He’d spent his childhood obsessing over the mystery of the lost treasures, chattering about them while Abba had listened indulgently. And all that time, Abba had known and never said a word. It’s a strange betrayal that hits him harder than the fake name. Gabe Cohen doesn’t feel nearly as much his identity as that fascination with the artifacts does.

Ezra pulls into a parking garage near Central Park, and Gabe slips the ring into his pocket. It feels sacrilegious, shoving it into his jeans like it’s nothing at all. He keeps a thumb hooked onto the pocket, brushing reassuringly against the cool, smooth metal.

Stefan’s office is in a quiet back room deep in the museum. He looks sharply at them.“You’re Connor’s friend?”

“Yeah. Gabe Cohen.” Gabe sticks out his hand. Stefan’s eyes flicker to Ezra, in his white shirt and yarmulke, and says nothing. “I wanted you to take a look at this ring.”

He sets it on Stefan’s desk. Stefan turns a lamp on, squints at the ring for a long time, and then straightens very suddenly. His cool eyes fix on Gabe, small and suspicious.

“Where did you find this?” There is a note of disbelief in his voice, a shadow of accusation.

Gabe hesitates. The police have pretty much closed Abba’s case, and he’s reluctant to reopen it, to let this be Abba’s legacy. To be questioned alongside Rivi like they’re criminals, to have people tearing through Abba’s house with no respect for what had been, to reopen a dozen old wounds. The coin, the machatzis hashekel, is still missing. But Gabe will be the one to find it. “It was inside an old vase that my sister stumbled across,” he says truthfully.

“I see.” Stefan reaches for the ring. Gabe snatches it first, acutely aware of how tempting his prize is. Stefan’s face gives nothing away. “Wait here, please,” the curator says, and he steps out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Gabe and Ezra exchange a look. “We’re about to get arrested, aren’t we?” Ezra tests the door. Still unlocked, but there’s a security camera focused on them. If they try to leave, it’ll look even worse. Gabe shakes his head. Ezra releases the doorknob.

“Very possible.” Gabe had wondered if it might be an issue, but he’d assumed that Connor’s introduction would have dispelled Stefan’s suspicions. Apparently not. “I’m calling Rivi.”

“She’s at work—”

“Ten blocks away. And it sounds like we might need a lawyer.” He taps her number, puts his phone on speaker. “Hey, Rivi. Tiny issue here. We’re with the curator, and—”

“And he took one look at the ring and had you detained?” Rivi suggests. She doesn’t sound surprised. Apparently, one of them had done more than vaguely wonder about the possibility. “Give me twenty minutes.” She hangs up.

Reassurance settles over Gabe, the confidence that arises from Rivi at work. “See? Rivi’s always got a plan. She’ll come over to explain the situation to the curator, and he’ll back down.”

“Rivi isn’t all-powerful,” Ezra reminds him. He looks troubled. “I think we need to consider explaining about your fa—”

“There’s no explanation needed,” Gabe says hastily, shooting a look at the camera. Ezra follows his gaze and nods slowly, brow furrowed. “We found the ring in a vase. We just want to make sure that it’s the real deal before we figure out who to return it to. The Israel Fair Museum is gone, right?”

They stand in silence for long minutes, shifting from foot to foot. There’s a sound outside the room, and Gabe turns, the ring clutched in his hand.

No one enters. There are voices just beyond the door, the gruff tones of what must be security guards.

Ezra sinks into a chair, pulling out his phone. Gabe follows suit, scrolling mindlessly on his own phone. He thinks that Ezra must be learning something on the Sefaria app right now, but he doesn’t ask, doesn’t have the mind to be a chavrusa right now.

Are they about to be arrested? Is the ring going to be taken from him? It doesn’t belong in the American Museum of Natural History, that’s for sure. Or in some locked safe. It should be on display, returned to the people, a mystery to spark the interest of some other kid somewhere who might grow up to become an archaeologist or anthropologist.

What legal rights to the ring does he have? If the item was stolen from an Israeli museum in the first place, who can seize it from them now?

His hand tightens around the ring. Abba, what have you gotten us into?

“Sorry,” he thinks to say to Ezra, who’s finally on board with this investigation and is about to be arrested on his first outing. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”

“Are you kidding?” Ezra looks up to toss him a grin. “And let you do this alone? One of us is going to have to talk the police out of locking us up.”

“I can talk to people,” Gabe protests. “Do you know how often I have to convince hostile indigenous Xalori not to kill me on sight?” It happened at least twice, though they now reluctantly communicate with him, wary eyes following him when he visits their tribal areas outside Manaus.

“I’m sure that’s tough. NYPD cops? Tougher.” Ezra pats him on the shoulder. “You’d be halfway to extradition in an hour.”

“Your confidence in me is heartening,” Gabe deadpans. It’s kind of nice, being stuck in this room with Ezra. It feels almost like having a brother, which is something he’d never thought that he wanted. He’d had a protective older sister who had run the house from a young age, and it had always felt like Rivi’s presence was expansive enough to fill the missing spaces in their family so fully that there was no space for anyone else.

But Ezra is everything that Gabe and Rivi are not — unflappable, calm, comfortable in his place in the world. Gabe almost believes that Ezra could smooth things over with Stefan.

Almost. This ring is a clarion call that can’t be ignored.

The clock on the wall has moved almost 40 minutes when the door opens again. An unsmiling Stefan enters, two security guards lingering in the doorway. “Very well,” he says curtly to someone just outside the room. “And you’ll take full responsibility for the artifact?”

“These are my boys,” a confident voice agrees. It’s a man, not Rivi, and Gabe tries to place the familiar voice. “It’s for my auction houses to handle.”

“I see.” Stefan turns to them with a pinched face. “You have powerful friends.” It sounds as much like an accusation as a goodbye. “I’ll be reporting what I saw here.”

“We’d expect nothing less,” the man says easily, and Gabe steps out of the room and blinks at him.

It’s Boyd, Rivi’s billionaire client. Ezra’s eyes narrow. Boyd nods cordially to them. “Shall we?”

He escorts them from the museum. There are more security guards lingering than Gabe’s ever seen here, but Boyd’s presence is a shield holding them back.

“Riva called me. Told me a fantastical story about some lost Jewish treasures.” Boyd limps along on his cane, nodding pleasantly to a few of the guards. “I’m always happy to help Riva’s family. And the AMNH and I have a longstanding relationship.” One that Gabe assumes means funding and donations and occasionally turning a blind eye when Boyd intercedes on behalf of a duo of potential criminals.

Outside, Boyd has a car idling next to the sidewalk, the driver waiting patiently by the open door. Boyd turns back to them before he enters it. “May I see this ring?”

Gabe pulls it reluctantly from his pocket. The street around them is busy, but no one looks twice at them. Boyd inspects the ring, his eyebrows rising. “Look at the shape of it. That’s Achaemenid, certainly. You boys sure you don’t want to sell this to my auction house?”

“Thank you,” Gabe says hastily. “We appreciate you bailing us out of there. But I think we’d just like to return this to the people it belonged to.”

“Very well.” Boyd tilts his head, taking them both in. “Let me know if you change your mind. I could make it worth your while.” His driver helps him into his car. “Take me to Faber & Granada,” he orders. “I want an update on the suit.”

“Of course he does,” Ezra mutters, but he lets out a breath. “Let’s get back to the car before Stefan changes his mind.” They hurry to the parking garage.

“I think that was confirmation enough,” Gabe decides as they head back to New Jersey. “It’s the ring.” If they find the machatzis hashekel, though, he’s not going anywhere to verify it. “I guess all that time that Rivi spends answering Boyd’s calls paid off, huh?” He peeks at Ezra, who looks unamused at the suggestion. “Or not.”

Still, Ezra is the one who hits Rivi’s number on the car console as they drive back. “Thank you,” he says. There is a stiltedness to how he speaks to Rivi now. Gabe thinks that they’re trying, and it shows. “Your client got us out.”

“Good.” Rivi just sounds relieved, not as smug as Gabe might’ve been in her situation. She might be a better person than him. “I figured that he’d have the museum wrapped around his little finger. Did you give them your names? Any kind of statement?”

“They know mine,” Gabe admits. “But we’re going to… it shouldn’t matter, right? We’re going to return it as soon as we can.” He doesn’t want to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life, worried about the authorities and their mysterious stalker.

“We should find the machatzis hashekel first, though. And then we need to figure out who has a claim to the ring now that the Israel Fair Museum is gone.” He considers it. “Hey, do you think you could ask Penina to research that for us?”

“I could ask Penina?” Rivi repeats, skeptical. “Since when do you ask me to be the go-between?”

Since Gabe had tried to go out with her and ended the night in the police station. He slouches down in his seat. “Whoever our stalker is, they’re after me, not Penina.” They’d been in the house with him, had followed him from Bearwood, had rifled through Abba’s books in the basement. “And I’m sure Penina doesn’t want to… our date really didn’t end well, you know? She probably needs some space.”

He’s a little embarrassed, a little ashamed. Hillel had asked about a second date, and Gabe had asked for some time. He’s been so single-minded about the investigation that Penina had paid the price, and he’s sure she doesn’t want to speak to him right now.

Rivi is quiet for a moment, the only noise the humming of Ezra’s car as they cross the bridge. “I wouldn’t underestimate Penina,” she says at last. “She might surprise you.”

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 930)