Page 111 of The Attic on Queen Street
“How...?”
“Suzy told me. I approached her to ask for help with some of the research for the book I’m writing about the Longos. That’s the project I’ve been working on.”
“The hoax that felled a criminal dynasty,” I said quietly. “I accidentally saw the title on your computer. I should have guessed. But then we...” I flushed, remembering what had happened right after I’d seen it.
“Anyway,” Jack continued, “after two meetings with Suzy, she confessed that she was working with you to bring Marc down, too. She said she couldn’t stand to see the two of us at cross-purposes without at least one of us knowing.”
We sat in silence while I tried to figure out what to do next. I recalled what Yvonne had said.Sometimes all it takes is acceptance that you’re both wrong. And then hold your breath and take a leap of faith.Nola had said almost the same thing, yet the old Melanie refused to go away and allow me to admit that I might have been wrong, too.
The one thing I knew for sure was that we were on the brink of getting Marc out of our lives forever, and the only way to do that wasto work together. After a shuddering exhale, I said, “There’s something you need to see.” I pulled out my phone and opened it to the close-up of the fountain that showed the dog and his studded collar. “We found the painting Marc took from the museum when we visited Rebecca. I took these pictures of it.”
He held the phone and looked at it closely. “I see a painting of our fountain covered in dew. Am I missing something?”
I pointed to the brown blob. “Here.”
“It’s a dog,” he said with surprise. “He’s so hidden that—” Jack stopped abruptly. “That’s not dew, is it?” He zoomed in as close as he could get, blurring the sparkling stones on the dog’s collar. He sat back. “I can’t... I mean, I didn’t think...” He shook his head. “Maybe that’s why Bobby is convinced the rumors are false, because nobody has seen the diamond since that picture of the sultan in the eighteen sixties. It’s not inconceivable that it would have been cut into smaller diamonds, but...” He stopped again.
“And the stones in the collar might not be diamonds. Or, if they are, they might not be connected with the sultan’s diamonds at all. It could just be coincidence that the dog in the painting belonged to the daughter of the man who’d hidden the sultan’s other diamonds in his grandfather clock.”
“Except there’s no such thing as coincidence,” we said in unison.
He looked down at the photo again. “I guess this explains why Marc was trying to get into the clock. He probably thought he’d won the lottery when he saw that painting.”
“And he will if he finds them before we do. Assuming they weren’t buried in fire or earthquake debris in the last one hundred and fifty years. At least we know they’re not in the cistern, because we would have found them. So that’s a start.”
Jack was slowly shaking his head, staring at the photo. “I had no idea whether the diamond actually existed when I started this. But if we do find the diamonds, imagine the book that would make. Humiliating Marcandfinding a lost treasure. It’s almost too good to be true.”
“I just hope it was worth damaging our marriage for.” I stood, tooangry at both of us to remain sitting, and needing to physically distance myself from Jack. I picked up the computer and iPad and took a step back. “I may have acted rashly in speaking with Suzy, but I wanted to fix what Marc had done. Thinking that maybe if I did you would forgive whatever flaw you saw in me you couldn’t live with.” I was close to tears, but wouldn’t give in to them.
He stood, too, but had the sense to stay where he was. “You know that’s not it, don’t you? I made a mistake—a huge one. I have no excuse except that the possibility of revenge blinded me. Blindedus.”
I knew he was giving me an opening to admit my own culpability, but the old Melanie kept nudging me, telling me that what I had done seemed so small in comparison. I studied the big Apple emblem on the cover of my laptop. “I can’t think about this now. I need to get through the party first. Then we’ll figure out us.”
“That’s fair. We can at least work on finding the diamonds in the meantime. The one thing we can agree on now is that we need to find them before Marc Longo does.”
“Or everything we’ve just gone through will have been for nothing.”
Jack nodded, his face serious. “I’ll be at the apartment if you need me.” He paused, and for a wild moment I thought he might be waiting for an invitation to stay. I kept my gaze averted so I wouldn’t change my mind. But then he turned and let himself out of the garden gate.
I sat down on the bench again and stayed there for a long while, staring at my father’s defunct garden while trying to see it as he did, with the grass green, the garish splashes of brilliant blooms filling the now-fallow ground and lining the weedy paths. Yet all I could see was the bare ugliness of how it was now, as if all of my hurt and confusion were clouding my perception of what might be.
•••
I immersed myself in the planning for the party, my dream of going off script plundered by Rebecca’s need to control every detail and micromanage everything from the number of helium balloons to the way the napkins should be folded. One morning, while I was laying out thematching socks for the twins’ outfits, I mentioned to my mother and Jayne how annoying Rebecca was being, and all they did was stare back at me without blinking.
Fortunately, my irritation and my busyness with both work and the party planning meant I didn’t have too much time to think about Jack and me, and I was too tired at night to do anything but fall into a dreamless sleep. Jack spent most of his days at the library or online researching everything he could find about the sultan, the diamonds, the oddest sites around the world where buried treasure had been found, and even dog collar manufacturers from the nineteenth century. (That swiftly resulted in a solid dead end.)
When he wasn’t doing that, he was tapping on walls to check for hollow spaces, pulling up rugs to look for any loose floorboards we might have missed while sanding and restaining the hardwood, and studying cornices and ceiling medallions for any crevice or crack that might indicate a hiding space. Despite all of this, the most productive part of his week was finding someone to lift the clock, although they couldn’t show up until the morning of the party.
When I wasn’t arguing with Rebecca, I explored Nevin Vanderhorst’s library, searching for hollowed-out books, and examined each crystal drop on every chandelier with a magnifying glass. Jack and I even put Yvonne on the scent, but so far she hadn’t turned up anything new.
As if by unspoken agreement, the only time Jack and I spent together was each night at the dining table with the children, since we both thought it important for us to show a united front to them. But after we’d bathed the twins and put them to bed, and Jack had said good night to Nola, he left for his apartment. Sometimes he hesitated, as if waiting for me to invite him to stay, but I clung to my resolve, knowing how easy it would be to give in. And that would solve absolutely nothing.
The filming had been put on hold indefinitely, until Marc had recovered from his surgery to repair the smashed bones in his foot and ankle, and I could once again enjoy the run of my house at all hours of the day. We consulted with Mr.Zerbe, our lawyer, about the contract implications, and he said to wait and see. Jack and I were fine with this,knowing that a waiting period gave us time to find the three diamonds. Which, at this point, seemed highly doubtful, but I held out hope.
The Thursday before the party, Nola found me in the back garden arranging pots full of plastic baby bottles designed to look like sprouting flowers, and stringing a clothesline between two trees.
“Need help?” she asked, taking one end of the black nylon rope.
