by Amy Atwell
She set the white foam with the ten vanadium-treated stones aside. In the box lay a playing card.
The queen of diamonds.
“Dammit, Cosmo, where are you?” she whispered.
With the playing card rested ten more matching gems. Beneath the bright light of her worktable, they glowed a dark blood red, a little lighter than garnets. Four were ovals, another four were rectangles, and two were squares. But geometry didn’t begin to express the faceted edges that cast brilliant rainbows onto her wall, or the clarity of the stones.
A sudden thought made her scoop up the gems and carry them to the bathroom, so quickly, she nearly tripped over Edgar. Here, she flicked on the overhead light, its fluorescent tubes blinking to a bluish light. With a deep breath, she willed herself to look once more at the stones.
They’d turned an olive green. The color change added a dose of reality—in the myth, these alexandrite were supposed to change from vivid red to vivid green. Maybe daylight would make the green more pure. Still, there was no denying what she held. Her heart swelled with emotion. How her mother would have longed to see this day.
Edgar hobbled over to sniff her ankles while Iris stared at the gems, almost afraid to breathe. It was as if someone had made a fairy-tale come true and given her these magical, mystical, historical, terrible, cursed…stolen gems.
“He loves me so much, he left me a death wish,” she muttered when reality hit her.
Soberly, she carried the gems back to the table, pulled up her stool and sat, engrossed in them. Without taking time and setting up the refractometer, she couldn’t authenticate them as true alexandrite, but her brain screamed this was no scam. Focusing her light, she fitted a small magnifier to her eye to examine one of the gems. The blood-red stone offered incomparable clarity—even more amazing was the cut. Alexandrite was notoriously hard to cut into gems, tending to fracture on unexpected lines. One by one she examined the ten stones, only to admit these were the work of a superior craftsman. A shiver raced up her spine. If all her mother’s tales were true, her ancestor had cut these for royalty.
Were they truly from Czar Alexander’s crown? Had they then moved to the Empress Alexandra’s necklace? And how had Cosmo gotten hold of them?
With a start, she realized she needed to make a swift decision. She scanned the various gems before her again, then her gaze slid sideways to where Edgar’s silver collar with its fake red rubies lay. Biting her lip, she held one of the alexandrites up with the collar. Yes. She didn’t hesitate, afraid she’d talk herself out of the idea. With a pair of needle-nose pliers, she attacked the gem settings on the collar, deftly removing the lightweight fake rubies from their settings. These she tossed into a plastic cup on her table. A glance at the clock reminded her she had less than an hour before Mickey arrived.
While she’d like to trust him with her discovery, she didn’t dare. She’d give him her mother’s copies, just as he’d asked. This real alexandrite she’d hide on Edgar’s collar and hope an opportunity to help Cosmo presented itself.
With careful precision, she fitted the alexandrite gems one by one to the settings on the silver leather collar and soldered them in place. She worked quickly, sacrificing artistry to make sure none of the gems could accidentally fall out. When she finished, she hid all the clues to what she’d just done. She pocketed the playing card and started to throw away the plastic cup with its vivid red gems before she thought better of it. Someone might ask where they’d come from, so she stashed them into drawer forty-eight, which held a quantity of gaudy cheap stones. Last step of her plan, she hunted down Edgar and fitted the silver collar back onto his furry neck.
The rabbit shook his head at the unwelcome weight of the stones, but his beady red eyes watched her. For a moment, she swore he understood—and approved—her motives.
She was definitely losing it.
Scanning the workroom, she verified that she’d put everything back to order. She’d returned her own smaller imitation alexandrite back to drawer thirty-three. Edgar wore his same bejeweled collar. Or at least, that’s what anyone would think, so long as the rabbit didn’t go out into bright sunlight and make the stones turn green. All that remained on her worktable were her neatly organized tools and the ten vanadium-treated corundum she’d promised Mickey.
Soft footfalls on carpet made her turn to see the workroom door opening. She wasn’t surprised to see him. Honestly, the guy could sneak into a sealed box.
He must have stopped by his home, because he now wore dark jeans and a black T-shirt. Mirrored sunglasses perched atop his head. “I locked the front door behind me,” he said with that wicked smile of his. “Any luck?”
Iris swallowed her trepidation and steeled herself to lie. “Lots of it.” She refocused her lamp over her table. “Come see for yourself.”
He peered over her shoulder at the ten gems displayed on the table. Beneath the bright light, the red glowed as dark and rich as newly spilled blood.
“They’re so perfectly matched,” Mickey said.
“The original gems were all cut from one stone. They ended up roughly the same size, though there were some different shapes.”
“You’re sure these are worth ten million? I mean, if they were real?”
“And then some. With their cultural and historical significance, they could be worth twice that. The Russian government would probably kill to have the originals returned to them.”
“Well, what’s a few more killers after them?” Mickey scooped the gems into his hand. “Will they really turn color and everything?”
“Look at them under the bathroom light. It’s the closest I’ve got to natural daylight.”
Mickey carried the gems to the small bathroom and flicked the switch. “I’ll be damned.” He looked back out at her. “This isn’t natural?”
“Those are treated with vanadium, so it’s not as strong a change as real alexandrite, but so few people have ever seen real alexandrite—”
“Let’s hope our luck holds out.” Mickey dropped the gems into the velvet bag she held open. “They won’t chip in here, will they?”
“No, corundum has a high density factor. Like diamonds, they’re nearly impossible to chip.”
He drew the string on the bag, but before he tucked it into a pocket, he stopped. “I can’t thank you enough. You may have just saved my life.”
Warmth flooded Iris’s face. They’d be having a much different discussion if he ever found out she had the real gems. “They’re meant to save Cosmo.”
“I’ll do what I can.” He turned and practically tripped over Edgar. “Where did he come from?”
“Allie got called into a rehearsal.”
He stared down at the rabbit. “You know, that collar… I didn’t think to check it. You don’t suppose Cosmo would—”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I checked them already.” She hoped she didn’t sound like she was lying. To her relief, Edgar hopped away from the bathroom light toward the worktable.
Mickey watched her but didn’t seem to notice her words. “Thanks again for these.” He patted his pocket, but his eyes burned with that predatory intensity she found so alluring.
But kisses were out—she couldn’t risk involvement with someone she didn’t trust. And you’re engaged, remember? She retreated to her table where she realigned her tools. “You’re welcome. And if you—” No, as much as she wanted to tell him the truth, she couldn’t risk it. She swallowed again. “Call me if you find Cosmo.”
“First thing. You’ll have to lock me out.”
“Oh, right.” Apparently, he could break into places, just couldn’t break out.
She followed him across the sales floor and let him out the front door. Already traffic inside the casino was picking up, mostly tourists and seniors in shorts and T-shirts, baseball caps and sneakers. One older foreign gentleman wearing a caftan and turban perused the window displays. Somewhere in the casino, a slot machine paid out with a repetitive ching-ching-ching.
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Iris once thought hitting a jackpot would always bring happiness, but now she knew money was only one small part of the equation. She’d give millions just to see Cosmo again. Catching herself daydreaming, she stepped back inside, closing and locking the door behind her.
She returned to the workroom to finish cleaning up. “Come on, Edgar. You can help with some paperwork until it’s time to open.” She looked around for the rabbit, but the back doorbell interrupted her.
“UPS,” called a male voice from beyond the door.
Of course they’d get here early today. Iris hadn’t thought about them because Ginny usually worked the early shift and dealt with deliveries. Prepared to warn the guy to watch where he might step, she went to the backdoor and unbolted the lock.
Immediately, the door was kicked open, nearly striking her in the face.
Too late, she recalled it was Sunday.
***
Justin waited in the backstage area at the MGM Grand. Despite his normally grounded perspective, he experienced a twinge of awe at the scope of the surroundings. The airspace soaring above the stage was filled with black drapes and dark lighting instruments. The exotic dance show they staged here was all about lights, music and bare female bodies.
He was relieved the female bodies hadn’t been invited to the technical rehearsal.
The problem was no one seemed to have been invited to the technical rehearsal. No one except Allie Fortune. And him.
A motion in the heavy draperies had him reaching for his weapon before he saw Allie slide from the darkness. Her black attire made it that much harder to track her in the darkened theater. The last thing he needed was to shoot an innocent civilian. Once was quite enough for his career.
He relaxed into a neutral posture as she approached. Her black running shoes squeaked across the wooden floor of the stage, disrupting the somber silence. A single light bulb on a short pole cast a puddle of light but made no impact on the shadows.
Frankly, the whole place gave him the creeps.
“Didn’t you say something about a rehearsal?”
She stopped before him, the light behind her casting a halo around her hair and silhouetting her lithe body. Justin swallowed and dragged his mind firmly back to business.
“I did,” she said. “But I lied.”
“You lied?”
Her features were difficult to read in this lighting, but she nodded.
“Why?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted to meet his. Dilated by the darkness, her pupils made her normally golden eyes look black. “Can I trust you?”
Justin hated that question. It was the most loaded question in history. Immediate responses triggered in his mind. Why? Are you guilty of something? What is it you need? They were all qualifiers, because no one could be openly trusted in all situations.
She watched him with those wide eyes.
He wondered again if she needed rescuing. A woman like Allie didn’t deserve crappy things happening in her life. He’d like to help her.
“Can I?” she gently prodded.
“Yes.” So much for qualifiers.
Her sudden warm smile paired with the halo around her golden hair made him think of angels and all the good things in the world. “I thought so. I knew you were on Daddy’s side.”
“But I need to uphold the law—”
“You said you didn’t think Daddy had done anything wrong. You needed him for questioning. And I want to find him. I’m worried that he’s in real trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” As casually as possible, he took her arm and turned her so half her face was lit by that one glowing light.
She hung her head, eyes downcast. “I don’t know. Daddy always told me about his projects, his plans, his crazy schemes, but in the past couple months he’s been unnaturally silent. Kept telling me to move on with my school, my career.”
“Do you think he told your sisters anything?”
That made her lift her head. “Maybe. Did you know Cory and I went to Iris’s last night?”
“Yes.” He knew because Mickey had told him while they were at the morgue. Probably best not to let her know that little tidbit.
“Thanks for telling the truth.” She turned her head to scan the expansive theater as if danger lurked in the shadows.
His senses alert, Justin started when an air conditioner kicked on. Exhaling, he said, “Allie, tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m narking on them. I mean, this is bigger than telling tales out of school, right? Daddy could be in real danger.”
He nodded.
“Then I need to do everything I can to help him. And I think you stand a better chance of finding him then they do.”
“They who?”
“My sisters.”
Chapter Eight
Iris jumped back, barely avoiding the door as it slammed against the wall. A man roughly twice her size barreled in and grabbed her arm. She tried to scream, but he muffled her mouth, nose, and most of her eyes with his other hand.
A shadow entered behind him. “Gently, Pebbles. We may need answers from her.” A wiry guy stuck his ferret face into hers. “You Iris Fortune?”
She nodded, too scared to breathe.
“No screaming. We just have a couple questions for you.” He nodded to the big Pebbles guy, who removed his hand from her mouth.
“What do you want?” Iris whispered.
“We’re friends of Mickey’s,” Ferret Face said.
She wasn’t sure which troubled her more—the idea that he was lying, or the thought that he might be telling the truth. What if Mickey had sent them here to take care of her?
Pebbles gave a rumbling chuckle. “Hey, look, Jock, there’s the bunny.”
Edgar hopped from beneath the table right to Pebble’s size-eighteen Nikes. The big guy hunkered down to pet him.
“So Mickey brought you the bunny. Well, Miss Fortune, does that mean you already gave him the stones?”
Iris’s gaze swiveled from the rabbit to Pebbles to Jock. Would it be that easy to get rid of these guys? “Yes. You just missed him. Mickey left here about ten minutes ago with the, um, gems.” In case these two didn’t know about the alexandrite, she didn’t want to name what type of stone Mickey had.
“Smart girl. This will make things much easier.” Jock took her arm, none too gently. “Let’s get your things.”
Iris struggled. For his size, he had a heck of a grip. “I answered your questions.”
“Yes, you did. And if you keep cooperating, everything will be fine. If you don’t, someone’s gonna get hurt.”
Determined to escape, she balled her free hand into a fist, but her captor caught her wrist before she could strike him.
“Someone, meaning you.” His gold tooth flashed in what passed for a smile. “We’re going to take a little trip, Miss Fortune. Hey, I like that—Miss Fortune—sorta says it all.”
“Can we take the bunny this time?” Pebbles asked. He’d already picked the rabbit up and was cradling him like a baby in his arms. At the moment, the giant looked far less dangerous.
“He’ll be too much trouble.”
Watching Edgar, Iris swore he looked right at her, as if to remind her not to leave him behind. If nothing else, she wanted to keep a sharp eye on that collar. She sure didn’t need Edgar winding up in an animal shelter wearing ten million around his neck.
“There’s a box here for him,” she said. “If we leave him here, my assistant will know right away that something’s happened to me.”
Jock’s eyes narrowed on her as he considered her words. “Right. Get your purse and your keys. We’ll go out the service door.” He followed as she gathered her things with shaky fingers. “Pebbles, put the bunny in that box. I don’t want anyone seeing him. He’ll draw too much attention to us.”
Thank heavens. She didn’t need that collar changing colors in the bright sunlight outside.
She thought about making an escape attemp
t but knew she didn’t stand a chance against these two. Jock had a gun stuffed in the waistband of his slacks—something she’d learned to look for after being around Mickey for less than forty-eight hours.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked as they stepped into the hallway. Maybe she could make a run for it in the parking lot.
“No worries,” Jock said. “You’ll be our guest until Mickey delivers the goods. Then we’ll arrange a little reunion for you and our friend Mickey boy.”
His snide laugh lit a fuse to sheer panic. Would anyone notice if she disappeared? Would it matter to them? She hadn’t made herself vital to Cosmo, and she’d held her new sisters at arms’ length. She’d given Mickey what he wanted. Even David would probably be better off without her. She was completely unimportant.
What a horrible revelation.
***
Cosmo pumped another nickel into the slot machine while he waited. He didn’t bother with the buttons, but used the lever on the side, even though the billowing caftan he wore made it awkward. He’d darkened his skin with stage makeup, so even the backs of his hands were an unfamiliar pale brown. His tongue rubbed at the fake gold cap he’d used to cover a front tooth.
Iris had noticed him peering at her jewelry displays, but she hadn’t consciously recognized him. As dangerous as it was to see her, he felt it was best if he reclaimed the alexandrites he’d dropped off here the other night.
He suspected she’d found them, but he knew in his heart she wouldn’t give them to Mickey. If she’d given him anything, it would be the imitations Irina’s family had sent years ago. They were good copies, but vanadium-treated corundum wouldn’t fool Donovan’s people for long.
Rooting out his wallet, he fed a five-dollar bill into the machine, prepared to play as long as necessary. Hopefully, Iris wasn’t planning on putting in a full day. He pulled the lever and watched the wheels again. An elderly lady in a bright pink rhinestone-studded jogging suit walked down the aisle of mostly empty machines then returned to sit beside him. She stuck her player’s card in the machine and fed it a twenty. Gardenia perfume mixed with the fog of cigarette smoke, making Cosmo long for a Coke and a little fresh air. But he didn’t want to risk missing Iris.