Chapter One
The antique watch was a fraud. Not crafted by some eighteenth-century Swiss fella on a mountain but by a surly doll in a dank room, swilling gin and tap water.
Rory reached deeper into the watch’s past.
The flapper with the cloche hat and black bob sets the gin on the rickety table and bends close to the gooseneck lamp. There’s a folded newspaper on her table, beneath an ashtray, a gold-plated bronze chain, and a fake crystal watch face. She clamps her cigarette between her teeth, lipstick staining the paper, and pinches a speck of cheap quartz in her tweezers as the passing train shakes the paneled walls—
“Any luck?”
Rory’s eyes popped open. For a moment, he saw double: the counterfeiter with her black bob and red lips overlaid on Mrs. Brodigan’s gray bun and green eyes.
Then he blinked, and the vision of the pocket watch’s creation cleared, leaving only familiar Mrs. Brodigan and the homey back office of the antiques appraisal shop. “That watch was handmade, all right.” He tossed it on the side table that flanked his ratty armchair. “Handmade in 1924 right here in New York.”
“Blast.” Mrs. Brodigan sat at the rolltop desk. “You didn’t see the Swiss watchmaker honing his craft in a mountain hamlet?”
“Saw a girl honing her forgery skills in a dingy room on the J Line.” He sank into the chair, mouth dry and body stiff from scrying the watch too long. His glasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back into place, still not used to the feel of the round, all-black frames. “Date was on the counterfeiter’s newspaper. That watch is six months old, tops. It belonged to some fancy British captain fighting the French about as much as it belonged to King Tut.”
Mrs. Brodigan clucked her tongue. “Mr. McIntyre isn’t going to be happy to hear it. But people come to us for truth, and truth they shall have.” She broke into a kind smile, the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes crinkling. “What we give them of the truth, at any rate.”
Rory, whose fingers still tingled from the aftermath of scrying, snorted. Brodigan’s Appraisalslooked like the Real McCoy, a Hell’s Kitchen hole-in-the-wall with shelves of antiques and some microscopes, loupes, and calipers for show. No one needed to know their appraisal actually came from a scrawny blond fella in glasses who hid in the back and scried antiques’ histories with his mind.
Mrs. Brodigan clasped her hands. “Well, I have something else for you, if you’re up for it.”
“Yeah?” He picked up his canteen from the side table and took a long sip. “Whatcha got? New job?”
But Mrs. Brodigan hesitated. “Why don’t I show you?” She got to her feet. “It’s a bit unusual.”
Oh no. Rory didn’t do unusual. “Not interested!” he called after her, as she disappeared through the open pocket doors of the office.
“Perhaps not, but the last time I decided that for you, you sulked for three days.”
Rory gave her retreating figure a dirty look from under the brim of his newsboy cap. Then, with a huff, he peeled himself out of his armchair. He clutched his canteen as he wove his way around Mrs. Brodigan’s rolltop desk and into the main shop. Twilight had fallen, and outside the shop’s large window, the lamppost illuminated the dirty snow piled on the sidewalks and the passersby as they huddled into their coats. Every now and then a head would turn toward the shop, glancing at the faded letters of its name in the window and Mrs. Brodigan’s handwritten sign taped below:Select antiques for sale. No weapon appraisals.
Mrs. Brodigan was at the counter with the ancient cash register, retrieving a small archival box. He pointed. “That the job? What’s weird about a box?”
She frowned. “I really do hesitate to tell you. Considering the hour, and the hours you’ve already put in this week, and with you still so young—”
“I’mtwenty,” he muttered as he took another sip.
“—but as you keep telling me, you’re old enough to make your own decisions, especially when the patron’s willing to pay double.”
Rory sloshed the canteen, spilling water over his chin and hand. His desperately needed new glasses had cost him everything he’d saved, and rent was due on the fifth. “What’s the catch?” he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
“Mr. Kenzie’s in a terrible rush and wants any forgeries found by breakfast.” She made a face. “And it’s rather a lot of letters.”
“I can do it,” Rory said.
“Yes, dear, because you’re as magical as thesídhe, but Mr. Kenzie doesn’t know that, does he? It’s a very difficult request.”
“That’s why he’s payingdouble,” said Rory. “Couldn’t you use the dough too?” He tried to keep the question soft and casual. He suspected her late husband’s medical bills were still around, but he was the last person who’d want to make the wound of that death hurt fresh.
“I wouldn’t risk you to pay any debt,” she said firmly. “Mr. Kenzie is under the impression I have a laboratory. It wouldn’t do for him to start poking around, asking how we worked so fast.”
Rory might’ve caved at that, but what if he lost his room? Even once he’d scrounged up the cash for a new pad, he’d have to start over, find another place secure enough. Buy new locks. “He’s not gonna ask. Rich jerks think they deserve the impossible. Never ask or care ’bout the person at the bottom who’s gotta do the work.”
“Now that’s a bit of unfair. Mr. Kenzie was terribly apologetic—”
“But heissome rich high hat, right?”
