Page 59 of The Expat Affair

Thomas pulls a loupe from his top desk drawer and peers through it at the largest of the stones. The Cullinan.

“Correct GIA certification number is engraved on the girdle.” Thomas looks up, meeting the detective’s gaze across the desk. “Though after the ten-carat fiasco, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you it proves nothing. The other stones are engraved, as well. I’d have to check the numbers against the certs to see if they match up, but I’m guessing they will, too.” He looks back at the bracelet through the loupe, freezes. Frowns. “Huh. Hang on.”

Detective Boomsma leans forward on his chair. “What do you see?”

“The clasp on this bracelet is different than mine. Well, not different. It’s the same clasp, but it’s not. I engraved the inside of the original clasp with my initials. You only see it if you know where to look.” Thomas looks up from the loupe, his gaze finding mine across the desk. “Willow, check the safe, will you?”

I nod and rise from my chair, taking my time moving through the rooms and into our closet, because I already know what I’ll find. The original bracelet safe and sound in the vault, sitting on a navy velvet pillow. I wriggle it off the cushion and check the inside of the clasp. Thomas’s initials are engraved into the side.

I carry it back to the study and place the bracelet on the desk, sinking silently back into my chair.

Detective Boomsma lays the two pieces side by side—an identical match, and not just to my eye. To Thomas’s and the detective’s too.

“Just so I understand,” the detective says. “The bracelet in Xander’s desk drawer is a copy.”

Thomas nods. “It certainly looks that way. The renderings are saved on the Prins server. They’re password protected, but Xander could have gotten to them somehow.”

“And the stones?”

“Lab-growns, I’m guessing, though I’d have to take both pieces to the factory to be sure. Like I told you, lab-growns are identical to mined. I can’t differentiate between the two with the naked eye or even a loupe. I need sophisticated equipment, advanced screening devices. Only a trained gemologist will be able to tell which is which.”

A trained gemologist like Xander. He had access to all those screening devices, too.

“But you said the stones were marked?”

“When a diamond is graded by one of the big firms, Gemological Institute of America or the International Gemological Institute for example, its certification number is engraved on the diamond’s girdle. This is for the customer’s protection as well as for identification purposes in the event of theft or resale.” Thomas picks up the loupe and holds it to the center stone on the replica bracelet. “Same cut and shape as the Cullinan, same microscopic inclusion on the crown near the girdle, too small to see with the naked eye.I’d need to pull up the certification specs to pinpoint any differences, but from what I can see, these stones are identical.” He lowers the bracelet, pulls the loupe away from his eye. “But I’d need to put both pieces through a screening at the factory to be sure.”

Detective Boomsma nods, pushing to a stand. “Then let’s go.”

Rayna

The alley dumps me onto the busy Hobbemastraat, bustling with the after-dinner crowd. I take a hard left, following the tram tracks along the northern end of the Vondelpark. At the gates, I pause for a swarm of bikers, silently blessing them as they pedal by.

“Are youinsane?” Ingrid once said after I’d told her I took a short-cut through the park on the way home from the bars. “Unless you’re a junkie or a rapist, nothing good happens in the park after dark. Don’t go there. It’s not safe.”

I wonder if she’s still at her parents’ house on the eastern outskirts of the city, where she spent most of the weekend, if it was maybe to get away from me. Ingrid swears she’s not mad, that she doesn’t blame me for bringing in the thief who took her cash, but I’m not convinced she’s telling the truth. Ever since the break-in, things between us have felt off, and I don’t deny feeling a little annoyed she left me there all alone, an easy target at the top of the stairs. Especially now that I found more trackers.

The bikers disappear into the shadows, and I slide my phone from my pocket, pulling up Ingrid’s number.

Stay away from the apartment. I found more trackers in my things.

The text lands as delivered but not read. I watch the screen for a few more seconds, and I’m about to click my phone off when it buzzes with an incoming text.

I’m headed to Café Luxembourg on the Spui, wanna meet up for a drink?

I’m more excited than I should be at Lars’s invitation, mostly because it seems that Ingrid is ignoring me. I don’t blame her, and honestly, I wouldn’t mind some company. Nothing happened between me and Lars that first night we met, not even a kiss on the cheek as I slid off his bike, but he seems nice enough, and his regular check-ins always make me smile. If there’s ever a night that I don’t want to be alone, this is it.

My thumbs tick out a reply.Is it far from theLeidseplein? Because that’s where I am.

Not quite, but I’m close. Only a block or so away.

Actually, probeasier if I come to you.I’m hitting the thumbs-up emoji when the next text lands on my screen.Be there in 5. Don’t talk to anyone wearing a beaniey

I laugh and drop my phone in my pocket, then choose the busiest, most well-lit route to the Leidseplein, trailing a cluster of Portuguese tourists too drunk to notice the random American hanging like a shadow on the edge of their group. I stick close as they cross the bridge and stumble through a covered square, skirting around the pillars and peering into the dark corners, watching for anyone who might be waiting to grab me as I pass by. At the far end, I shoot out of the colonnades and catch my breath under a street light, staring back into the darkness until I know for sure that no one’s coming but more tourists. I’m not being followed.

I cross the street and take it all in. The movie theater looming over a long row of colorful restaurants and bars, the gingerbread facade of the iconic orange theater with its twin spires, the people packing the Leidseplein, the most famous square in all of Amsterdam thanks in large part to the Bulldog, the world-famous coffee shop housed somewhat ironically in a former police station.

This is the part of the city that never sleeps, where the crowds stay thick until deep in the night, people huddling under heaters on terraces and spilling out of the bars and restaurants despite the freezing cold. There’s safety in numbers, I tell myself as I step into the chaos.

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