Page 27 of The Wake-Up Call

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I glance at the clock. Two minutes to three. Lucas’s ring owner is due any second. Would it be wrong of me to run some intervention? Lock the hotel doors, just for ten minutes or so? Send Lucas off to do something urgent and then tell his visitor that the ring has already been claimed by somebody else?

It would be wrong, definitely. However...

“Don’t even try,” Lucas says, not looking up from where he’s cleaning silver candlesticks at the other end of the front desk.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You are...tramando.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Scheming. Plotting.”

“Would I ever?” I say as he turns to look at me. I arrange my expression into the picture of innocence.

“That face doesn’t work on me,” Lucas says.

His eyes hold mine, dark and knowing. Something flutters in my stomach. Then his gaze snaps to the door as a woman steps into the lobby, bringing in a blast of freezing air.

“Hello!” Lucas calls with more enthusiasm than I’ve seen from him since someone suggested updating the restaurant table booking system. “Are you Ruth?”

“Yes, hi, that’s me!” the woman says, pasting on a large smile.

I am immediately suspicious. Obviously I have skin in the game here, but I meet a lot of members of the public in this job, and I’ve developed a bit of an eye for the ones who are going to cause trouble. The people who won’t pay their bar tab, who will take things from the hotel that aren’t strictly toiletries, who will print out the same Groupon voucher twice. And this Ruth has troublemaker written all over her, from her pristine ponytail to the toes of her trying-to-look-expensive boots.

I do not believe that Lucas’s ring belongs to this woman. That ring is stunning, but it’s not showy: the diamonds are tiny and the design is really subtle. I’d say a woman with a counterfeit designer handbag probably wants a wedding ring that shouts about how pricey it was, not something small and pretty.

“Thanks so much for coming in,” I say, standing up with my best smile. “As I’m sure you’ll understand, we’ll have to check a few things to make sure we’re giving the ring to the right person.”

To her credit, her expression doesn’t change. “Sure,” she says, pulling her handbag closer against her side. “What do you need? Some ID?”

“Do you have a receipt for the ring?” I ask.

“Perhaps you could just describe it,” Lucas says, glancing sideways at me.

I look back at him, raising my eyebrows.Really?my face says.You’re so concerned about winning our bet that you’re prepared to give a valuable piece of jewellery to a potential fraud? What if it causes problems for the hotel?

I watch his face darken as he comes to the same conclusion.

“I bought it in a jeweller’s,” the woman says, patting at her hair. “So there’s no digital receipt. It was years ago! But I can tell you it’s a thin gold ring studded with diamonds.”

I shoot another look at Lucas. His grim expression tells me that he said that much in his initial email.

“You’ll see what a conundrum we’re in,” I say, smile still in place. “Is there any way you can prove it’s your ring?”

“Can you prove it’s not?” she asks. There’s a sharpness in her tone now.

“Perhaps you could tell us when you stayed here?” Lucas asks.

Her gaze shifts from me to Lucas and back again. She swallows.

“Twenty twenty,” she says.

“Oh dear. Not quite,” I say.

“Twenty eighteen?” she tries, confidence visibly evaporating.

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