Hidden Gems

by Carrie Alexander

  The cat landed with a thump and immediately scurried back under the bed.

  Allard was stunned. His breathing was loud and harsh in the suddenly silent room.

  The doorbell rang. A frantic pounding followed. “I’ve called the police,” a female voice screeched. “They’re on the way!”

  Cringing, Allard fumbled once more for the suitcase.

  The pocket was empty.

  He swore, running his hands over every crevice. Nothing. The amulet had been removed.

  The door rattled beneath the busybody’s fist. Bang, bang.

  Too much racket. He couldn’t think. His vision was dimmed by blood and perspiration.

  How could the amulet be gone? Every instinct said that Marissa hadn’t found the treasure.

  Perhaps it had fallen out. Warily, he reached beneath the bed, feeling through assorted items.

  The cat hissed a warning and he jerked his hand away before it pounced. Now there were sirens in the distance.

  Allard staggered to his feet. He wrenched at the iron bars over the window. No escape that way.

  Though he was loathe to give up in spite of the cat, he saw no choice through the shock and pain and fear. He darted out of the room, one hand going for the knife in his pocket.

  The sour, stinging tang of blood was on his tongue. It tasted like defeat.

  MARISSA WAS LEAVING the powder room when she saw Paul disappear into a room farther along the hall. “What’s this about?” he asked in a brooding tone, then shut the door before she heard the reply.

  Typical, she thought, forgetting that she and Jamie had joked about ducking away themselves. Paul’s date was a painfully skinny blonde who worked in advertising and had tried to run a focus group at the dinner table. Her voice pierced Marissa’s eardrum like needle-nose pliers to the brain.

  Low murmuring was coming from inside the room. Marissa crept closer. It would be even more typical if Paul had worked an assignation with another woman into his evening. What a creep.

  She pressed her ear to the door.

  “I have everything under control,” Paul said from the other side, except that he didn’t sound as confident as usual.

  The responding voice was male, more distant, so she couldn’t tell who it was with any certainty. Perhaps Bradley Coffman? It was his house, after all.

  Paul again. “No, I haven’t been dodging. Just setting up the final details. There was no trouble in the Caymans. None at all.”

  Ah. Marissa backed away. Paul was being called on the carpet by one of the partners. While her unexpected departure might have thrown a monkey wrench in his schedule, she doubted that it would have caused him any significant trouble. Granted, he’d been worried what she’d seen of his late-night meeting. But what trouble could she cause? A client was a client, unless…

  The client was a shady client.

  How egocentric she’d been, thinking that Paul had been concerned with her! What he’d really cared about was being fingered for…for what?

  She didn’t believe the partners would knowingly engage in illegal doings. Paul might, especially if he was under the gun to keep his clients happy.

  What had he been doing in the Caymans? Was that why he’d been so adamant about keeping her out of the way? Then coaxing her, almost threatening her…

  The camera, she thought, remembering it lying broken on the floor, the film exposed.

  The photos. She’d assumed they’d concerned Paul because she’d caught his indiscretion with the bimbo on film. But maybe not.

  She wanted to return to eavesdropping to see if she could pick up a name, but Jamie called to her. “There you are.” He came closer. “Do you think it’s too early to go? They’ve finished with dessert.”

  “Yes, let’s go.” She hurriedly pulled him away before Paul heard them. “I’ve had an epiphany,” she whispered, “but we can’t talk about it here.”

  “An epiphany about us?” he asked hopefully.

  She wanted to say yes, if only to see the joy in his face. But she couldn’t.

  “About the burglary.” She looked for the Coffmans, finding only their hostess, and thanked her for the lovely evening.

  Minutes later, she and Jamie were in a cab heading south. “It’s the photos!” she said excitedly. “That’s what the burglar wanted.”

  Jamie frowned. “The film was ruined.”

  “Yes, but that was a new film, remember? I’d already removed the one from my vacation.”

  “Then if it was in your apartment, how do you know the thief didn’t take it?”

  “Because the film wasn’t there. I’d dropped it off to be developed after I got home. In all the uproar since then, I forgot. It’s still at the camera store, waiting to be picked up.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. But what’s on this film that’s so valuable a burglar would want it?”

  “The pictures will be worth plenty if they prove to be incriminating.”

  “Explain.”

  She angled toward him, knocking their knees. “Do you remember when I said I saw Paul on the beach?” She waited for Jamie’s nod. “He was meeting with a client, which seemed unusual. But, stupid me—” she rapped her knuckles against her skull “—I let myself get distracted by the bimbo’s presence.”

  “Aha,” Jamie said. “She’s the red herring.”

  “Exactly. The important thing was that I happened to snap a few shots of her and Paul. I won’t know for sure until I get the photos, but it’s possible the client was also in the frame. Whether or not he actually is, I think Paul is afraid he might be.”

  Jamie took her hand, saying everything he needed to with one firm squeeze. “What happened tonight to give you this epiphany?”

  “I overheard Paul talking with one of the partners. Coffman, I believe. I didn’t see him in the living room when I returned. They were discussing the trip to the Caymans and it seemed as if Paul was under some duress to wrap things up there.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “That, I don’t know. A good guess would be that it has to do with clients who have incorporated their company there. Or perhaps it concerned a transfer of funds, for tax benefits.” When she got the chance, she’d look into the list of Paul’s clients. Nose around, see what the office gossip said.

  Jamie was looking out at the traffic, his mouth grim. “You think the partners are involved?”

  “I suppose that’s possible, but there was no indication from what I overheard. Whoever it was only seemed to ask him to get the work done. Paul was defending himself, saying that there’d been no trouble. If he’s done something illicit, it’s probably his own idea. Or the client’s.” She tried to be fair. “But that’s a big if. We don’t know anything for sure.”

  “Except that Paul Beckwith is amoral.” By now, Jamie’s entire expression had gone stony.

  “Well, yes.” Even though Marissa hadn’t known the extent of Paul’s treachery in the beginning, she was ashamed that she’d ever been involved with the man.

  Jamie had followed her train of thought. “I am a dork. I should have told you about him and Shandi right at the start.”

  “Let’s not beat ourselves up with recriminations.” She leaned into him. “Full speed ahead, isn’t that the motto?”

  “With caution.”

  “Yes, with caution.”

  They had pulled up in front of their building. Jamie climbed out, then held the door for Marissa. He paid the driver, signaling for him to wait a moment. “I don’t suppose we can pick up the photos now?”

  “The camera shop is closed. It’s not a twenty-four-hour place.” She waved the cab on.

  They met another tenant as they let themselves into the building. Mrs. Pankowski from 3B, standing in the hall with a baseball bat in one hand and a taser in the other. She switched off the taser and dropped it into the roomy pocket of her housecoat. “You two missed all the excitement.”

  “What happened?” Jamie said.

  “I spotted a stranger lett
ing himself into your apartment. He looked surprised to see me so I called the fuzz. He knocked me down, busting out through the door. I don’t hold with all these goings-on. This is supposed to be a good neighborhood! A good building!” She glared accusingly at them.

  “I’m so sorry,” Marissa said. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nah. But he was. Blood all over his face.” Mrs. Pankowski cracked a lipless grin. “The cops were crawling all over the building and the streets, but they didn’t catch the bastard.”

  Marissa grabbed Jamie’s sleeve. “Harry had better be okay. We should have left Sally to guard him.”

  “Or vice versa.” Jamie asked Mrs. Pankowski about the police findings, but she had nothing else to share except an admonition that they should cause no more noise and fuss. Marissa and Jamie hurried upstairs.

  She handed the keys to Jamie and pulled out her cell phone, which she’d kept switched off during the dinner party. One of her messages was from Officer O’Connor. “There was a confirmed break-in,” she relayed to Jamie. “The super met the responding officers at my apartment to check out the place. It’s okay for us to go in.”

  “Did he say anything about the suspect?”

  She snapped the phone shut. “Just that they narrowly missed him, but they got a description from Mrs. Pankowski.”

  Jamie turned the key. “He must have been watching the place and knew you’d gone out for the evening.”

  “There’s a cheery thought.”

  They entered. Jamie flipped on the light. Marissa crowded in behind him, holding on to him with a finger crooked through one of the belt loops of his best dress trousers. “Harry? Kitty, kitty?”

  A muffled meow came from the back of the apartment. Marissa hurried into the bedroom. She peered under the bed. “Harry!”

  The cat crawled out, wearing a dust ball between his flattened ears. His whiskers twitched. “Poor little guy.” She brushed him off, then fluffed up his long white fur. “When this is over, you’ll never want to be left home again, will you, kitty?”

  “Marissa,” Jamie said from behind her.

  She stopped crooning to the cat and looked up. “What?”

  “You do realize, that if your theory is correct, you’re saying that Paul sent the burglars to your home.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I do realize that.”

  “To go that far…for a pack of photos?” He shook his head. “Paul would have had to be involved in something very serious, and very illegal. When you go back to work, don’t get into it with him, in any way, shape or form.”

  “I’ll be cautious.”

  “No. You’ll do nothing. We’ll pick up the photos in the morning and if there’s anything there, we’ll turn them over to the police.”

  “What about my career?”

  “Screw your career. I want you alive.”

  “No one’s going to kill me!”

  “Damn right, because it won’t come to that. I promise I won’t let it come to that.”

  Marissa shivered, holding Harry so tightly he mewled in protest.

  12

  “MARISSA SUAREZ,” Jamie said to the counter person at the tiny camera shop. “S-U-A—”

  “Got it.” The girl slid the envelope of photos across the counter and took the money Marissa offered. They hurried out without waiting for change.

  “Put them in your purse,” Jamie directed, feeling slightly foolish as he checked up and down the street. They’d put on “disguises”—sunglasses and a bandanna tied pirate-style for him, jeans, sneakers and a shapeless sweater for Marissa. Her hair was knotted in a bun, hidden under a wide-brimmed sun hat.

  “I want to see.” She shoved the packet into her straw bag. “The suspense is killing me.”

  “Wait until we get to Havana.”

  Hand-in-hand, they sped to her favorite hangout spot and managed to snag one of the booths with high carved wood seats that gave them a sense of enclosed privacy. Marissa peeped around the side. “Were we followed?”

  Jamie was watching the door. “Sit back.” No one came in after them except a lean greyhound of a woman dressed in clinging workout clothes. She collapsed onto one of the wrought-iron bar stools.

  “That’s Bebe,” Marissa said. “She runs marathons.”

  “Can’t you stay out of sight?”

  “Sor-ry!” she sang, settling back. “Can I look now? Forget that. I’m looking.”

  “Here’s the waitress.” He quickly ordered citron pressé. It was too early for lunch even though they’d left his apartment at nine-thirty and taken a roundabout journey to the camera shop, including stops at a Laundromat, a pharmacy and a clothing store. All to throw off invisible lurkers.

  Marissa ripped into the packet. She tossed a handful of the photos aside, spraying them across the tabletop. Vistas of the blue-green ocean and white sand beach, brown bodies in the sun.

  He separated out a shot of Marissa sitting under a thatched roof in a skimpy bikini top and sarong, then put it back. Paul had probably snapped it.

  She flipped through a series of sunset photos. Pink and orange ribbons in a dark sky. Her lashes had flicked when he lingered over her photo. “That shot was taken right before he ditched me at the tiki bar for the last time.”

  She returned to the other photos. “Here we go.” They hunched over the table. “Take a look at these.”

  Marissa passed him a copy of the first snapshot. The lighting wasn’t good. Paul’s back was to the camera, a woman plastered to his side. She was made of curves and pink lips and a head of hair so yellow it was almost fluorescent. A third figure was indistinct.

  “This one’s better,” she said.

  Paul and the other man were speaking in the second photo. The client had stepped forward into the light source, but his head was down, exhibiting a bald spot the size of a dinner plate. He wore a casual white shirt, unbuttoned almost to the waist, khakis and sandals, with a large gold watch on his right wrist. Just a man on vacation, except for the Halliburton case clutched at his side.

  “Not good enough. You can’t see his face.”

  Marissa frowned as she looked at the remaining two photos. One she discarded as being too murky to be helpful. The other she held close to her nose, squinting. “Bingo.”

  “Let’s see.” They studied the photo between them. Paul and the woman were prominent, but in the background the other man looked on, smiling in a rather sleazy, voyeuristic way. “Recognize him?” Jamie asked.

  “Nope. I’ve never seen him in the office, but then the firm has so many clients I’ve met only a small percentage of them.”

  He considered. “Even if we do identify the man, these photos aren’t proof of anything.”

  “I guess not.” Marissa sighed. “I was so sure that we’d find something incriminating.”

  “Me, too,” he admitted. “I was having Alias fantasies.”

  She looked up with a grin. “Well, you do look good in your disguise.”

  “I look like an idiot.” He returned to the photos, picking up the one she’d rejected. “I just can’t figure out why Paul would be desperate to take these from you.”

  “That depends on who the guy is. Maybe an underworld hit man or a deposed island dictator.” She waved a hand at his look of skepticism. “I could come up with lots of scenarios. But the point to remember is that even if Paul doesn’t know for sure what the photos show, he believed they might be harmful.”

  “No one else will care.”

  “The partners might. Especially Thomas Howard. He’s practically my mentor. He’ll listen.”

  Jamie glanced up. “Assuming the firm’s not involved.”

  Marissa clutched her elbows, which she’d rested on the table. “You’re trying to scare me.”

  Tenderness softened his tone. “I’m trying to keep you safe.” He went back to the photo in his hand. “What do we do now?”

  She gathered the others into a pile and returned them to the envelope. “I doubt the police would be intereste
d. Let’s think on it over the rest of the weekend.”

  “Want to skip the play this afternoon?”

  “Um. No, let’s go. Sitting around my apartment waiting for the next burglary attempt won’t do us any good.” To be safe, she’d moved Harry and his accoutrements to Jamie’s place for the duration.

  “I’m sorry that—” Jamie stopped and blinked. The photo he’d been studying was a dud. Dark and grainy. The two men were only blurred shapes, but he was able to make out the client because of his white shirt. Then there was the silver briefcase the mystery man had carried in the first photos of the sequence.

  Now in Paul’s possession.

  “These photos are in order?” Jamie asked, lining them up.

  Marissa checked the negatives. “Yes.”

  “Then why does Paul have the briefcase? Did you ever see him with it before that night?”

  She shook her head. “Do you think it was an exchange?”

  “I don’t know what to think. But I’d sure like to know what’s in that briefcase.”

  MARISSA SURPRISED JAMIE when she caught his arm outside the Chelsea theater, which was actually an old shoe store converted into a multiuse space. Beneath a giant faded ad for Florsheim shoes was a marquee that read Backslash Video Productions/ChelBro Art School/Funkytown Players Theater.

  He thought she was about to suggest ducking out on the play before they got inside. Instead she put her chin on his shoulder and said, “Let’s forget everything else and pretend we’re on a date. Are you game?”

  Was he game? Hell, yeah. In fact, he couldn’t have asked for a better sign from her.

  He cleared his clogged throat. “I’d like that.” But suddenly he was nervous. After all this time, how did he act on a date with Marissa?

  He saw a florist across the street. “Wait here for two seconds,” he said, leaving her outside the theater with her pretty dress and blinking lashes.

  Five minutes later he gave her a small bundle of flowers. Freesia and lilies, the woman had suggested when he’d asked for a sweet-smelling bouquet. “You’re the kind of date I’d bring flowers to.”