His nerves tightened at the sound of someone coming down the hall. The heavy footsteps paused outside his door. He swung his legs off the bed, grabbed his gun, and got to his feet. He saw a piece of paper lying on the floor. Obviously someone had slipped it under the door. Ignoring that for the moment, he looked through the peephole. The hall was empty. He opened the door to check. No one was there. Closing the door, he picked up the paper and turned it over. There was a color photograph of Christina from the party, posed at the entrance to the gallery in her black dress, the yellow diamond gleaming against her skin. The caption read, She’s pretty, and she’s mine. You know you can’t stop me. Why do you even try?
J.T. blew out a breath of frustration. He’d seen enough notes from Evan to recognize his handwriting and his taunts. Evan loved to make sure J.T. was paying attention. And it was clear Evan intended to use Christina. Did she know it? Was she a willing partner? Was she working to set him up? Anger raced through J.T.’s body. If she was involved, she was going to be very, very sorry.
Debating for one long minute whether he wanted to get Christina on the phone, he decided to go another route. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the home number of his assistant, Tracy Delgado. Tracy had been with him for four years and knew almost as much about Evan as he did. She was probably asleep and would give him hell for waking her up, but it wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.
As expected, Tracy answered the phone in an annoyed voice. “This had better be important, Mac.”
“It is. I need you to find out everything you can about Christina Alberti. Oh, and while you’re at it, check out her father. I think his name is Marcus Alberti.”
“Christina, got it. She’s the woman at the auction house?”
“That’s right.”
“Is tomorrow good enough?” she asked. “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”
He heard a man’s voice in the background and suspected he’d caught Tracy at a very bad time. Sometimes he forgot that other people had actual lives. “Tomorrow is fine. Oh, and I also need you to track down a Professor Howard Keaton. He works at a museum in Vancouver. He’s probably staying at a hotel in San Francisco.”
“That’s all you know?”
“For now. Call me tomorrow -- as soon as you can. Evan’s plan is already in motion, and I don’t want to be the last one to find out what it is.”
* * *
When Christina arrived at the small lab on the first floor of Barclay’s Auction House where they conducted their jewelry appraisals, she was shocked to find her part-time assistant, David Padlinsky, looking through the gem scope at the Benedetti diamond. David, a grad student from Berkeley, had joined Barclay’s a month earlier. Somewhere in his late twenties, he looked more like a rock star than a historian, with a diamond earring in one ear and long dark hair that today was swept back in a ponytail. A thick beard and mustache covered the lower half of his face. But it wasn’t his appearance that upset Christina; it was his actions.
“What are you doing?” she asked shortly.
“Setting up the scope for you.” He straightened up, giving her a curious look. “Is something wrong?”
She hesitated, realizing there were more people in the room than usual. Normally she did her work in the lab on her own or with David, but today Alexis and Stefano Benedetti were also present, as well as J.T., who was currently following every word of the conversation between her and David. “No, nothing is wrong,” she said.
“What’s with the audience?” David murmured, as she joined him by the worktable.
She shrugged. “Everyone wants to make sure the diamond is all right.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“No reason.”
David sent her an odd look, but she didn’t want to explain. She pulled up a tall stool and sat down, adjusting the scope so she could examine the diamond. David opened a file on the adjacent computer screen that showed a digital drawing of the diamond from several angles. She would compare her findings to the initial appraisal conducted by their associate in Florence.
First, she wanted to look at the clasp on the chain. She moved the necklace under the eye of the scope. The clasp was very old and ornate but didn’t appear to be broken or loose. Perhaps it just hadn’t been attached properly the night before. She tried to remember who had closed the clasp. There had been so many people around her, Alexis, Jeremy, Sylvia -- wait, Sylvia. Christina distinctly remembered the head of public relations taking the necklace from Alexis and fastening it around her neck. Sylvia must not have snapped it all the way closed. She probably wouldn’t admit to that, though. She was tight with Alexis, and very ambitious. She wouldn’t want to be blamed for the necklace falling off of Christina’s neck.
“Well?” J.T. demanded in an impatient voice. “What do you see?”
“The clasp looks good,” she murmured.
“So why did it break?” he asked, stepping forward.
She wished she could tell him to move back. His nearness was distracting. She could smell the musky scent of his cologne and feel the heat of his breath on the back of her neck. She didn’t know why he had to be so close. She forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. “The clasp must not have been hooked properly.”
“You would have thought someone would have made sure it was,” J.T. replied.
She moved the stone under the scope. She would normally conduct a lengthy examination, but today she didn’t have time for more than the basics. They had a reporter and photographer coming for a photo shoot at ten. As she looked at the stone, she reviewed the diamond’s culet and girdle thickness along with polish and symmetry, also checking for indicators of diamond treatments or synthetics, then compared them to the statistics listed on the initial report. She reviewed the diamond’s brightness, fire, sparkle and pattern, weight ratio and durability as well.
Everything seemed to match...but something bothered her.
“May I?” Stefano asked.
She looked up and saw the eagerness in his eyes. Just behind him, Alexis gave a nod of approval, so Christina stepped aside. No one spoke as Stefano studied the stone. She grew uneasy as his review went on for several minutes. Was something wrong? He seemed to be taking a long time to reassure himself that everything was fine. And while he might not be interested in the stone’s history, he appeared to be educated enough to know how to study a gem for evaluation purposes.
Finally, he nodded and stepped away. “Grazie.” He turned to Alexis. “I’d like to run through the rest of the collection now.”
“It’s in the other room,” Alexis said with a relieved smile. “I’ll take you.” She paused at the door. “Christina, I’ll see you in the gallery for the photo shoot.”
As Alexis and Stefano left the room, Christina turned to David. “You can go, too. I’ll just finish up my notes.”
David appeared disappointed. “Are you sure you don’t need my help?”
“I’m fine. Thanks.” When David left the lab, she was alone with J.T. “Don’t you have something else to do? Weren’t you going to track down Michael Torrance or Professor Keaton?”
“I’m working on that.”
“Really? How are you working on that if you’re standing here with me?”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. And stop trying to get rid of me. I might start to wonder why you want to be in this room alone with the diamond.”
“There are two guards outside the door, and no other escape routes.”
“I noticed.”
She sighed. “Fine, if you want to stand there and watch, go ahead. I must say I thought FBI agents led more exciting lives.”
“Sarcasm will not get rid of me. I have a very thick skin. So is this diamond really worth fifteen million dollars?” J.T. asked.
“It’s worth whatever anyone will pay for it.”
“But you expect to get something in that range?”
“Yes. There are only a limited number of colored diamonds in e
xistence, especially of this size. It’s one of a kind.”
“And it’s been sitting in some family vault for a hundred years?”
“That’s as much as I know.”
“Seems you’d want to know more before you sold it. Isn’t there some danger that the claims of ownership are fraudulent?”
“Not in this case. The Benedettis provided ample proof of ownership.” She met his gaze head-on. “There have been a few scandals over the years, but not at Barclay’s. Our house has an impeccable reputation, and it’s going to stay that way.” She took another look through the scope. She wanted to get rid of any lingering doubts about the diamond’s authenticity. If the diamond was a copy, it was excellent, a perfect match, right down to the flaws. Or was it? Her heart began to race.
She wanted to read through the report again. She wanted to move back and forth between the scope and the computer screen, but she didn’t want to raise J.T.’s suspicions. If she implied that there was anything wrong with the diamond, he would be all over her. He’d suggest that she’d switched it with the professor. After all, Professor Keaton’s tie had been in her office. And J.T. already thought she was being conned by Evan. She had to think. She had to buy herself some time.
Maybe she was wrong. It was possible. Stefano Benedetti hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. Sometimes flaws could be detected only under particular lighting conditions, especially small mineral inclusions.
She could take a few minutes to think. There were only a few people in the world who had the ability to copy a diamond of this magnitude. Who would know how to find those people? One man came to mind. And she knew just how to find him. He’d already told her where he would be when he’d called her the night before. But first she had to get through the next hour without J.T. suspecting anything was wrong.
“Everything all right?” J.T. asked.
“Perfect,” she lied. “Everything is perfect.”
Chapter Four
He’d asked her to meet him at the San Francisco Zoo by the lion’s cage at noon. Christina knew the clandestine meeting appealed to her father’s sense of drama. They’d played out many such meetings in the past. Marcus Alberti loved action, excitement, suspense, and intrigue. She suspected that in his own head he was more James Bond than academic historian. He had spent his life researching the past, but over the past two decades his desire to become more of an active participant than an observer had changed him. It hadn’t been enough for him to read about great adventurers; he’d wanted to be one.
She hadn’t realized just how far he would take this desire until it was too late. It had all started out so innocently, with such a sense of justice. Her father had become obsessed with setting right the wrongs that had been done in the art world. He believed that works of art that had been stolen during times of war or other turbulence should be returned to their rightful owners. It was a laudable goal. Until his arrogance got in the way. Until he started bending the rules, stealing back items from those who believed themselves to be the legal owners. At some point her father had lost track of what was right and what was wrong, and she’d found herself in that same hazy gray area with him.
She’d been his partner in crime; only she hadn’t realized it until it was too late, until the ties that bound them together began to unravel. She had never thought they would be as estranged as they were now. She had never thought there would come a day when she would never want to see him again, not want him to be part of her life, but that day had arrived. That day was now.
Why had he returned to San Francisco? He’d promised he would stay away from her, play his games elsewhere. What had changed? She had to find out.
Christina paused by the entrance to the zoo to take a look behind her. She hoped no one, specifically J.T., had followed her. When she’d left Barclay’s, J.T. had been reviewing videotape from the security cameras to see if they could figure out who had set the smoke bombs. She’d told David that if J.T. asked, to let him know she had gone to lunch and would be back around two o’clock. Hopefully that would buy her enough time to meet her father and figure out whether or not he was in any way involved with the diamond.
The street behind her held no familiar faces, so she entered the zoo and bought a ticket. A large number of schoolchildren milled around the entrance, and a tram was loading up for its next trip around the park. Off in the distance was the carousel she’d ridden so many times with her father. The familiar music made her feel a little sad that those happy, carefree days were gone. One thing about her dad -- he’d made her childhood fun. A born teacher, he’d wanted to expose her to everything. He’d encouraged her to learn as much as she could, to be curious, to ask questions.
Now she was curious about him, what he was up to, and how it could affect her. She walked through the zoo, barely glancing at the tall giraffes, enormous elephants, squealing birds, and howling monkeys. She was too worried about what was coming next. She’d worked so hard to build a life for herself after losing everything five years earlier. She didn’t want to have to start over again.
She stood by the railing looking at the expansive cage that housed the lions. It was the middle of the day, when sometimes the big cats were sleeping. Finally, she saw one lion deep in the brush. He raised his head, as if wondering what had disturbed him; then he settled back down, but not all the way down, his eyes still open, his body positioned to spring or flee at any second. His instincts were on full alert. That was exactly the way she felt whenever her father was around, as if she couldn’t let down her guard for one second.
Not that this lion had much to fear in a controlled zoo environment.
It seemed wrong to have such noble creatures behind bars. Wouldn’t they be much happier running free in the wild? Wasn’t that where they really belonged?
She smiled to herself. Maybe she wasn’t as different from her father as she liked to think. Freeing the lions was something Marcus Alberti had always wanted to do. It was just another example of his romantic, impractical mind-set.
The hairs on the back of her neck began to tingle. A shadow fell across the pavement next to her. She turned her head. A man stood beside her, a fishing hat on his head, dark glasses hiding his expression, a beige windbreaker over his tan slacks. He looked like any other tourist, but when he turned to gaze at her, she caught her breath at the familiar grin.
Marcus pulled off his glasses so she could see his dark brown eyes. He’d always had ridiculously long eyelashes, of which she’d been extremely jealous. There was no doubt that her father was a handsome man, one who smiled with his eyes as well as his mouth. His sideburns showed streaks of gray, and there were a few more lines on his face, but that was to be expected; he was in his early sixties, after all. Not that he ever seemed to age. In his own head she doubted he ever felt older than twenty-five. He was still reckless, still optimistic, still filled with dreams of what he could achieve. Was that laudable or stupidly unrealistic?
“How’s my sweetheart?” He opened his arms, and for a moment she wanted to move into his embrace, hug him tight, the way she had so many times before. But she held back, and his eyes filled with disappointment. His hands dropped to his sides and he dug them into his pockets. “You are not happy to see me,” he said heavily.
“Should I be? What’s going on, Dad? Why the mystery meeting?”
“I’m worried about you, Christina.” His expression was somber, concerned.
“How could you be worried about me? I haven’t seen you in over a year or talked to you in the last three months. You don’t know what’s going on in my life, do you?”
“I stayed away because that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” he challenged.
“Yes, that’s what I wanted,” she admitted. “And it bothers me that you’ve chosen to come back now, when Barclay’s is about to auction off a very valuable diamond.”
“That is why I’ve come back,” he admitted.
His candor shocked and disappointed her. “Oh, Dad.”
“It’s not what you think. I came to warn you, Christina. The diamond is dangerous. It is cursed.”
His words echoed her conversation with the professor. Were they working together? “I heard that yesterday from an old friend of yours, Professor Keaton. Do you remember him? He was at the preview party last night.”
“Yes, of course, I remember Howard. He told you about the curse of the diamond?”
“Not in any detail. But when I asked Mr. Benedetti to confirm the story, he said it wasn’t true.”
Her father’s lips formed a taut line. “He’s lying. Vittorio Benedetti wants to get rid of the diamond and the curse. That’s why he’s selling the stone, why he wants it out of his family.”
His words made her uneasy, but she tried to dismiss his worry. “Even if there is a curse, it has nothing to do with me. I’m not going to buy the diamond.”
“But you’ve touched it, worn it. I am afraid for you, Christina, afraid of what curse you may have unleashed upon yourself. I don’t want you to touch it again.”
“You’re going to have to tell me more if you want me to understand.”
“Good versus evil, two sides of the same stone, Christina. In its rightful place the diamond bestows great luck. Taken from that place, it devours with evil all those who covet it.”
Despite her resolve to remain skeptical, his words sent a chill down her spine. Her father certainly had a dramatic flair.
“Don’t touch the diamond again,” he continued. “Call in sick. Let someone else handle the auction. Stay away from Barclay’s until the diamond is gone.”
“You know I can’t do that. It’s my job.”
He shook his head in frustration. “I don’t understand how you can work at an auction house, how you can sell priceless works of art as if they were merchandise like shoes or toilet paper. I taught you to respect the past, not to make a profit from it. That diamond belongs in Italy.”
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