Dead Cold Brew

by Cleo Coyle

  He grunted from exertion. Then I heard a faint, faraway clattering.

  The man had tossed Lori’s ammunition into the parking lot.

  What the? Why did he do that?!

  The door closed and he stomped down the hall, passing the office again.

  This was my chance and I took it. I grabbed the nearest heavy object—which turned out to be a beautiful magnum of Moët & Chandon Nectar Impérial.

  Clutching the full champagne bottle with both hands, I peeked around the door. The guard was bent double and grunting again, as he went through Lori’s pockets, scattering the contents on the floor and stealing what he wanted.

  This new violation turned some switch inside my brain, and righteous anger filled my being—or maybe it really was the spirit of the bridge cat!

  Whatever it was, I didn’t hesitate.

  I kicked off those cruel shoes, and in five quiet-as-a-cat steps I padded up to the Lyons guy. He was still bent over his victim when I brought the bottle down on the back of his head with all my rage-fueled might!

  He’d grunted a lot in the brief time I’d known him. But the Lyons guy didn’t grunt this time—he silently toppled to the linoleum like a felled ox.

  Amazingly, the bottle didn’t even crack. I set it down, fearing the shaking would cause the cork to pop. Then I dropped to my knees to check on Lori.

  She was breathing—labored because her fast-purpling nose was probably broken. Beyond that I didn’t know how she fared, only that I couldn’t wake her.

  I reached for the gun. Then I remembered the clip was gone.

  What was the point of tossing the ammo into the parking lot?

  My silent question was answered by a voice coming from the garage—a disturbingly familiar voice. Trying to place it, I listened harder . . .

  “A diamond is the hardest natural substance on Earth, Mr. Allegro, but place one in an oxygen-rich environment and heat it to fourteen hundred degrees, and that gem will vanish without a trace. Not even ash will remain. . . .”

  As the voice droned on, I peeked into the climate-controlled room and saw the usual bounty of coffee packed in agricultural sacks. Then I noticed something sinister. Several industrial-sized oxygen canisters were scattered about, their valves open and hissing.

  I checked the climate-monitoring controls. The nitrogen in which the raw cherries were stored had been replaced by pure oxygen—enough to blow up this entire building with a single spark.

  No wonder the Lyons man was scared, I realized. A gunshot could ignite the gas, and Matt’s warehouse will blow like the Hindenburg—

  Wait. Did I just say Hindenburg?

  That’s when I fully realized that the voice I overhead speaking in Matt’s garage had mentioned that doomed airship just a few hours ago.

  My “theory” wasn’t a theory anymore.

  Victor Fontana really is behind it all!

  “Think of it, Mr. Allegro,” Fontana went on. “A diamond as large and precious and ancient as your Eye of the Cat, gone in a flash. But you needn’t worry. I won’t let that happen. The Eye of the Cat belongs to me now, though I must make the world think it’s lost forever.”

  Inside the folds of my battered Marc Jacobs dress, a vibration announced a text from Quinn.

  Gang + loot grabbed. No Matt! On way ETA 15 mins.

  I texted back.

  I M in warehouse. HURRY! Lori down. Needs RX. NO GUNS!!! Place like a bomb, will blow!

  I quickly tucked the phone away and left the empty gun. Grabbing my trusty champagne bottle, I carried it like a bludgeon as I padded silently to the garage doorway.

  EIGHTY-NINE

  “TAKE the Eye and shove it down your smokestack, Fontana,” I heard Matt say. “And I hope the jewel’s bad luck sinks your new Andrea Doria, too!”

  I peeked around the half-open door.

  Talk about a captive audience!

  Matt was in the middle of the loading dock, perched on a stack of steel storage boxes, the Lyons paw logo clearly visible on each one. His hands were tied behind his back, but his feet were free.

  Stacked around him were more containers. One had spilled, and a torrent of diamonds glittered on the rough concrete.

  Leaning against Matt just to remain upright, Eduardo De Santis, still in his tux, seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness, and I wondered if he’d been given the old “sweet dreams” treatment.

  That was more than a possibility, because Carla, the South African “law school student” and “lekker dux” girl, was standing beside Fontana, expertly spinning an open switchblade between manicured fingers.

  Both had their backs to me, but suddenly I was spotted—by Matt. I saw relief in his eyes. Hoping for a rescue, he attempted to distract his captors.

  “I know how you tricked De Santis,” Matt goaded. “But how did you pick me for your patsy?”

  Fontana folded his arms. “I heard your story from your soon-to-be ex-wife. Yes, I knew the woman at the party wasn’t Breanne, but I played along until I had the opportunity to kidnap her along with your mother—all the better to insure your cooperation.”

  Matt cursed him, but Fontana just laughed. “I know it’s not fair, but you’ve had a lot of bumps lately, haven’t you? Tax liens, Third World charity cases bleeding you dry. Now a nasty divorce. You’re close to losing it all—and desperate men are easy to manipulate.”

  Fontana paused to pull his Harry Potter glasses from his lapel and clean them with a silk handkerchief.

  “Club Town Eddy was easy to frame,” Fontana continued. “A near-conviction, shady shell corporations, ties to places and things that could be used to incriminate him. Like you, De Santis needed money. So I enlisted him in my jewel heist before I turned on him. You were a little tougher—that honest streak of yours—and I thought about putting my Carla on your case.”

  “That would have been fun,” Carla said with a lascivious smile. “More fun than old man De Santis.”

  “My apologies, Carla, but I needed someone to keep close tabs on him.”

  “And you obviously needed my warehouse and my business,” Matt spat.

  “Which is why I baited you with a chance at winning a lucrative contract.” Fontana smirked. “Mission accomplished. And when the dust settles, the police will be convinced De Santis was the mastermind behind the robbery and the cop shootings. And they’ll easily believe you helped.”

  “Yeah, genius, except I haven’t spoken a word to De Santis in years!”

  Fontana’s smirk turned into a grimace. “With the mountain of evidence I’m providing, the police won’t care. They’ll assume you brought the vault contents back here when they find these metal cases. They’ll find the weapon used in the cop shootings. And they may even find a few of the low-quality diamonds we’re intentionally leaving behind—”

  He kicked the gems at Matt’s feet, scattering them.

  “The police will conclude that you and De Santis planned to ship the jewels overseas in sacks of coffee. Unfortunately, a tragic accident ended your lives—an oxygen fire so intense it burned this warehouse to the ground and turned the stolen diamonds into smoke. The real diamonds, the valuable ones, won’t be gone, of course . . . they will be mine.”

  I checked my watch. Only two or three minutes had passed. Reinforcements were still a long way off!

  “Do I kill them now?” Carla asked, licking her red lips.

  “Her blood is up, Allegro.” As Fontana spoke, his gaze admiringly raked Carla and her revealing party dress.

  They exchanged a smoldering look that spoke volumes. The pair were lovers, that was clear, and I got the distinct impression Fontana’s little lecture to Matt was some kind of sick baiting game, like a predator playing with prey before the kill.

  “You see, Carla comes from a long line of Afrikaner guides and trackers,” he bragged to Matt. “A big-game h
unter since she was ten, my Jungle Queen was raised on blood sport. In fact, she rather enjoys it. Carla was one of the most sought after safari guides on the continent, and her career might have continued apace, but poor dear Carla helped a rich American tourist kill the wrong lion, a protected lion. So she fled into my waiting arms to avoid an African prison.”

  Fontana caressed the young woman’s shoulder.

  “She made the perfect Panther Man. A sharpshooter who could wound but not kill, then escape while the police searched for a burly man in a ridiculous costume, and ignored the pretty girl with a disassembled rifle in her backpack, one who’d shrewdly established herself in the neighborhood coffee shop as a bright new law student . . .”

  As Fontana spoke, Carla moved behind the bound men. Her party hairdo was coming undone, and her eyes were wild as she twirled the long, thin blade in her hand.

  “I had those stupid cops chasing their own tails,” she boasted. “And tonight Victor’s plan of distraction worked like a dream.”

  “A dream, yes, my love . . . and now it’s time to put our prey to sleep.” Fontana faced Matt again. “Since we cannot use a gun in here, I must rely on Carla. You see, she knows how to kill a wounded animal without damaging its trophy head. A simple jab behind the ear, into the brain, and life ends. Give Mr. Allegro a demonstration.”

  I bit my lip to keep from crying out when Carla plunged the blade into Eduardo De Santis’s skull. As he slid to the floor, blood pooled around the scattered diamonds.

  I saw the paralyzed horror in Matt’s eyes. Still hiding behind the partially open door, I felt the same cold shock freeze my limbs.

  “It’s been delightful to speak with you, Allegro. I seldom have the opportunity to boast of my accomplishments. But now, I fear, our time is up.” He checked his watch and nodded to Carla. “Yes, we’re on schedule. It’s time . . .”

  Omigod, omigod, they’re going to kill Matt, too! I have to do something!

  I knew I couldn’t rush them. They were too far away. Fontana or Carla would notice me long before I reached them. She’d kill Matt in one move and have more than enough time to stop me.

  As the assassin cleaned her blade on De Santis’s jacket, I longed for a loaded gun, fireworks, a bottle rocket—anything to surprise and confuse Fontana and Carla, distract them long enough for Matt to escape. But all of those things could send this warehouse up in flames. And all I had in my hands was warm champagne.

  Wait a minute. Maybe champagne is all I need . . .

  From my catering days I knew two things: with all that carbonation under enormous pressure, you never shook a champagne bottle, and you never opened one that was warm.

  To save my ex-husband, I was about to do both.

  After a good shaking, I broke a nail while I shredded the paper around the bottle’s tip. As I watched Carla step behind Matt, I worked the cork.

  The pop was as spectacular as I hoped it would be—it echoed like a gunshot inside the cavernous garage, making it impossible to pinpoint the source. The cork punctured a neat hole through a high window on the opposite wall, and the noise of breaking glass enhanced the chaos. I added a McNulty-inspired yell to the mix.

  “Freeze, scumbags! NYPD! You’re all under arrest!”

  In a panic, Carla dropped her murder weapon and kicked it away as she faced the broken window.

  Fontana turned to look, too—long enough for Matt to leap off the containers and head butt the billionaire. Both men went down in a heap.

  Carla must have thought a SWAT team or tear gas was about to burst through the windows because she ran right for the door I was hiding behind.

  The sparkling wine was still gushing from the bottle, so I gave her a face full of it, followed by a chemical Mace chaser.

  “That’s for Sully, you twisted bitch!”

  Despite the wine and toxins, Carla had plenty of fight left. But she couldn’t see, so after she slapped me the first time, I sidestepped her second charge and tripped her.

  Carla sprawled flat on her face in the hall, where a grinning Sergeant Franco power-cuffed her.

  Oh, thank goodness, they’re finally here!

  “Stay down,” Franco warned his groaning prisoner. “Or I’ll sic the Coffee Lady back on ya.”

  More officers had arrived through the office door. Two were helping a dazed Lori to an ambulance, so I ran back to the loading dock to check on Matt.

  I found him on his feet, hands still tied, kicking the squealing jewel thief—right up to the moment the garage door rolled open, and Quinn and the rest of his squad stormed in.

  It was Quinn who pulled Matt off his tormentor.

  “Whoa, buddy! Take it easy! We need Fontana alive.”

  I tried to calm Matt by assuring him that his mother was safe, but when Quinn cut the ropes on his wrists, he rushed Fontana again. This time he yanked the Eye of the Cat out of the man’s lapel pocket. Then he slugged the jewel thief, shattering those insufferable boyish glasses.

  “That’s for kidnapping my mother—and my partner!”

  When Quinn and I caught up with him, Matt was swaying from residual shock. Looking a little dazed, he seemed distracted by something on the floor.

  I followed his focus and realized he was staring at his depleted magnum of champagne.

  “Matt? Are you okay?”

  “I will be, Clare,” he said, draping an arm around my shoulders to steady himself. “As long as you didn’t ruin the rest of my Nectar Impérial.”

  “Don’t worry, Allegro,” Quinn said, throwing me a wink. “After the night you’ve had, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  EPILOGUE

  No pressure, no diamonds.

  —THOMAS CARLYLE

  WEEKS later, I threw a coming-home party for Gus Campana at the Village Blend. His daughters—all three of them—attended, along with Hunter Rolf, lawyer Sal Arnold, and the entire staff at the jewelry shop. We celebrated his return with cannoli cupcakes, cold brew coffee, some lively duets performed by Tucker and Punch, and . . . plenty of champagne!

  Gus’s escort for the evening was Madame, who’d gotten much closer to him since the ordeal—and his confession that he was born an Allegro, like her late husband.

  Weak from his suicide attempt and the cancer that was slowly killing him, Gus held court beside the warming hearth, and for those few hours, the travails of the past, the difficulties of the present, and the uncertainty of the future were thrust aside for a celebration of life and hope.

  The mystery of his poisoning boiled down to a simple solution. Gus had lived for the love of his family, and for that family he was willing to kill. But not another.

  To protect his loved ones from a predator, Gus had chosen to kill himself.

  It was a miracle that he failed, but now, with his tormentor gone, Gus discovered that he could live out his remaining year or more in peace—time that would allow him to see wounds healed, harms forgiven, and a family not only reconciled, but expanded. I had no doubt he’d live to see Sophia’s child—his and Angelica’s first grandchild—for the baby was already on the way.

  And what about that other treasure?

  In the months that followed, the Eye of the Cat, that priceless jewel that had divided a family for sixty years, served to unite them in the end. After the failed Diamond District heist, the world learned of the Eye’s existence. And as Matt and Hunter predicted, many greedy hands reached out to grab it.

  The Italian Campanas were the first but not the only sharks to participate in the feeding frenzy. More “interested parties” joined the fray, and by the time it was over—amazingly quickly, by legal standards—the US State Department and the Italian government had become entangled, along with the Smithsonian Institution, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and those friendly folks at the Internal Revenue Service.

  The Byzantine settlement satisfied no one, which was probab
ly best. No party could claim sole ownership, so it was decided that the jewel would be broken up.

  No, the Eye was not divided—the gem was far too precious for that.

  The historic blue diamond, with its distinctive Campana cut, was purchased by the Smithsonian for a small fortune. It would soon be on display in the same hall where the Hope Diamond resided.

  The famous setting that held the Eye was donated to the Uffizi Gallery Museum in Florence with synthetic diamonds replacing the missing stones. Sophia presented it in a formal ceremony, in which (to her delight) she was made an official citizen of Florence.

  In the interest of unity, Sophia also presented a check to the near-destitute Donatella and Bruno Campana. They had avoided prosecution for kidnapping and extortion because Madame refused to press charges. Madame’s gesture—along with Sophia’s check—worked wonders to bridge the long family divide.

  Donatella and her brother Bruno accepted their share with expressions of remorse for following the vicious scheme brought to them by the greedy and delusional blackmailer, Gino Benedetto.

  With the threat of blackmail gone, and the Campanas in Italy appeased, Silvio was free to remain Gus Campana for the rest of his life, and take his secret to the grave—with the exception of a few confidants.

  Perla, of course, had known the truth for years since her mother had confessed on her deathbed, not only to her elder daughter, but (as we all learned from Gus) to her priest. Angelica Campana had murdered her husband in self-defense aboard the sinking Andrea Doria, to save the lives of herself and her young daughter.

  It was Angelica who convinced Silvio to exchange papers, and clothing, with the drowned corpse. From a secret distance, she had grown to love Silvio as he had loved her. Now they could be together, beyond Gibraltar, in a brand-new and unknown world—and just like that, he became her husband in America.

  Gino Benedetto had been the only thorn in their new garden, and he became a lifelong one. He demanded payment for his silence, so Silvio came up with a plan to get the man his hush money. He would tell the world the legendary Eye was lost.