Page 125 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“Are you FREAKING kidding me?” Rue cries.

Suri presses the loupe back to her eye and goes quiet for a long moment.

“Interesting,” she says.

“What?” Ginger leans in. “What’s interesting?”

Suri doesn’t answer. She turns the necklace another few degrees under the lamp.

“Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?” Rue’s voice climbs half an octave. “Suri, tell us already.”

Suri holds up one finger, the universal sign for wait, and keeps staring into the clasp. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Is what a joke?” My patience has officially left the building.

Suri finally lowers the loupe and looks up at the whole room. “There’s an engraving inside the clasp. The letters are so small you’d need a microscope to catch them without this thing.” She taps the loupe against her palm.

“What does it say?” Tanya asks.

Suri reads it out loud, “The Jackdaw sends regards.”

All our jaws drop in unison.

Rue is truly offended now. “Have we just been given the middle finger… from a playing card?”

Ginger drops onto the lumpy sofa. “Now what? We have no leverage.”

“Hobbs doesn’t know that,” Zoe says.

“Unless Hobbs is the Jackdaw,” Rue says. She’s looking around at every one of us, clearly confused why we’re not losing our cool, tossing chairs into the wall. I tend to be calm under pressure, but that doesn’t mean I’m not raging inside.

Ivy crosses her arms. “Doubtful.”

“This is bad,” Tanya says. “Very, very bad.”

Rue throws her hands in the air. “I can’t believe this.”

The whole room goes silent. All this planning. All these months. Years for me. And we lifted a fake.

Finally, Zoe says, “Erica, your call.”

Every head in the room turns toward me at once. I want to disappear into the floorboards.

“We continue with the plan,” I say. “I’ll pay Sal a visit. Maybe he knows something about this Jackdaw person.”

“Or persons,” Tanya says. “Could be a gang.”

Dale perks up from the corner where he’s been quietly watching this unfold. “Like The Italian Job. I love that movie.” He frowns. “Sadly, I don’t fit into a Mini Cooper.”

“In the meantime,” I say. “We’re sitting on hot goods. Zoe, how long do we have before the Argentinians catch on?”

“Two days max. Realistically, more like twelve hours.”

“That doesn’t leave us much time.”

“They’ll keep it quiet,” Ginger says. “And not get the authorities involved. Remember, they’ve been holding onto it illegally and won’t want to draw attention.”