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see.
    Charlie had been thrilled with the gift. “I still think it looks terribly valuable. Even if the jewels are paste, the gold work is truly fine.”
    â€œIf you like primitive,” Kate said. “As we both do. The appraiser—he’s top-notch, was recommended by several of my clients in the city—I don’t think he goes for this kind of work. He did say the pieces were unusual in style. When I pressed him for some date, some ideawhat the history of the pieces might be, he seemed uncertain. Said they didn’t really belong in any time or category, that he really couldn’t place them as to locale.”
    â€œStrange, if he’s so knowledgeable.”
    â€œYes.” Kate had looked uneasy, as if she found the lack of any background for the jewelry somehow unsettling. “He assured me the jewels were paste. He said that wasn’t uncommon, and I knew from my art history that was true, that during the 1800s real gold and silver settings were made with great care, but often set with paste jewels.”
    Kate gave the two dogs a parting pat. “I gave the other barrette to Wilma, the silver and onyx one for her silver hair.”
    â€œBut if there’s some clue to your parents here, if they were connected somehow to the jewelry…”
    Again, that uneasy downward glance. “I have ten more pieces to solve the puzzle. If that’s why the jewelry was saved for me, if it does hold some clue.”
    â€œBut why else would they keep it all those years, if it isn’t of great monetary value? Do the other pieces have images of cats?”
    â€œI…five do,” she said, frowning. “There’s…an emerald choker with cats.” Kate shook her head, seeming distressed. “If the stones were real, I’m sure it would be worth a fortune.”
    So strange, Charlie thought now, that mysterious collection of jewelry waiting for Kate for over thirty years, tucked away in the back of a walk-in safe, in a hundred-year-old law firm. A firm that seemed, Kate had said, on its last legs, fast deteriorating. The jewelry had been put away in a small cardboard box to wait for an orphaned child to grow up, to come of age.
    Standing on tiptoe to look over the crowd, Charlie waved to Kate. And a waiter by the door moved in Kate’s direction with a tray of champagne, rudely shouldering aside another server—the same waiter who, half an hour earlier, had watched Charlie herself so intently. What was he looking at? Kate’s choker? Charlie’s own barrette? Surely Sicily hadn’t hired a thief among the caterers.
    My imagination , Charlie thought. Everyone’s looking at the jewelry, because it’s so different with its primitive designs. Even from across the room, Kate’s silver and topaz choker was striking against her pearly dress and her silky blond hair. Kate was so beautiful, with the gamin quality of a Meg Ryan or Goldie Hawn, a perky, carefree perfection that Charlie greatly envied.
    â€œWhat?” Max said. “What are you staring at? Kate? But you are the most beautiful woman in the room.”
    â€œYou, Captain Harper, are the biggest con artist in the room.” She smiled and touched his cheek. “I’m so glad Kate came. She drove clear down from the city for tonight—well, other errands, too. But she planned her time specially for tonight.”
    â€œMaybe she plans to buy a drawing or two before her favorites are gone, or maybe to take back for some client—maybe she plans to do a whole interior around a group of your drawings.”
    â€œYou’re such a dreamer. I know she loves San Francisco, but I do hope she moves back to the village—that she rents the other side of our duplex.” Charlie had bought the run-down duplex last spring, before they were married, as an investment. Ryan Flannery, her tenant in one apartment, had done considerable repairs in lieu of rent.
    â€œIt’s