Page 55 of Gave Proof Through the Night

Radio silence.

“Rue?”

Still nothing. She’s going to make me use her full name like I’m her mother.

“PRUDENCE ELIZABETH FRASSATI.”

“Yes, yes, I paid for it and everything. Proud of me?”

“Nominally.”

Suri’s voice cuts in, quieter. “Whoever set these sapphires in the eighteen hundreds had better tools than my dentist. Look at this bezel. I want to cry a little.”

“Please don’t cry on the display case.”

“The clarity on this stone.” A pause, wistful. “It’s giving Edwardian dream girl.”

“Zoe, are you getting all of this?” Tanya hisses. “I feel a sneeze coming on.”

“Almost there. I’ve got thirty scans and exactly zero photographs of anyone’s actual face because I am extremely good at my job. Security camera loop’s holding steady too. Anyone reviews today’s footage, they’ll see nothing happening because I am extremely good at my job. You’re welcome.”

“How much longer?”

“Ten more passes. Take two steps to your right but keep your head in the same position.”

“UGH!” Tanya groans.

Suri’s voice cuts back in, low. “Museum staff doing a walkthrough. Going quiet.”

Then silence from all our comms, like we’re all holding our breath. I count in my head. One Mississippi. Ten Mississippi. At thirty, Tanya’s voice, easy and bright.

“Oh, I didn’t know. Sorry. No thank you! Have a nice day.”

A man’s voice, muffled, pleasant. Footsteps.

“He’s gone,” Tanya reports. “There are lines painted on the floor we’re not supposed to cross.”

“Okay we need to wrap this up.” I say. “Zoe, status.”

“Four minutes.”

“Not fast enough.”

“You can’t rush perfection.”

I adjust my spine and keep my eyes on the page, which I am absolutely not reading. We need to get out of here before we’re made.

Zoe starts singing, something she does to help her focus and calm her nerves. Maybe I should adopt that practice. What song would I sing? Maybe that 4 Non Blondes song I was joking with Jeremiah about. Unfortunately, I would turn more than a few heads if I started screaming, “What’s going on?” at the top of my lungs.

A shadow falls over the paperback.

“Well,” says a voice above me, low and pleased with itself in a way that makes every hair on my arms stand up before I’ve even looked up. “If it isn’t the jailbird’s daughter.”

I don’t look up. I turn the page, deliberately, like I haven’t heard a word, like the single most interesting paragraph in nineteenth-century literature is happening directly in front of me. I even lift the book an inch higher, which, in hindsight, fools exactly nobody.

A hand closes over the top of the book and plucks it clean out of my grip.

“Great Expectations?” He turns it over, reading the cover and lets out a dry huff that’s supposed to pass for a laugh. “Fitting.”