea what he means.Something, as in diamonds. The detective found diamonds, they belong to us, and they’re somehow connected to a murder case. An icy tingling spreads over my skin like a thin layer of frost.

The detective sinks onto the chair next to mine, tugging a velvetbag from his jacket pocket. He turns it upside down over a hand, and something shiny and heavy drops into his palm. My gasp is loud in the quiet room.

It’s my bracelet, the one Thomas snapped on my wrist that night back in the fall, right before taking the call that had him racing out of our anniversary dinner. I take in the wide band, the 25.62 carats of flawless diamonds set in neat clusters, and in the very center, the giant, eleven-carat Prins-cut stone.

I stare at it hard, as if just by looking, I could make it disappear. Xander’s words echo through my head, the ones he said that night back in November:I want to grow the shit out of that Cullinan. And then Fleur’s words, more recently at lunch:Xander was obsessed with theCullinans. Unbeknownst to Thomas, he planned to launch a lab-grown Cullinan collection.

“Where did you get that?”

The detective leans back in his chair, his gaze bouncing from me to Thomas. “One of my officers found it in Xander’s desk drawer. It was hidden in a box of staples and covered with a pile of papers, so it seems like he made at least some attempt to conceal it. It’s probably why the thief missed it, because Xander hadn’t stored it in the safe.”

“Buthow?” Thomas says. “My wife has worn that piece only a handful of times.”

He glances at me as he says it, and I nod even though we both know it’s even less than that. I’ve worn it exactly four times—the night he gave it to me, Anna’s birthday dinner at his parents’ house, a benefit gala at the Waldorf Astoria, and some cocktail party at the Amsterdam Diamond Exchange. The bracelet is not the type of thing you throw on with a pair of jeans, or to take your kid to school. It lives in the safe more often than not. And every time, it was Thomas who pulled the piece from the velvettray, not me. Look pretty and sport the bling—that is my job as spouse of a Prins.

Detective Boomsma’s gaze flickers between us, landing finally on me. “I’d like to back up a bit. What was your relationship with Xander van der Vos?”

My mouth goes dry, and I wet my lips with my tongue. “Xander worked for Thomas. That’s how I knew him. So I guess you could say it was a business relationship.”

“You didn’t see him socially.”

“I saw him at social functions that had to do with Thomas’s business. Industry parties, company events, things like that.”

“And outside of these business functions?”

“This area of Amsterdam is fairly insular. I run into people all the time at the gym, in the stores, at restaurants. Xander included.” I pause, choosing my next words carefully. “But it was never anything planned, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“When is the last time you talked to him?”

His words feel like a trap. I didn’t count how many times Xander called me in the days before his death, but it was a lot. Someone was following him. Listening in on his calls. Moving things around in his office, his home. Tilting the picture in front of the hidden safe in his study just to mess with him. And he was convinced that person was Thomas.

The detective watches me, waiting for an answer, and I can’t lie. Even if Xander managed to delete the calls from his phone, the police would have requested the records from the cellphone company by now. He will have seen my number all over Xander’s call log. My gut says he already knows about the calls—and if he doesn’t, he will soon.

I give myself a moment to think. “I’d have to check my call logs to be sure, but probably a day or two before his death. He calledme a lot that week. He seemed like he was dealing with something, honestly. He wasn’t making a lot of sense.”

Across the desk, Thomas’s gaze drills into mine. “Xander was calling you? You didn’t tell me that.”

Because you’re not the only one in this marriage with secrets. Because Xander wasn’t the only one doing the talking. Because I said some things, too.

I lift a casual shoulder. “You know how Xander was. He was calling to complain about you, which I told him was entirely inappropriate and futile.” I turn to the detective. “I don’t work at the company. I hold no sway there, but it seemed like Xander needed to vent. I figured it was best to just... let him.”

“And you?” Detective Boomsma says, turning to Thomas. “When was the last time you spoke with Xander?”

Thomas clears his throat. “The night he died. I called him from the factory.”

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