by Sophie Davis
Equal parts nervous and excited, I paused the video and selected the internet browser icon on my task bar. I stared at the blinking cursor, deflating slightly. The idea had been a good one, and it was still a good one, I just didn’t know what exactly to search for: “Kingsley Diamond Corp” and “death”? Surely, by now, I’d know if one of my father’s past board members had murdered someone, right?
Having no better ideas for search terms, I typed the words anyway. What did I have to lose? But the resulting articles were of no help: “Kingsley Diamond Corp Might go Public. Is this the Death of the Family-Run Business?” and “Kingsley Diamond’s New Motion Brings About the Death of an Era.”
Too broad. Narrow the terms.
Searching for “Kingsley Corp, UN, Washington, scandal, controversy, death” yielded no better results.
Kimberly. She’s the key to all of this, I reminded myself.
Bingo—under a list of company profiles, I found Kim Kingsley. But even before clicking on the name, I knew it would lead me nowhere. Kimberly was my grandmother who passed away well before my father took over the company; she was not the Kimberly the board had been discussing on the videos.
Think, Lark. How can you narrow it down even further?
My father was an excellent record-keeper; I could use the year to narrow down the results.
Just as I was adding the date to the search box, and congratulating myself for having excellent perseverance, warm breath tickled my ear as the headphone was removed. His voice was low and throaty when he whispered, “You look insanely gorgeous when you’re concentrating that hard.”
I jumped in my seat and my heart skipped a beat. Deep laughter filled my ears as I whipped around to face the newcomer. Amusement made his green eyes sparkle and the lips I loved so much curve into a sexy smile. My heart began to pound for an entirely different reason.
“Didn’t mean to scare you.” Blake bent over the back of the seat, bringing his soft lips to mine. The kiss was quick and gentle and left me wanting more.
Running the tip of his tongue over his lips, Blake sank down next to me on the loveseat. “Yum, chocolate and marshmallow,” he said, putting an arm around my waist and drawing me closer. “Can I get some more?”
Without waiting for an answer, Blake leaned in for another kiss, and I no longer cared who Kimberly was. I lost myself in the feel of Blake’s mouth on mine, his hand pressed against my hip. My arms were around his neck and he tried to close the minute distance between us. The computer in my lap proved an obstacle, one which I quickly removed, wanting to feel his heartbeat next to mine. This rare display of PDA elicited a satisfied groan from Blake, telling me just how happy he was to see me. Or so I thought, until he gently pulled back from the embrace.
“That is an awfully nice way to be greeted,” he said with a smirk, his forehead resting against mine.
“You’re welcome,” I replied cheekily.
Planting a brief kiss on the tip of his nose, I settled back in my seat before all sense of propriety and decorum went out the window. Unless I wanted to be arrested for indecent happenings in public, I needed to put some space between myself and that sexy mouth.
Our connection was deeper than lust, though. I cared deeply for Blake Greyfield, no question. With a safe distance between us, Blake and I fell into an easy chatter. In the year we’d been together, I never tired of listening to his perspective on the world and his plans and hopes for the future.
“How were your morning classes?” Blake asked.
When he brushed a loose hair back from my face, I took his hand and wove our fingers together.
“Okay,” I said.
“Just okay?” Blake cocked an eyebrow.
Concentrating on our joined hands, I shrugged.
“Was it because you were watching the clock, counting down the seconds until you could see me again?” he teased.
It was meant to be a joke, but I always missed him when we were apart. With the warmer weather, and summer right around the corner, my mother and the rest of the Eight were spending their weekends in the Hamptons. So far, my excuses to stay in the city hadn’t been questioned. Blake and I spent every weekend together. We explored museums, discovered no-name bands, and I was free to live life as if my last name wasn’t Kingsley. New York was our oyster, and we took full advantage of the pearl inside.
But it couldn’t last. Graduation was looming, with college on the horizon. I hadn’t shared my intentions with Blake. Like everyone else, he believed I was going to start Columbia in the fall. Should I tell him? I wondered. The time isn’t right.
“We have the entire summer ahead of us,” Blake whispered, playfully nudging my leg with his. “And I have a feeling it’s going to be one to remember.” He met my gaze. “Unless you’re tired of me?”
“Hmm,” I pretended to think. “Yeah, I’ve pretty much had enough. I suppose I might be able to stand another day, two tops—”
Blake’s mouth was on mine, his kiss cutting off the rest of my snarky comment. He pulled back after a brief but intense moment, just enough to speak. His lips brushed mine when he said, “Well, I for one, cannot wait to spend every day with you.” The next kiss was longer, deeper, and stole my breath. “No offense, sweetheart, but you’re a liar if you try to say otherwise.”
I laughed. “Three days?” I asked coyly. “Would you believe that?”
“Honestly, Lark, I don’t know if there is any length of time that would ever be enough,” Blake said, the light, joking tone from a moment ago gone.
When his gaze met mine, the intensity sent chills through me and I blushed. When did I become this girl? I wondered, and then decided I liked this girl…a lot.
“The feeling’s mutual,” I finally replied, matching his serious tone. I wanted him to hear the truth of my words.
Blake held my gaze a heartbeat longer before his gorgeous face split into a wide grin. “No surprise there. I had you at hello,” he joked, earning him a swat on the arm.
“I know,” I said with a mock sigh.
Worry flickered in Blake’s green eyes. “I love you, Lark. You know that, right?”
The conversation suddenly seemed way more serious than it had been a minute ago. I felt unsteady, as though the ground beneath us was rumbling. “Of course,” I said slowly. “I love you, too.”
“You can tell me anything,” Blake continued as though I hadn’t spoken. It was like he’d been planning this speech and needed to get it out before he changed his mind.
“I do tell you everything,” I lied.
Blake’s smile was soft, almost pitying. I stiffened. He knows, I thought frantically.
“Lark,” he said quietly, taking my hand. “I’m not stupid. I know you’re hiding something.”
“I-I-I,” I stuttered. It wasn’t the right time. This conversation was happening ahead of schedule and I didn’t know what to do.
Blake shook his head. “It’s okay. I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready.” Squeezing my hand, he leaned in closer. “Just know, I’m here. And I’m now going anywhere.”
I closed the distance between us, pressing my lips firmly to his and hoping Blake didn’t see the moisture brimming in my eyes. I wanted to tell him the truth. He deserved to know the truth. But the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I kissed him as though no one was watching. I needed Blake to know that I did love him, that I did trust him, that he was my future.
After several more just-shy-of-too-steamy-for-public minutes, we agreed to put the love fest on hold and get some studying done.
As Blake busied himself with his computer, I returned my attention to my own laptop. Just as the internet search page was materializing on my screen, Blake leaned over to plant a tender peck on my cheek. When I turned to smile at him, he wasn’t looking at me.
“There’s another ‘e,’” he said suddenly.
“Huh?” I asked.
The search I’d been about to start when Blake arrived was “Kimberly + United Nations + 2002.”
>
“Kimberley. There’s another ‘e’ in it.”
“Um, not always,” I replied, unsure why he was bringing up an alternate spelling of the name. Sure, there were plenty of derivations, but I was purposely using what I believed to be the most common spelling.
“Oh, sorry,” Blake said quickly. “I saw the year and UN and just figured you were researching the Kimberley Process. What are you searching for?”
“Kimberley Process?” I asked, not bothering to invent a lame excuse in response to his question.
“Yeah, you know…conflict diamonds?”
Clips of conversation between my father, McAvoy, and the other board members began whizzing through my head.
I must have looked confused, because Blake continued, “Conflict diamonds, you know that fund violence and cruelty? There was a movie about it, with Leonardo DiCaprio. Any of this sound familiar?”
“Never seen it,” I replied absently, mind elsewhere.
“Really? Ironic, given your family’s business.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled quickly, suddenly anxious to change the subject.
“So why are you researching the Kimberley Process? I mean, isn’t your father a better source? He’s got to be something of an authority on the subject. He didn’t teach you all about it while grooming you to be his Mini-Me?”
Though Blake was teasing, I answered his question seriously.
“No,” I replied. “He’s taught me about the quarterly sales they hold for selling the diamonds, how they choose distributors, how to manage client relations, stuff about the retail end of it…things like that. But we’ve never really talked about the actual mining….”
I wanted to change the subject. I needed to change the subject. Despite the conversation we’d just had, I couldn’t tell him about the files or Kingstown. I would, in time. But right now, I needed to understand the truth myself.
Leaning forward, I offered him my fake smile and gave him a quick kiss. “Get to work,” I said with a wink, forcing down the rising panic threatening to overtake me. Thankfully, I knew quite a bit about compartmentalization.
With a better understanding of what, not who, Kimberley was, I changed the spelling and search terms. Results ranging from the history of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) to the practical implications of having it in place populated the computer screen. One of the top results gave an early timeline of its inception. After several years of summits and proposals, the United Nations passed the final resolution on the Kimberley Process in 2003.
Given the wild thoughts and general chaos going on in my head, I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the entire issue. Switching to the official website for the KPCS, I found a pared down summation of its purpose. Basically, the certification was put in place to ensure that any revenue from diamonds didn’t fund violence by rebel movements seeking to undermine legitimate governments. What I still couldn’t comprehend was how the KPCS was a threat to Kingsley Diamonds and my father?
Our business was clean. Our diamonds didn’t fund insurgents. My father wasn’t in bed with…no, no, it wasn’t possible. Lincoln Baxter, a mercenary trained by our military….
I couldn’t breathe. Bursts of light waltzed across my vision, whirling and twirling like the aftermath of flashbulbs going off in my face. Tossing my laptop onto the table, I jumped to my feet and scanned the room for an escape. I needed air—pronto.
“Lark? Everything okay?” Blake asked.
I swallowed over the lump in my throat and flashed Blake the fakest smile ever to adorn my lips—and that was saying something.
Fake, fake, fake, resonated through my mind. I was not referring to my facial expression.
“Seriously, Lark, you okay?” His voice sounded distant, as if a giant chasm had suddenly formed between us.
No, not a chasm, a diamond mine, I thought wryly.
My head bobbed up and down jerkily in response to Blake’s concerned question. “I’m good,” I heard myself say, in disagreement with the pit in my stomach.
It took every ounce of concentration I had to put one foot in front of the other as I staggered toward the bathroom. On autopilot, fragmented thoughts guided my actions: push open the door; straight to a stall; slide the lock; turn; find the toilet. Just in time for all the questions, answers, thoughts, feelings—not to mention, my lunch—to be purged like sins on judgment day. As if the world was ending. Because mine was.
It was fake. It was all fake. Everyone I knew danced through life with a façade of pretty, shiny things. Sparkling. Always sparkling. Sparkling with death and blood and—
Bile burned my throat and I got sick again, as though the lies were too great to physically contain inside my body any longer.
When there was nothing left inside of my stomach, my body still heaved painfully. Kingsley Diamonds was my past, present, and future. The company, my family’s company, had defined me—for better or worse—for so long. If it was fake, wasn’t I?
Sinking to the floor, I found my purse beside me. Though I didn’t remember grabbing the bag before I left the couch, I was grateful I had. My hand closed around my plastic water bottle immediately, as if led by an unseen force. I gulped the lukewarm liquid. It did little to soothe the searing pain in my throat, but it was something.
I focused on one of the shades covering the bright lights in the ceiling, concentrating hard enough to burn a hole through the plastic. A moan escaped my pursed lips. Suddenly my head was too heavy, my neck too weak to support its weight, and I let it fall back. My skull came to rest on the wall behind me with a bang. It should have hurt, but I felt no pain. I was utterly, totally, and completely numb on the outside. Inside, that was a different story. Inside, nerve endings were alight: disbelief, shock, disbelief, shock, doubt, suspicion, distrust, shock.
Trying to string together entire thoughts was a struggle, but I fought to make some sense out of what I’d learned. Tears pricked my eyes, but I brushed them away before they fell. Crying would change nothing.
The ramifications of the statements on the videos were unthinkable. My father and that cretin McAvoy thought they’d have to shut down the company if the UN adopted the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, if it became illegal to sell diamonds that were funding insurgents. Did that mean that our mines funded rebel movements? That was insane.
No. Daddy would never allow that to happen in our mines, I tried to tell myself.
But why else would he have worried about the Kimberley Process passing? If all our mines were operating above-board, there wouldn’t have been emergency board meetings and late-night phone calls to discuss the ramifications for Kingsley Diamonds should it pass.
My head throbbed, the pressure so great it felt like a vice-grip had hold of my skull.
Was it possible that my father was not the man I’d grown up knowing? Was it possible that instead of being good, and kind, and generous, my father was greedy, bloodthirsty, cold, and…evil?
CHAPTER SIX
RAVEN
AN HOUR LATER, Asher and I stood in front of 3685 14th Street NW, staring dubiously at the neon sign over the door. The lights that would’ve illuminated the two “r”s in Larry’s name were burnt out, so it appeared to be “Lay’s Pawn.” A set of metal bars partially obscured the grimy, glass storefront, adding to the sense of foreboding swirling in my stomach.
Wow, Lark. You really know how to pick ‘em, I thought.
Slipping my fingers into the pocket of my khaki shorts, I made sure the claim ticket was still there. Feeling restless on the walk over, I’d been checking and rechecking every thirty seconds to make sure the scrap of paper didn’t fall out. It felt smooth and slightly worn, as if someone else had done the same thing before me.
“So…,” Asher began, crossing his arms over his chest as if to protect his white polo from the dirt wafting off Larry’s Pawn.
“So…,” I echoed hollowly.
“You ready to do this?”
I sighed. “No…. Or, yes
? I don’t know. But we just walked a mile to get here, so it’s a little late to back out.”
Just like the moments leading up to the discovery of Lark’s previous clues, I was feeling a mix of giddy anticipation and near-paralyzing anxiety. Unlike the previous discoveries, though, a lot of the anxiety had to do with the location. The neighborhood was even more on the “coming” end of up-and-coming than the Gibson Street apartment. Not to say that I felt unsafe; Asher standing so close that the hairs on his arm brushed my skin. It was more that I felt wary, like I was crossing the line from the girl-next-door to common criminal. Because, of course, in the books I’d read and movies I’d watched, people only frequented pawn shops for nefarious reasons.
Get it together, Raven. It’s a pawnshop, not a den of inequity.
“We could grab a cup of coffee first. You know, give you a little time to psych yourself up.” Asher’s tone was playful.
Clearly, he was trying to put my mind at ease. If I had to guess, I’d say that he was worried about how I’d react to whatever was about to be revealed—particularly after my meltdown the night before. Summoning my best happy-go-lucky attitude, I smiled, hoping that the small gesture conveyed the immense gratitude I felt for Asher and his company.
“There is another option, Raven,” Asher said quietly, more serious now than he had been just a moment before. “I can go in alone.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been following Lark’s clues all over the city. Larry’s is just a little ickier than the rest of the places I’ve been.”
“Yeah?” He turned to face me, one eyebrow raised. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Asher’s impish compliance was rewarded with an eye roll from me.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I muttered. “The sooner I finish this scavenger hunt, the sooner I can go back to living my own life.”