Chapter 25: The Pearl Earring

Leah did not scream. That was the second victory of the day. She picked up Olivia's pearl earring with a napkin and stared at the empty locker. Catherine's ledger was gone. So was Leah's backup phone. Whoever had taken them knew exactly which coat mattered. Megan shut the staff-room door. "Olivia?" "Maybe." "Maybe?" "She wanted me to think so." Leah looked at the earring. Olivia had dropped one at L'Etoile the night Ethan spoke of the dead. That could be habit. It could be arrogance. Or it could be a signature left by someone who understood Olivia well enough to borrow her sins. Megan checked the hallway. "Karim says the security camera glitched for six minutes." "Of course it did." Leah's shift ended in twenty minutes. She used nineteen of them to serve lunch as if her evidence had not just vanished. Then she went to the alley behind L'Etoile and found Ethan waiting beside a black car. "Get in," he said. "You say that like I have started taking orders from you." "Your locker was opened with a Costa corporate access card." Leah got in. Ethan handed her a tablet. The security log showed one badge entry during the camera gap: Sebastian Costa. "He is framing Olivia," Leah said. "Or protecting her." "No. Olivia slaps in public. Sebastian steals in silence." Ethan glanced at her. "You know them well." "I was raised to love them." That shut him up. The tablet pinged. An encrypted email arrived with no sender. Subject: Ledger for life. The message contained a location and a time: Brooklyn Navy Yard, midnight. Come alone, Leah Mercer, or Catherine confesses to stealing Isabella on every screen in Times Square. Leah read it twice. "Trap," Ethan said. "Obviously." "You are not going." "Obviously I am." "Then I am going with you." "It says alone." "It also says Leah Mercer. It does not know Isabella Thorne bites." The line should not have warmed her. It did. She looked away. "If Sebastian has the ledger, he can bury Catherine and control Martha's next move." "If Martha has it, she can bury everyone." Ethan's phone rang. He answered, listened, and went still. "What?" Leah asked. He lowered the phone. "Olivia just filed an emergency police report. She says a woman matching your description assaulted her and claimed to be Isabella Thorne."