by Dale Mayer
“Where do you want to start?”
“Levi already has the financials to sort through at home,” Dezi said. “We came to check the physical layout, the security, and, if you don’t mind, we want to map out the property.”
“I can do one better than that,” she said with smile. “The store was built to my specifications, and I have the blueprints.” She watched appreciation light up both men’s faces. She grinned. “I might be a designer of jewelry, but I’m not a complete fluff head.”
“We never would have said that,” Dezi protested. “The stuff you make is too incredibly beautiful for that.”
She laughed. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
They just grinned.
“We have a lot of people who are IT specialists in the company,” Dezi said. “Vince and I, we’ve been field monkeys for a long time, so we’re very good at sorting through security systems and mapping out who had access and who didn’t and working on the timing of the required steps in the process.” He leaned forward, placing the teacup and saucer on her desk, and looked at her. “Have you determined if this has happened before?”
“No.” Her heart sank. “I was really hoping not to have to go in that direction,” she whispered, “because the only way I can find out is to see the pieces.”
“Is that not possible?”
She shook her head. “Not easily. I don’t know what I would say to my customers as an excuse.”
“What about cleaning the pieces still under warranties?” Dezi asked. “Any chance of bringing a few of the pieces back home again, so you could do a free in-house cleaning?”
“Oh, that reminds me,” she said. “I had one customer whose piece got caught in a sandstorm, and she was worried it had been damaged.”
“Is it a recent piece?”
She nodded. “I shipped it out only about six weeks ago, but the potential damage was just a few days ago.”
“Maybe ask her to ship it back, and you’ll do a … not necessarily a free cleaning and checkup but maybe something along that line,” Vince suggested. “We’re not telling you how to run your business by any means and do not intend to step on your toes or to force you into offering something you’re not prepared to give, but it would be very helpful to know how many other pieces this could have happened to.”
A shudder rippled down her back. “None I hope,” she said bluntly. “And I won’t have too many chances to check on my sold pieces, not without raising concerns and questions from my customers, so the free cleaning idea would work in that regard. I can easily check this one I just mentioned. I offered her a free cleaning and inspection when I got her first email inquiry. My client was wearing her piece for a big gala in Dubai, and a group went out joyriding in the desert. I know she was quite worried about it.” Diamond turned to her laptop, opened the lid and brought up the email and photos. “It does look like it sustained some damage. If nothing else, a good cleaning may help. She’s sent me several close-up photos, and it looks like sand got into some of the settings.”
“From the photos, does it look like anything other than your work?”
She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t.”
“If we could ascertain a definitive time frame, that would be helpful. So, for example, knowing these forgeries weren’t happening six weeks ago would give us a place to start,” Vince said. “Stone hasn’t confirmed the date of the original hack yet.”
She nodded. “I should receive the piece shortly because she’s already arranged to send it back to me. Do you need me while you search the premises? Otherwise my staff will help you.”
Dezi nodded. “Staff members will be fine to start with. If we have any questions, we will come ask you.” He stood, downed the rest of his tea, replaced it on the saucer and smiled at her. “Feel free to keep working. Can you email the store’s blueprints to Levi and copy us too? We’ll do a full analysis to see if anything else has been breached.”
She smiled. “That’s what I like. Efficiency.” She typed in Levi’s email address, asked for theirs, added their names to the list, attached the blueprints and sent it off. “Okay, that part is done. You go do what you gotta do. I have a design I must get finished this afternoon.” She smiled as they walked out.
When Dezi had the door almost closed, he looked at her and smirked. “Do you work in your office all the time?”
“No, not at all,” Diamond said. “I do some of my best work outside. But, when I’m under a deadline, nothing like the oppressive tomb of an office to remind me that I have to get down to it and get it done.”
He shut the door.
She bowed her head to her work and tried to forget all about them and her hacker and the forgery.
*
The men walked the entire office as they worked through the blueprint, taking measurements, checking for any damage to any of the doors, windows and security system. But everything appeared to be operating as expected. In the walk-in vault, they were never left alone, and that was fine with them. They didn’t want to be held responsible for any further inquiries or anything else going missing. But they still had to check out the main vault on the premises. Apparently Diamond didn’t keep much in here, according to them—relatively speaking—but, of course, it did give opportunities for somebody who wanted to see the pieces in progress. And that took Dezi and Vince once again back to this being an inside job.
“What about security overnight?” Dezi asked Sammy as he shut the vault and armed it again.
The young man, with more earrings on one side of his ear that should have had him walking lopsided, shook his head. “None because we’re connected to a digital security system. There is no after-hours security guard.” Sammy walked down a short hallway.
Dezi nodded, following Sammy. “So you don’t know if anybody has been in and out of the vault or the store on a regular basis, do you?”
“We have a video feed,” he said. “It’s recycled every twenty-four hours though.”
“Who views it in the meantime?”
Sammy looked perplexed as he entered a small office, standing in the doorway. “What do you mean, views it?”
“How will you know when some unauthorized person comes into the store and leaves, using security codes rather than triggering the alarm, if you don’t view the security feed every morning?”
He looked stumped, then shrugged. “Well, I guess nobody unauthorized does. Nothing has gone missing. So why would we view the tapes? And, if the security isn’t tripped, then whoever is here is allowed to be here.”
“Unless they’re stealing intangibles,” Dezi said, his voice slightly harder. He watched the young man’s face as he understood what the men were here for.
“Are you saying there’s been a break-in and something has been stolen? Is that why you’re here?” He gasped.
“We’re not saying anything,” Dezi said. “We’re checking the security here, and we want to know the ins and outs of what happens on a daily basis.”
Sammy nodded. “Nobody here would steal from her,” he said.
“Why is that?” Vince asked.
“We all love her. She gave us a chance to work with one of the best. Why would we do anything to screw that up?”
“Jealousy? Professional rivalry? Money? People betray those who help them out for all kinds of reasons,” Dezi said. “How long have you worked for her?”
“About five years. I was an art student, finding my perfect medium back then. I was painting, working on rock painting, doing certain sculptures. Then I saw Diamond and her work, and I was completely fascinated. But I don’t design jewelry. I wouldn’t even know how to start. What I do is tap that creative cloud that lives here and then go home and do some of my best work ever,” he said passionately. “But certainly not in the jewelry field.”
“Do you sell your work?”
Sammy nodded. “I’m just starting to,” he said, his voice lowered. “I don’t know if that’s a problem here or not. I’ve never broached it,
and only recently it occurred to me that might be something that would make her unhappy.”
“Well, it depends if you’ve taken any of her ideas for your work,” Dezi said. “A lot of companies have clauses in their work contracts where you’re not allowed to sell or design or do anything with ideas you garnered through work.”
Sammy looked at him. “Really?”
“Yes. Think of anybody in engineering or any kind of R&D. If you take an idea started from something at work and go home to create it yourself, then make a profit, you’ve stolen the intellectual property rights of that company.”
Sammy looked a little sick. “I don’t know what to do then,” he cried out.
“It depends what you’ve done,” Dezi said. “We’re not here to tell you that you’ve done anything wrong. It depends on exactly what you’ve created.”
But Sammy wasn’t listening. His hands shook, and he wrung them in front of everyone.
Recognizing a panic attack, Dezi put him into a chair and pushed his head between his knees. “Maybe you should show us the work you do before you go into an all-out panic.”
But Sammy couldn’t talk with his head between his knees.
As if sensing something wrong, Diamond stepped out of her office and into the hallway. She saw the men nearby and looked at Sammy and rushed to his side. “What happened?”
“Maybe Sammy should explain,” Dezi said. “We’re not sure there’s a problem, but he appears to have gone off the deep end. He’s worried he has done something wrong.”
Diamond looked down at Sammy. “Hey, Sammy. What’s going on?”
He finally lifted his head. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I don’t know if I did something wrong or not,” he said. “You always told me to keep working on my art, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked in exasperation. She sat him up in his chair, reached for a glass of water he kept on his desk and held it out to him. “Did you steal any of my designs?”
He shook his head, and his braids, a head full of them, went back and forth. “No, no. You know I don’t do jewelry.”
“So what is it that you feel you’ve done?” she asked in confusion.
Dezi said, “We probably started this because we asked if you have any intellectual property noncompete clauses in your employee contracts.”
Diamond looked up at him in surprise. “I do,” she said. “I had to because, in the past, I’ve had students take some of my ideas and apply them to their own jewelry. It’s not that there’s ever a truly unique idea anymore, but obviously I can’t have jewelry makers working here who then go home and create their own stuff after seeing mine and incorporating bits and pieces of my work.”
“Of course,” Dezi said. “I think Sammy worries he may have done something like that, but with his own art medium.”
“Ah.” She gave Sammy’s shoulder a shake. “Is that what you’re upset about? Because I know, in your own field, you’re fairly unique in what you produce.”
He nodded. “But it just occurred to me how I get a lot of ideas here, and then I go home and I incorporate some of those ideas. And I hadn’t realized an intellectual property clause was in our contract.”
“Well, intellectual property versus creative ideas are two separate things,” she said. “And I do understand working in a creative space and seeing how things, like what I produce, would stir up your own creative juices. That’s normal, natural. You go home, and you work in your own medium with ideas of how to do things better yourself.”
He nodded eagerly. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “I’ve been doing an awful lot of painting, and I was carving some of those stones you bought me.”
“You mean those alabaster stones?”
He nodded. “Yes. And then I guess these guys were talking about stealing rights and creative ideas, and I just realized maybe I was doing something completely wrong. And as long as the stuff was at my home and I wasn’t selling it, it wasn’t an issue, and then …” He stopped for a minute; then the words poured out. “And then the gallery wanted me to put them on display. And I agreed. And now I realize maybe I’ve done something criminal.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
Dezi had to appreciate her control.
She put a hand on Sammy’s shoulder and said, “Let me see what it is you’re talking about.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and flicked through images. He was shaking when he finally held up his artwork. She studied them and said, “These are fabulous, Sammy. That’s a really new direction for you.”
He nodded.
Dezi watched hope light in his gaze.
“So I didn’t cross the line?”
She shook her head. “Not based on this, you haven’t. It’s a matter of not stealing ideas, not copying from somebody else. From what I see, you’re in the clear.” She straightened and turned to Dezi. “Are you planning on panicking all my staff? If so, maybe I should walk with you,” she said humorously as she waved to Sammy and left his office to proceed to the storefront with the men behind her.
Dezi shrugged. “We certainly didn’t mean to. He’s the one who went to pieces when we talked about intellectual property rights.”
“It is an issue for any creative field,” she said. “I had a problem with my family’s jewelry makers at one point because other designers implied I was copying them. You can give five people an idea, and each will come up with something completely unique to them. But the minute they see each other’s works, it will affect how they create their own idea. I doubt Sammy has copied my work but is likely afraid he did.”
Dezi smiled and nodded. “I imagine he did. While you’re out here, and you’ve already broken your train of thought, why don’t you help us talk to the rest of the staff to see if anything else needs to be dealt with.”
She nodded. “Good enough. I highly doubt anybody else has anything to say. They’re not all creative. Sammy has been working with me for a long time as he develops his own skills. And, based on what I’m seeing, he’s possibly ready to launch out on his own.” As they walked farther, she said, “I’ll miss him. He has always been a bright light around this place.”
They approached three staff members working at the counters or cleaning up and moving displays in the store.
Diamond walked over to them. “These two men are checking our security system and our computer network for any weaknesses and flaws. Please give them your help as needed.”
The three smiled with a shrug. “Sure enough. We wondered what they were doing around the place this morning.”
Dezi laughed. “We’ll be doing anything and everything. Even we don’t know yet.”
Chapter 3
By the end of the day Diamond was exhausted, and her nerves were frayed. Her client, Sybil, had already sent back the necklace from the sandstorm incident, forwarding the tracking info to Di. She would assess the damage and could only hope it was minimal. The photos had given her enough confidence that maybe the piece hadn’t been permanently damaged. Now she was worried it was a fake too. It shouldn’t be, … but how could she know for sure, not knowing exactly when this nightmare had started?
She wanted to talk to her father, to see if he’d had any trouble with designs being stolen recently, but she didn’t dare. Ruby was the sister Diamond was most likely to contact, but she didn’t want to do that right now either. Ruby had always had an ugly spot with regard to Diamond’s creative aspects. One necklace Ruby had wanted early on, but it had been sold. She’d absolutely loved the design and wanted Diamond to make a copy of it. But she couldn’t. She had sold the other one as an exclusive model, and she wasn’t about to break her word on that. She could have made a few changes to it, but her sister didn’t like that idea either. And, as such, it was a bone of contention between them. Stupid how little things could become big things. As it was, her sister had refused to even contemplate any other pieces of jewelry Diamond made. If Ruby couldn’t get the one
she wanted, she wouldn’t have any. That worked for Diamond. It was very difficult dealing with family when it came to actual business transactions.
As she sat thinking about her life, an email came in from her father. The subject line was Are you there? That was so typical of her father. No message, no attachments, just Are you there? That was his way of ordering her to call. She picked up her office phone and dialed him.
“You’re still at the office?” he asked. “Didn’t I teach you to quit when it was quitting time?”
She glanced at the clock and realized it was after six. “Sometimes I get backed up, Dad.”
“That’s no excuse,” he said. “You know that. You can’t manage a proper family life if all you do is work.”
She rolled her eyes at that. Because she had no family unit in her near future. Apparently she couldn’t even get along with the one she already had. “I’m fine, Dad. How are you, and what’s the problem?”
He snorted. “Why would you think there’s a problem?” he asked. “I contacted you to say hi.”
“Well, you hardly contact me. You sent a blank email, asking if I’m here. It might as well have been an ultimatum to call immediately.”
He chuckled. “Now you’re being melodramatic.”
Under her breath she whispered, “Whatever.”
He sighed the same old heavy sigh he always did, as if living in a houseful of estrogen had done him in years ago, and he’d given up the will to fight. “Can you have lunch the day after tomorrow?” he asked. “I’ll be in town.”
“You’re coming to Houston?”
“Yeah,” he said. “To see you as much as anything.”
She stopped and checked her calendar. “I can certainly clear an hour,” she said. “What time do you think you’ll be in?”
“I was hoping to take you away for more than just that,” he said. “And don’t tell me that you’re superbusy with work.”
“That’s your line, isn’t it?” she said. “Every time I’m back in Europe, that’s what you tell me.”
“But I’m coming especially to see you,” he said.
