A Nine-Year-Old In A Muddy Hoodie Caught My Handbag In A Manhattan Lobby And Asked If I Was Victoria Hale. Then She Pulled Out The Second Emerald Necklace — The One That Vanished Nineteen Years Ago

There were only ever two of them. I have worn mine every day for nineteen years and almost nobody knows why. The other one went into a ravine in northern California in the rain with the only person who ever lent me money she could not afford to lose, and I have spent two decades not saying her name out loud. On an ordinary Tuesday evening a nine-year-old girl in a muddy grey hoodie caught the strap of my handbag in the lobby of the Mercer, and when she reached under her collar she pulled out the second one.