To Have and to Heist(54)

My head jerked up, hope filling my heart. “So you believe me?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s all about the evidence.”

I stared at the scratches in the glass counter and heaved a sigh. “I got an invitation from a friend. I’ve never been to an event like that before, so you were right on that count.”

The spell broke. His eyes shuttered. He transformed from sweet guy to grumpy cop in a heartbeat. I hadn’t even heard the clock chime twelve.

“Does your friend happen to wear size thirteen boots and go by the name ‘Oliver Twist’？”

I picked up a mini gumball machine and fiddled with the plastic dial. “That’s an oddly specific question, but the answer to both parts is ‘no.’？”

Garcia flipped through his phone and held up a picture of a green-and-gold necklace. “Do you recognize this?”

For a heartbeat I considered lying, but if he had security footage of the event, he would have seen me talking to Simone.

“Yes, it belongs to Simone Du Pont.” My smile faded with his frown. “I met her in the restroom. She took it off and put it in her clutch. She said it was heavy and difficult to wear.”

“You had the same bag.” A statement, not a question. I was beginning to realize that Garcia didn’t ask questions if he didn’t already know the answers.

“Yes, she said there were three other people besides us who had one, and after the event she was going to toss it in the trash because it was too common. Can you imagine?”

“Is it possible you took hers by mistake?” His question was deceptively casual, but I heard the accusation beneath his words.

“No, because I cleaned it out the other day so I could sell it on Craigslist to help Chloe make rent. Her ex isn’t paying his child support and she was worried she’d have to move out of her place.” I hadn’t received the money from Mr. Angelini, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

His face softened and he shook his head and sighed. “Of course you did.”

“It was a gift,” I said quickly. “I’m not in a habit of selling gifts but she’s in a difficult situation.”

“As am I,” he said. “Two valuable necklaces have gone missing in the last few weeks, and you happened to be at both crime scenes. I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Well, prepare to have your mind blown,” I said. “I was there because I’ve started a new wedding planning business. I thought the ball would be the perfect place to get clients, and Simone made it happen. I got my first client that night.”

“Maybe you should give me the client’s name so I can warn her to keep her jewels locked up.”

Ouch. Burn. Garcia had to be worked up because sarcasm wasn’t really his style. It was that, more than the frighteningly accurate assessment or the subtle accusation, that made my bottom lip tremble. I liked Garcia. Too much. He’d even appeared in my bath time fantasies, but that was when I thought we had an understanding. He knew I was innocent, but he had a job to do. Now something had changed.

“That’s unkind, Garcia. My client is in her twenties. People our age don’t often have expensive jewelry, and if they do, I can’t imagine they’d have many places to wear it. There were only a handful of people at that ball under the age of fifty. What would be the point?”

“I don’t know why anyone wears authentic pieces anymore when 3D printing technology is so sophisticated, no one would be able to tell a replica from the real thing,” he mused, fiddling with a candy pen on the counter. “If people were sensible about these things, I wouldn’t be here questioning you again.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” I said firmly. “Not from Simone and not from the museum.”

His eyes filled with earnest concern. “I want to believe you. I’ve been doing this a long time and I know a thief when I see one. But you are hiding something from me, and I need to know what it is or this situation is just going to get worse. Is someone else involved?”

My mind jumped back to Friday night when I’d fallen asleep in Jack’s arms.

I’ve never been a gentleman.

“No. There’s no one else. I seem to be able to screw up my life perfectly fine on my own.”

He tucked his phone away and picked up his bag of candy. “You may find this hard to believe, but I care about what happens to you.”

His gentle voice and kind words gave me all the feels. “I appreciate the sentiment, but what I’d appreciate more is not being suspected of things I didn’t do.”

Garcia was a good cop, and a nice guy. But what about Jack? He’d offered to hold my clutch—a clutch that had been picked out by someone he knew—at least twice during the evening when I needed my hands free. Had I been used? Had one of his many disappearances been to perform an old “switcheroo”？ I wanted to trust him, but like Garcia, I didn’t believe in coincidences.

Fifteen

With the wedding coming up fast, I gathered the crew together on Friday night. Between contacting all the vendors and suppliers, organizing the big day, working my two jobs, and planning the heist with Chloe in the evenings, I was on an energy high.

“Breathe.” Rose set down her tray of munchies and helped me put up the whiteboard in her garage.