by Dianna Love
Mom smiled a greeting at Ro, and, steamer in hand, gestured to the pink coat. “Do you think this coat needs something?”
Despite wearing the mink in fifty-five degree weather, Ro had a blazing sense of style.
The thing about Ro, she might be beautiful, but she’d take someone down if necessary. Which is what happened when Tiffy Nelson tried to beat up a much smaller Lucie in the third grade. Ro, being one of the cool girls, stepped in and put the fear of God into Tiffy. From that point on, nobody messed with Lucie. And Lucie never forgot what Ro had done for her. That’s what Italian girls did. They protected their friends. Without question. In Lucie’s crazy world, friendships like that were a gift.
Ro fingered the pink coat. “This is obviously for a small dog, yes?”
Lucie nodded.
“Rhinestones around the collar. Just a few.” She zeroed in on another coat. “But, honey, this animal print is a hot mess.”
Lucie scooped up the offending jacket. “What’s wrong with it?”
“You cannot mix multicolor stones with an animal print. Well, you could, but your high-end people won’t buy it. This is too trashy for your line.”
Coco Barknell.
Lucie stared at the animal print. “I’ll take the stones off and put them on the pink one.”
Ro’s lips parted and she gasped. “Have I taught you nothing? You need tiny rhinestones for the pink one. These blue stones will be a disaster on that coat.”
Here we go with the drama.
“You know what?” Ro continued. “I’m going to help you out here. Nothing leaves this house until I sign off. I will not let you take anything gaudy to these uber-rich people. They’ll eat you alive. I love you too much to let that happen.”
No one ever said Lucie was the next Donna Karan. Besides, she hated dreaming up new designs. “Deal. I’ll even pay you.”
“You’ll pay me? Slap yourself.” Her gaze moved to Lucie’s navy sweater and khaki pants. “Go change. You’ve had a rough couple of days with these dognappings. I’m taking you to dinner.”
Lucie puckered.
“You are not wearing that. You look like a first grade teacher.”
“What’s wrong with first grade teachers?”
“Nothing, if you are one, which you’re not. Now go.” She waved her red tipped fingers. “Chop, chop.”
Lucie turned to her mother. “When Joey gets back, would you please ask him if he moved that spreadsheet? It has hand written projections on it and I need it.”
Not to mention, she didn’t want the names and addresses of her “uber-rich” clients floating around. God only knew who Joey paraded through here and what they would do with that information.
Mom stood. “Sorry, honey, I’m going out. It’s casino night at church and I told Father Hugh I’d be there.”
“Does Joey know you’re going? Seeing as you’re not allowed to leave the stoop without him knowing where you’ve gone.”
Joey’s overprotectiveness had been getting on Mom’s nerves lately, and Lucie couldn’t help but tease her about it.
“He’d better not be on the porch tonight when I get home. He embarrassed me to no end with that stunt.”
“He’s a total nutball.” Lucie said to Ro. “Mom went out to dinner with some friends one night, didn’t tell Joey, and then had the nerve to forget to turn her cell phone on. Joey was stalking the front lawn when Mom’s friend dropped her off. Before she even got out of the car, he started hollering about her checking in once in a while. Ugly scene. ”
“That’s actually kind of hot,” Ro said. “All that protectiveness?”
“Ew.”
“You don’t see it because he’s your brother. Trust me. It’s hot.”
Mom shook off a cringe. “I love him, but he’s twisted.”
No matter what kind of lunacy invaded this house, Mom always loved them. That alone earned Lucie’s undying adoration. “I’ll tell him you’re at church. Leave your phone on.”
“Yes, dear.” Mom kissed her cheek, grabbed her purse from the buffet and walked out the back door.
Ro continued her inspection of coats. “This piece is a total loss.” She stopped at the large rhinestone on the neckline of one of the items and let out a low whistle. “Hello, my sweet.”
“What?” Lucie asked.
“You used a real diamond on here?”
Lucie rolled her eyes. What the hell was Ro thinking? Real diamonds. Why use real stones on dog accessories? Furthermore, where would she get the money for such an expense?
“It’s not real. That coat was from the first batch. I used whatever stones I found in my attic stash.”
“Luce, I’m telling you, this is a real stone.”
A banging started behind Lucie’s eyes. Maybe it was panic, she wasn’t sure, but she flicked a glance to the stone in question.
When Ro reached across the table to inspect another coat, Lucie moved beside her. “How can that be?”
Ro tilted her head. “Are you questioning whether I can tell the difference between real and fake stones?”
Point scored there. “Well…no, but I don’t understand how it could be real.”
Ro motioned to the empty Notre Dame glass sitting on the table. “Give me that,”
Lucie handed it over. “Why?”
After tapping on the outside of the glass, Ro set it upside down on the table. “We’ll do a scratch test. Diamonds are the hardest stones. If this stone is real, it’ll scratch the glass. The harder mineral will always scratch the softer one.”
Now that was impressive. At least Lucie thought so. “I can’t believe you know that.”
“I did research when we were shopping for my wedding ring.”
If Ro was right about the diamond, they had problems. First, how did a real diamond get into the craft supplies? Were there others? And, more importantly, who did it belong to?
Had Lucie unknowingly been selling real stones? “Let’s do this test.”
She could go straight to hell for this. Bless me, Father for I have sinned, I had no idea I was selling someone else’s jewelry.
Had this sparkling stone caused the chaos of the past two days?
The stone clinked upon contact with the glass, but went silent as Ro dragged it across the surface. The only sound in the room became a mixture of soft breathing and a hissing from the floor vent as the furnace kicked on.
Suddenly, Ro gasped and Lucie craned to see a smooth white line in the stone’s trail.
“Oh, crap,” Lucie said before everything went black.
Chapter Four
“Wake up, sister.”
Ro’s voice. Time to get up. Lucie’s eyelids sat like bricks over her eyes. No movement.
Something pointy dug into her hip. “Wake up.”
Gentle Ro had left the building. No mistake there. Lucie squeezed her eyes shut then tried to open them again. Too heavy. Finally, she wrenched her eyelids up. Ro stood over her, eyebrows drawn together, looking…pissed off. Typical. “What happened?”
“You passed out.” Ro held out her hand to help Lucie sit up.
That’s right. The vision of Ro scraping the stone against the glass flashed in Lucie’s mind. Ohmygod.
“You okay? Can you get to a chair?”
Lucie pushed off the floor and into a chair. “I don’t understand.”
Ro picked up the coat with the diamond. “We need to figure out what we’re dealing with here. None of these other stones look real. They’re also smaller than the real one. Where did this big one come from?”
Was Ro swaying? Lucie dropped her head into her hands. “All the stones I used in the beginning came from the box in the attic. I hadn’t touched that box since I was in college.”
Ro scratched the remaining stones against the glass and tossed them aside. Obviously nothing amiss. “So, you took them from the box and then what?”
“Nothing. I started playing with different designs. Most of the stones were separated into bags by size. On
e bag had different sized stones, but I didn’t think much of it.” She pointed at the diamond. “I took this stone from that bag.”
“Where’s the bag?”
“Upstairs.” Lucie jumped from her chair, felt a wave of vertigo slam her and steadied herself against the table. “Ro, were those poor dogs stolen so the diamonds could be recovered? The stupid dognappers didn’t know I never used the real stone on anything but the test coat.”
“Don’t get crazy. Let’s just see what we’ve got here.”
Joey.
That made no sense though. He knew she was using the supplies from the attic and never bothered to stop her. He was an ass, but he wouldn’t put her in danger. Never. She charged up the stairs and retrieved the bag of odd-sized stones from her desk.
Lucie handed the bag to Ro and dialed Joey’s cell.
“What is it? I’m working.”
Working. Whatever. “Can you come home for five minutes? Ro and I need to show you something,”
“Is Roseanne running through the house naked?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t come home.”
Lucie gripped the phone tighter because marching around the block and bludgeoning him with a barstool suddenly seemed like a good idea. “I need you to come home. Now.”
“Seems to me it’s all about what you need lately. I’m filled up.”
Leave it to him to make this difficult. Fine. She’d play. “Okay. Ro and I will figure out how a real diamond got into my craft stuff. Thanks for your help, jackass.” She hung up, punching the button so hard she split a nail. Damn him for that, too.
“I’m guessing he’s not coming home,” Ro cracked.
“Not unless you’re naked.”
She tapped her fingers against her lips. “No. I won’t do that.”
She’d actually considered it?
“I’ll have to check the diamond chart I have, but this stone looks to be about fifteen to twenty carats.”
Holy cow. Even as she dropped into the chair, Lucie wondered if the boulder in her chest would eventually suffocate her. She grabbed the phone again. “I’ll try Frankie.” She stared at Ro while waiting for the line to connect. “I don’t understand how you can be so calm.”
Ro began checking the remaining stones. “I may appear calm, but I am, in fact, about to birth a double-wide.”
Four rings later, just before Lucie’s call went to voicemail, Frankie picked up. “How’s it going over there?”
“Terrible.”
The clickety-clack of his keyboard in the background went silent. “This should be good.”
The back door opened and Lucie stepped into the doorway separating the kitchen and dining room to see who it was. Joey. “I thought you were busy cracking skulls.”
Joey stomped into the dining room. “What’s this crap about diamonds?”
“What diamonds?” Frankie wanted to know.
She focused on her brother. “Oh, now you’re willing to help?”
“What diamonds?” Frankie yelled.
“Hang on.” Lucie punched the speaker button and placed the phone on the dining room table. “I’m going to do this once and the two of you can enlighten me.”
“Uh-oh,” Frankie said.
“Ro just informed me that I used a real diamond on my first dog coat.”
“Please.” This from Frankie. “I think you’d know if you were using real jewels.” A hesitation. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Apparently not. Ro did a scratch test to prove it. The stone left a groove in the bottom of a glass. And she thinks it’s fifteen carats.”
Silence crowded the room. Even fat-mouthed Joey was struck mute.
“How the hell?” Frankie finally said.
“That’s what I want to know.” She turned to Joey. “Well?”
“You think I put it there? Newsflash, genius; if I wanted to hide a real diamond, I’d do a hell of a lot better than putting it in your craft crap.”
“That makes sense,” Ro said. “He’s no dummy.”
All true. Never hurt to ask though.
“Frankie?” Lucie asked. “Have you heard anything about this? Maybe from the guys at Petey’s?”
“Hell no. I’d have told you.”
Of course he would have, but desperation made a girl think odd things and Frankie holding out on her would be odd. Lucie sighed. “We need to figure out who this diamond belongs to.”
“Could it be your dad’s?” Frankie asked.
“I doubt it,” Joey said. “He’d have told me in case I had to move it.”
Lucie twisted her fingers together. “Neither of you has heard about a diamond? Nothing?”
“Not me,” Frankie said. “But the guys don’t talk about that stuff in front of me.”
Joey looked pensive. “I’d have heard.”
“It has to be stolen. Why else would it be hidden in my things?”
And wasn’t that a screwed up scenario. Harboring stolen jewelry. They could all go to prison when they hadn’t even known about the stone. The police would never believe that.
Not from the Rizzo clan.
Lucie put her hand over her mouth in case the screaming in her head broke free. How the hell would they get out of this? Joe Rizzo’s family involved in stolen jewelry. Nobody would bat an eye.
Trying to contain her internal hysteria, she turned to Joey. “We can’t tell Mom. Whatever this is, she can’t be involved. I don’t want her to worry. She’s been through enough with Dad.”
“Luce,” Frankie said in his deep, strong voice. “Calm down.”
So, apparently, containing her hysteria wasn’t working. Screw it. “How can I calm down? This is a nightmare.”
“No kidding there,” Ro said.
Lucie pressed both palms into her forehead. “We have to figure out how that stone got into the attic.”
***
That night, Frankie stopped by the Rizzo’s after finishing at the newspaper. Lucie couldn’t remember a time she’d been so happy to see him. Simply put, Frankie deflated chaos.
They stood in the dining room, staring at the newly discovered diamond in his hand.
“Wow,” he said.
Total understatement. She’d stepped in deep doo-doo this time. She leaned her head against his shoulder, felt the soft cotton of his dress shirt against her cheek and took sanctuary in the feel of him next to her. “This stone has to be what the dognappers are after.”
Frankie held the diamond against the light. “I don’t know.”
The wall clock chimed midnight. She could sleep for a week. “I checked my files. The stolen dogs all have coats and collars I made.”
Using his index finger, Frankie rolled the diamond in his hand. “Are we sure this is real?”
“According to Ro.”
“And she became a gemologist when?”
Lucie eyeballed him. “This is Ro. She doesn’t need a degree to spot a real stone.”
He stared at her as if one of her eyes was hanging out. “And you guys went through all the other stones in the bag?”
“Yes. All fakes.”
Frankie laughed, but the sound—that little bit of sarcasm—expressed itself as anger. “Someone’s mutt could have been walking around with fifteen-carats on a collar.”
If Lucie had used the real diamond, yes. She didn’t want to think about what would have happened then. “I need to hunt down every item I’ve sold and check for real diamonds.”
“That’ll be a job.”
“I don’t have a choice. If the dognappings are related to this, I can’t have my clients in danger.”
At some point, with any luck, she’d find it all humorous. Lately, though, luck had been running last in the stretch. She grunted and dropped into one of the dining room chairs.
“You okay?” Frankie asked.
Not so much. No. “I don’t think so.”
Stepping behind her, he set his hands on her shoulders and drove his fingers into aching muscles. “Your s
houlders are tight.”
“Can you blame me? I lost my job, moved back to the nuthouse and now I’m into diamond trafficking. I can handle the job loss and the nuthouse. The stolen jewelry taxes me.”
Side note: check the penalties for unknowingly harboring stolen diamonds.
“First off,” Frankie said, “we don’t know anything is stolen.”
Despite the fact that his magic thumbs were plowing through the knots in her shoulders, Lucie shifted toward him. “You think this thing is a family heirloom that accidentally wound up in a box in the attic?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
Lucie bolted from the chair and headed for the stairs. “I didn’t check the attic for more stones. I have another box up there.”
“What about your mom?”
“She’s in her room. I’ll tell her I’m getting supplies down. She won’t think anything of it.”
Ten minutes later, they dumped the box on the dining room table and were sifting through each of the plastic bags. Lucie wasn’t sure she’d recognize a real diamond, but at least now, she knew how to test anything suspicious.
She studied a large stone, dragged it against her trusty Notre Dame glass. Nothing. Thank you. “Frankie, I should be down at police headquarters telling them about the diamond. But if I do that, it’ll look like someone in my family—namely my father—is into something hinky. And what if, insane as it might be, my father is innocent? The cops will never believe him.”
Being a bright guy, Frankie held up his hands, obviously surrendering to the idea that, as much as the situation stunk, she was right.
“How about I talk to my father about this? He’ll find out who the diamond belongs to and kick someone’s ass for being stupid enough to hide it in your house.”
“No. I don’t want him involved. It’ll just make things worse.”
Nobody messed with a boss. Or his family. And if they did, they suffered. One way or another, they suffered. She didn’t want to live with that. Nope. Not gonna happen. They were on their own with this one.
And she had clients to think about. What a mess. “I can’t put the dogs in danger by walking them. I could be a target.”
Frankie scratched his knuckles along the side of his face. “Hang on. Either Joey or I will walk with you. If you get dogjacked again, we’ll nab the guy. I promise you, Luce, no other dogs will get boosted while you’re walking them.”