When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9)(93)

“I need space!” Rachel stuffed a spoonful of sorbet into her mouth followed by another, and then pushed her bowl away. “Don’t ever get married, Olivia. Look at what happened to Lena.”

“Dennis is not Christopher Marsden. Not even close. Marsden was threatening and abusive. Dennis is a good man.”

“But maybe not good for me. Don’t ever marry a man who doesn’t have a life of his own unless you want him to take over yours.”

Olivia sank onto a stool. “You’ve never told me any of this. You and Dennis are what I’ve always wanted for myself.”

“I know and telling you this makes me feel like a complaining, entitled, ungrateful bitch.” She grabbed her spoon and pointed it in Olivia’s face. “You’re going to sing the hell out of Amneris tomorrow night. Do you hear me? You’re going to own that stage. You’re not going to let anybody—not Marsden, not Dennis, not me—steal your voice for one second longer. You’ll sing like you’ve never sung before or I won’t ever speak to you again.”

Rachel wasn’t exactly in a position to make threats, but Olivia understood and gave her a weak smile. “I’d love nothing better, but—”

“Then do it! Don’t you dare let the assholes win.”

*

Rachel drove back to Indianapolis, and Olivia alternated between absorbing the bombshell news about Rachel and Dennis’s marriage, agonizing over tomorrow night’s performance, and obsessing about Thad. When she couldn’t stand the tumult in her head any longer, she settled in front of her computer, something she’d been doing periodically when she should have been sleeping.

Her bracelet obviously wasn’t the costume piece Eugene had assumed or the copy that the Las Vegas jewelers had declared it to be. But stolen artifacts did occasionally show up at an auction house. All the management had to do was plead ignorance and attempt to return it to its owner. Why hadn’t Kathryn done that? What was so special about her bracelet?

Although she wasn’t a trained Egyptologist, she’d studied Egyptian history the same way she studied the historical background of every character she sang. She’d already googled Egyptian jewelry, ancient Egyptian jewelry, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom jewelry. She’d checked out Pinterest boards and followed links to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, but she’d found nothing.

Both men and women in ancient Egypt wore jewelry, and before Rachel’s arrival, she’d begun a search of pharaohs. Now, she took a detour into the pharaohs’ wives, looking for images of any pieces that might be connected to the most obvious queens: Hatshepsut, Nefertari, and Nefertiti. She found nothing. Cleopatra was more Greek than Egyptian, but she also searched for her and found nothing.

And then . . . Olivia sucked in her breath. “Oh my God . . .”

*

Brittany wasn’t on duty that evening, but she wanted to hear what Olivia had uncovered, so instead of making the drive to the station house, they met at a local coffeehouse with brick walls, lots of dark wood, and wing chairs upholstered in worn green and gold velvet.

“Your bracelet was looted?” Brittany said, after they’d ordered their drinks and settled in a quiet corner.

Olivia nodded. “Yes. It was looted on January 28, 2011.”

Brittany regarded her quizzically. “How do you know the exact date?”

“Because it was the day looters broke into the Egyptian Museum of Cairo during the uprising against Mubarak’s regime, the so-called Arab Spring. Among other objects, they took a gilded wooden statue of Tutankhamen, a couple of wooden sarcophagi, and the bracelet of Queen Hetepheres.” Olivia paused. “The sarcophagi and statue were both located and returned.”

“But not the bracelet.”

“Not the bracelet.” She passed Brittany her phone. “This photo is from the museum’s archives.”

Brittany studied the photo. “It’s your bracelet. Either that, or an exact copy.”

“Considering what’s happened, I think we can assume it’s the real thing. I’ve been wearing Queen Hetepheres’s bracelet.”

“You said Mr. Swift gave you the bracelet over a year ago, right before he died. Why would Kathryn and her son wait so long to try to get it back?”

“They probably didn’t know until recently that I had it.” Olivia leaned into the chair’s worn cushions. “One of the stones fell out right after he gave it to me. I slipped the bracelet in a drawer and forgot about it until just before the tour when I was packing my costume jewelry. I superglued the stone back in and added the bracelet to the pile.” She frowned. “I dread telling the Egyptian Museum about the superglue.”

“I’m guessing they’ll forgive you.”

Olivia leaned forward. “A couple of days into the tour, a photograph of me wearing it showed up in the newspaper. That was the first time I was photographed with it. Right after was when the trouble started, so Kathryn must have seen that photo.” Olivia considered the carefully timed arrival of the limo driver at their Las Vegas hotel. Because of Kathryn’s position on the Muni’s board, she had easy access to every detail of the Marchand tour schedule.

“She finally knew where the bracelet was,” Brittany said, “and she was afraid people would recognize it.”

“Once that happened, it would be simple to trace it from me to Eugene Swift and from there to his company.”