Victoria shrank back from the pane. Her throat worked visibly, the sharp arrogance draining into a pallid, defensive rigidity. She turned toward Marcus, her lips parting to deliver another threat, but the young man did not flinch. Marcus took two steps forward, reached up with a steady hand, and unlocked the heavy brass deadbolt, pulling the glass door back until the overhead chime chimed a weak, unpowered ring.
"The stones are on the bench tray, Mr. Thorne," Marcus said clearly, addressing the attorney rather than Victoria. "Ninety-four point two carats aggregate. Three cut emeralds, sourced from the Mercer Street district lab. The manifest number is logged on my bench gauge as forty-four-eighty-one. But the terminal at register one has a conflicting document queued for printing under Ms. Vance’s private supervisor pin."
The senior auditor, a woman named Henderson whose spectacles hung from a silver chain around her neck, pushed past Victoria without offering a greeting. She set her hard-shell case on the polished cherrywood counter, snapped it open, and retrieved a handheld optical scanner and a battery-powered terminal link.
"Ms. Vance, step away from the register," Henderson directed. "Marcus, step behind the primary bench partition and keep your hands visible. Officer Harris, remain at the entrance and log all personnel present."
Victoria backed into the shadow of the walk-in vault, her arms clamped around her waist. "This is an internal clerical matter. The transfer slip was simply misrouted due to Mr. Mercer’s aggressive conduct at the counter. He created a distraction while Marcus was weighing the parcel, which led to a duplicate entry in the queue. Marcus is an apprentice; he lacks the administrative training to interpret inventory queues."
"Marcus didn't touch your terminal at two twelve this afternoon," I said, walking into the retail suite for the first time in six months without an escort. My heavy boots left faint, dusty gray prints across the immaculate cream wool runner, but nobody moved to object. "At two twelve, Marcus was across the street at the assay office picking up the casting fluxes. I saw him cross Tenth Street while my driver was loading the green crates at the central depot."
Henderson plugged the terminal link into the back of the store’s central register housing. The small LCD screen blinked rapidly, parsing the raw transaction logs stored in the local flash memory before the breaker trip had cut the municipal network link.
"Transaction log retrieved," Henderson announced, her pen scratching across an audit worksheet. "At two twelve PM, user profile V_VANCE initiated an unbonded inventory intake titled Direct Store Consignment, stock code DSC-904. The aggregate carat weight entered manually was ninety-four point two carats. The designated destination bin was not the registered consignment vault, but the private floor safe registered to Vance Appraisals LLC."
A sharp silence descended over the room, broken only by the low rumble of the idling haulers out on the arcade concourse.
Arthur Vance’s face turned from mottled red to a cold, sickly ash. He stepped fully into the showroom, his gaze locking onto his niece with a mixture of disbelief and sudden, desperate panic. "Victoria... Vance Appraisals is a non-retail holding entity. Why is floor merchandise routed to a private safe without an arcade consignment voucher?"
"It was a reserve listing, Uncle Arthur," Victoria said, her voice rising an octave, trembling as she pointed an accusatory finger at Marcus. "Clients require discrete inspections before public listing! Marcus knows we hold pieces for private preview. It wasn't an appropriation; it was a scheduled private showing for the Mercer Street buyers!"
"Mercer Street buyers don't buy through private safe slots without an insured transit bond," I told her, placing my leather-bound receipt book on the counter right next to Henderson’s scanner. "I own the Mercer Street cutting lab. My father built it forty years ago. Every buyer on that street purchases through the central clearinghouse under my personal haulage insurance. There was no private showing scheduled. You were going to log those ninety-four carats as a short shipment on my transit ledger, claim the carrier insurance payout from my underwriter to cover the loss, and move the unrecorded stones through your private LLC safe once the adjusters closed the file."
Victoria reached out blindly, grabbing the edge of the display case for support. "That’s an absurd accusation! You're a freight driver! You haul crates across the interstate in an oil-stained jacket! You have no standing to lecture a certified gemologist on acquisition procedures!"
"He has standing as the master leaseholder of Suite 104, Victoria," Thorne said quietly, his voice cutting through her panic like a cold razor.