This morning when she got off the plane at Kennedy, she’d dropped her bags at the apartment, then come directly to the office, not taking time to change into her usual working garb, jeans and a sweater. Bev waited for her to start sipping the coffee, then picked up the messages. “Do you want me to start getting these people for you?”

“Let me give Erin a quick call first.”

Erin picked up on the first ring. Her somewhat preoccupied greeting told Darcy that she was already at her worktable. They’d been college roommates together at Mount Holyoke. Then Erin had studied jewelry design. Recently she’d won the prestigious N. W. Ayer award for young designers. Darcy had also found her professional niche. After four years of working her way up in an advertising agency, she had switched careers from account executive to budget interior decorating. Both women were now twenty-eight, and they were as close as they’d been when living together in school. Darcy could picture Erin at her worktable, dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater, her red hair held back by a clip or in a ponytail, absorbed by her work, unaware of outside distraction.

The preoccupied “hello” gave way to a whoop of joy when Erin heard Darcy’s voice.

“You’re busy,” Darcy said. “I won’t keep you. Just wanted to report that I’ve arrived, and, of course, I wanted to see how Billy is.” Billy was Erin ’s father. An invalid, he’d been in a nursing home in Massachusetts for the past three years.

“Pretty much the same,” Erin told her.

“How’s the necklace going? When I phoned Friday you sounded worried.” Just after Darcy had left last month, Erin had landed a commission from Bertolini Jewelers to design a necklace using the client’s family gems. Bertolini was on a par with Cartier’s and Tiffany’s.