“Do you think they would give me what the gems are worth?”
Not what they were worth, of course, but at least enough that she wouldn’t have to worry about her bank account again for a few months.
She had a good feeling about Dreame Jewelry. Maybe it was the right place to go.
There were still more places on her list, but she didn’t want to go over all of them with Starlight. Using her psychic powers, even with Starlight, was tiring, and she couldn’t maintain her focus for that long.
Besides, it was nearly noon, and she was ready for some breakfast.
Chapter 2
It had taken Reg a couple of hours to get to the city and locate the little store front that Dreame Jewelry worked out of. When she saw the dingy front window with dusty displays of what clearly was not real jewelry, she nearly changed her mind. There were several other jewelers on her list. Dreame really did not live up to its name.
But she was there. She might as well at least check it out. She’d had a good feeling about the place initially. Maybe it was a diamond in the rough. So to speak.
Reg pushed open the door. A bell tinkled, announcing her arrival. The interior was dim after the bright Florida sunlight outside. She couldn’t see much at first. She closed her eyes, then opened them again and squinted around.
There were a few display cases with much the same kind of product as she had seen in the window. Maybe a few real pieces, but even the ones that appeared to be real weren’t spectacular. They needed a good cleaning, to begin with. The store smelled dusty and old and sort of oily. A jewelry store shouldn’t smell oily, should it?
Reg browsed through the displays. When she looked up, she saw a man standing behind the one that had been on her right when she had pushed her way through the door. She was sure that he hadn’t been there, standing in the dim recesses of the room, when she had arrived. But he had either appeared out of nowhere or had crept in from the back of the store so quietly that she had not heard him or been aware of his presence.
“Oh. Hi there. I didn’t see you.”
The man was dark-skinned and had a short black beard that was not properly trimmed. Or maybe it was just a few days’ growth of whiskers that didn’t count as a beard. His face was round and his body wide.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted in a resonant, surprisingly reassuring voice. “Jean Beaugrand at your service. How can I help you today?”
“Well, I was just looking...” Reg indicated the display cases, not yet showing her hand. Maybe she was just a tourist who had wandered in off the street.
The man’s eyes traveled over Reg, from the multicolored headscarf around her head, to her red box braids, to her flowing peasant shirt and skirt. Maybe she didn’t look like a tourist. But Beaugrand would have no way of knowing who she was. She didn’t know anyone in the area and she wouldn’t tell him that she had come from Black Sands.
“Are you here to buy or to sell?” he asked, getting immediately to the crux of the matter.
Reg pursed her lips, thinking about what to say. Admit that she was there looking for a buyer? Or continue to look at his wares and feel him out before revealing the fact?
She didn’t say anything at first. She ignored his question as if she hadn’t heard or understood it and browsed through the display case that he was standing behind, getting closer to him, reaching out with all of her senses to examine him, to read and classify him. She was good at cold-reading people. Or what she had always thought of as cold reading but might actually have been using her psychic powers before she knew she had them.
“Like what you see?” the man inquired mildly.
There was more to Beaugrand than met the eye. Few people showed their true selves to the world, but she sensed that he was hiding more than most. While his face and voice suggested that he was open and honest, there was a cloak of mystery and secrecy around him. Something stopped her from being able to probe him further.
“Well, there are a couple of pieces,” Reg said, turning her attention back to the jewelry and pretending that was what he had been asking. She indicated a necklace that was almost directly in front of him. The ruby in the pendant was real. She could feel that. After having handled her own gems regularly, she could sense the power of a real stone. “This one...”
The man smiled, showing two rows of white, even teeth. “That is a very nice piece,” he agreed. “Are you interested in buying?”
There was no price tag on it. Reg studied his face. He did not appear to be sarcastic or judging her as being too poor to afford it. It was a simple question about her interest in it.
“No,” Reg admitted. She pulled a small velvet pouch out of her pocket. “I saw on Craig’s List that you purchase gemstones. I don’t see any out, so I was just wondering...”
“I do not display them,” Beaugrand agreed. “I sell them privately to silver and gold smiths. People don’t generally walk in off the street looking for unset stones.”
Reg hesitated for another instant, reaching out to assess his feelings and intentions again. Either he was very good at blocking her, or he was an honest man. She loosened the strings on the pouch and spilled the gems she had brought with her onto her palm. She didn’t know if he would be interested in everything, or whether he only bought certain gems. Or perhaps only what he knew his smiths were currently looking for.
The man leaned forward to look at them. He opened a drawer and put a shallow tray on top of the display case. “You can put them in there, and I will have a look.”
He pulled a loupe from a pocket, and picked up a ruby. He looked at it for a few moments, then put it back and picked up a blue gem, a sapphire, Reg assumed. He studied it for only an instant before putting it back.
He shook his head slowly. The opening move of his negotiation. Reg was familiar with negotiation and he wasn’t going to scare her away by declaring that her gems were worth very little or nothing. She could be hard nosed and get a fair price. She’d had a lot of practice when she had been a lot more desperate than she was now.
“They are real,” Reg asserted, looking him in the eye.
Beaugrand nodded. “Oh, yes. They are real. And good quality.”
She was surprised to hear him concede that. But maybe it was part of his strategy. A little carrot to tempt her.
“Then what is the problem? They’re good stones, you purchase stones for your smithies. Why wouldn’t you be interested?”
“Do you know anything about the provenance of these stones?”
She had sold enough family heirlooms to know that provenance referred to being able to prove where the goods had come from and what hands they had passed through. She hadn’t bothered to doctor any papers to give the gems fake histories.
“I understood from what I read that you... will purchase gems without provenance,” Reg said delicately. She didn’t want to imply that he was doing something against the law, or even unethical. But she’d done her research. She knew that Dreame dealt in... shadier areas.
“This is true,” he tilted his head in a slight nod. “However, I wondered if you know anything about these gems. How did they come into your hands?”
“They are not stolen.”
“That is good, but does not answer the question.” The man pulled a stool over and sat down, resting his meaty forearms on the top of the case.
“They were given to me as a gift.”
She doubted he would believe that, but he didn’t give any sign of disbelief. “And did you accept them? Or did you say that you would check them out first?” He looked down at the gems in the tray.
“They are mine. I can sell them or do whatever I like with them.”
“So, you accepted the gift.”
Reg nodded impatiently. “Yes. Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
Beaugrand smiled, showing his teeth again. “Perhaps someone who is not as rash as you.”
Reg’s stomach knotted. This did not sound good. Why should it be a problem that she had accepted the s
tones that were given to her as a gift? Unless they were stolen property, she couldn’t see what was wrong with her owning them. The police couldn’t do anything about that.
“Why? What do you mean?”
“I cannot buy these stones from you. You will need to find another avenue to rid yourself of them.”
Reg stared at him, frowning.
Careful of Thy Wishes, Book #13 of the Reg Rawlins, Psychic Investigator series by P.D. Workman can be ordered at pdworkman.com
Also by P.D. Workman
MYSTERY/SUSPENSE:
* * *
Reg Rawlins, Psychic Detective
What the Cat Knew
A Psychic with Catitude
A Catastrophic Theft
Night of Nine Tails
Telepathy of Gardens
Delusions of the Past
Fairy Blade Unmade
Web of Nightmares
A Whisker's Breadth
Skunk Man Swamp
Magic Ain't A Game
Without Foresight
Careful of Thy Wishes (Coming Soon)
Time to Your Elf (Coming Soon)
Undiscovered Tomb (Coming Soon)
* * *
Auntie Clem’s Bakery
Gluten-Free Murder
Dairy-Free Death
Allergen-Free Assignation
Witch-Free Halloween (Halloween Short)
Dog-Free Dinner (Christmas Short)
Stirring Up Murder
Brewing Death
Coup de Glace
Sour Cherry Turnover
Apple-achian Treasure
Vegan Baked Alaska
Muffins Masks Murder
Tai Chi and Chai Tea
Santa Shortbread
Cold as Ice Cream
Changing Fortune Cookies
Hot on the Trail Mix
Recipes from Auntie Clem's Bakery
* * *
Zachary Goldman Mysteries
She Wore Mourning
His Hands Were Quiet
She Was Dying Anyway
He Was Walking Alone
They Thought He was Safe
He Was Not There
Her Work Was Everything
She Told a Lie
He Never Forgot
She Was At Risk
* * *
Kenzie Kirsch Medical Thrillers
Unlawful Harvest
Doctored Death (Coming soon)
Dosed to Death (Coming soon)
Gentle Angel (Coming soon)
* * *
Parks Pat Mysteries
Out with the Sunset (Coming Soon)
Long Climb to the Top (Coming Soon)
Dark Water Under the Bridge (Coming Soon)
* * *
High-Tech Crime Solvers Series
Virtually Harmless
* * *
Cowritten with D. D. VanDyke
California Corwin P. I. Mystery Series
The Girl in the Morgue
* * *
Stand Alone Suspense Novels
Looking Over Your Shoulder
Lion Within
Pursued by the Past
In the Tick of Time
Loose the Dogs
* * *
YOUNG ADULT FICTION:
* * *
Medical Kidnap Files:
Mito
EDS
Proxy
Toxo
Pain
* * *
Between the Cracks:
Ruby
June and Justin
Michelle
Chloe
Ronnie
June, Into the Light
* * *
Tamara’s Teardrops:
Tattooed Teardrops
Two Teardrops
Tortured Teardrops
Vanishing Teardrops
* * *
Breaking the Pattern:
Deviation
Diversion
By-Pass
* * *
Stand Alone YA novels
Stand Alone
Don’t Forget Steven
Those Who Believe
Cynthia has a Secret
Questing for a Dream
Once Brothers
Intersexion
Making Her Mark
Endless Change
Gem, Himself, Alone
* * *
AND MORE AT PDWORKMAN.COM
About the Author
Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author P.D. (Pamela) Workman writes riveting mystery/suspense and young adult books dealing with mental illness, addiction, abuse, and other real-life issues. For as long as she can remember, the blank page has held an incredible allure and from a very young age she was trying to write her own books.
* * *
Workman wrote her first complete novel at the age of twelve and continued to write as a hobby for many years. She started publishing in 2013. She has won several literary awards from Library Services for Youth in Custody for her young adult fiction. She currently has over 70 published titles and can be found at pdworkman.com.
* * *
Born and raised in Alberta, Workman has been married for over 25 years and has one son.
Please visit P.D. Workman at pdworkman.com to see what else she is working on, to join her mailing list, and to link to her social networks.
If you enjoyed this book, please take the time to recommend it to other purchasers with a review or star rating and share it with your friends!
Without Foresight Page 25