“What’s the best kind of whiskey that you have?” I ask.
“We have Johnny Walker Blue. Macallan Rare.”
I’ve heard of the first one so I opt for the second.
“Great choice, ma’am.”
“Wow, your husband has expensive taste,” Kathy says, taking a glass of Pinot Grigio.
It feels like the moment when I should complain about something, so I roll my eyes and nod.
“I know, right?” I say. “He complains about how much I spend on my shoes, but then has no problem spending money on stuff like this. At least, after it’s all said and done, I still have my shoes.”
“My husband is the same way with cars.”
We laugh as I deliver his drink back to the table.
“Thank you, honey,” Nicholas says, reaching his hand out for the glass.
He takes a step toward me, bumping into Kathy.
She collides with me and the drink goes crashing down to the floor.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I say, kneeling down over the mess.
Ice cubes mixed with glass and a puddle of whiskey are spreading over the wreckage.
I reach to pick up a piece, but the group of waiters push me away.
One of them carefully sweeps all the shards up with a little broom while the others blot away the liquid with a dishrag.
A moment later, it’s as if nothing happened.
Nicholas helps me to my feet.
“You really didn’t need to help,” he whispers.
“I can’t help it,” I say, more for Kathy’s benefit than my own. “I’m not used to having servers around.”
She laughs and joins her husband around the roulette table.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Paul,” Nicholas says, tugging at my arm. “We’ll have to get a round of golf in sometime.”
“Yes, of course,” Paul says without looking away from the table.
Nicholas gives me a small smile on our way out.
“What was the point of all that?” I ask, when we get back to our room.
Nicholas goes directly to his bag and packs up the few things that we have scattered on the bed.
“We’re not staying here?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
I pack up my stuff and follow him to his car.
It is only after we drive out of the resort and disappear onto the highway that zigzags along the cliff that Nicholas opens his mouth.
“Thank you,” he says without taking his eyes off the road.
“Thank you for what?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tennis bracelet.
There are six rows of diamonds with a delicate clasp in the back.
My forehead creases.
Where had I seen this before? Oh, yes, of course.
I shake my head.
Of course!
“But…that’s Kathy’s!” I gasp.
He smiles.
“What are you doing with Kathy’s bracelet?” I take it from him and examine how the high grade quality diamonds twinkle even in the faint light of the setting sun.
“This bracelet belongs to Theodore Grabinsky who bought it for his wife for their fortieth anniversary. She loved it dearly until her death seven years later from breast cancer. When Mr. Grabinsky decided to sell his home in Cincinnati and retire to his vacation home on Marco Island, he sold off his wine collection but kept most of his wife’s jewelry, especially the pieces that she really loved.”
Shaking my head, I try to figure what any of this has to do with the woman I met at the resort or why Nicholas lifted it off her.
“What does this have to do with Kathy?” I ask, raising my eyebrow.
“When Mr. Grabinsky went through his late wife’s jewelry box,” Nicholas continues without answering my question. “He was shocked to discover that this bracelet was no longer there. His property had not had a break in, not one that he knew about. So, he hired a private investigator to help him get it back.”
A new song comes on through the car speakers. Nicholas skips it using the control panel on his steering wheel.
“Kathy Moreno’s husband, Paul, is a dentist who spends his off hours running a pretty sizable bookie operation. One of his clients didn’t have enough money to pay his debt so Paul accepted that bracelet in exchange and gifted it to Kathy on Mother’s Day.”
Nicholas taps his finger on the steering wheel and looks out in the distance.
“Of course, he couldn’t tell her that the diamonds are all real and are of the highest quality because then he would have to explain how he could afford a piece of jewelry that costs more than a million dollars,” Nicholas says.
“She doesn’t know what he does?” I ask.
“Unfortunately, Kathy Moreno doesn’t know much about her husband.” He smiles mischievously.
I lean toward him eager to hear more.
“Paul’s girlfriend is pregnant with their second child and he is filing for divorce as soon as they get back home.”
“But they are here celebrating their anniversary!” I point out.
“Paul got burned in his first divorce so he was smarter the second time around. He wants Kathy to think that the four thousand a month she will get as alimony in addition to keeping the house will make him suffer.”
I shake my head.
“How do you know all of this?” I ask. “Any of this?”
3
When he makes me choose…
“It’s my job to know,” Nicholas says.
I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.
“So, why did you take her bracelet?”
“Mr. Grabinsky hired me to retrieve his bracelet for him.”
I nod as if any of this makes any sense.
“This is what I do, Olive,” Nicholas says. “A part of it anyway.”
“How did …“
“This is what I used to do,” he interrupts me. “Back home, I developed a special set of skills …“
“To steal?” I interrupt him.
“That’s a crude way of putting it.”
“How would you put it?”
“I learned how to separate people from their property without them noticing.”
“Maybe not in the moment,” I point out. “But Kathy will notice that she doesn’t have her bracelet on when she gets back to her room. And her husband will know that it was the real one that went missing.”
A speck of gold in Nicholas’ eye twinkles.
He smiles out of the corner of his lips.
“This is a big deal, Nicholas. They may not know our names, but they saw our faces. The resort probably has cameras all over the place. We weren’t in that room for longer than half an hour. We were the only ones who left.”
My heart starts to beat a mile a minute.
I see the police knocking at my door.
They place handcuffs on my wrists.
They take me to the station, take my mugshot.
My boss sends me an email asking me not to come back. She doesn’t care that my trial is pending. She doesn’t care that I haven’t been convicted of anything yet.
Two months later, my landlord sends me an eviction letter. I haven’t paid the rent and I can’t afford to do it anymore.
I have nowhere to go except my mother’s place.