Ruby Red Herring

by Tracy Gardner

  She crossed Beckworth Suites’ ultra-contemporary three-story lobby to the elevators, making a spectacle of digging around in her oversized purse. Producing nothing, she walked over to one of the console tables behind a couch and dumped out the entire contents of her purse, digging through it, sighing and huffing in frustration.

  The concierge approached. “Ma’am? Might I help?”

  Avery scrunched up her face, drawing the corners of her mouth downward as she looked at the man. “Probably not! It’s classic Zoey, you know? I always forget something!” She wrung her hands, looking down at them to draw attention to the obnoxiously large “diamond” ring. “Mr.”—she read his brass name plate—“Summers, you’ve got to help me.”

  Mr. Summers, a middle-aged man with thinning hair, had a kind face. His brow furrowed in concern. “What is it?”

  “I’m surprising my husband. I mean, I was.” She shook her head, trying to muster tears. Halston. She conjured poor, sweet Halston lying on his dog bed this morning with the clunky cast on his leg. She blinked as her eyes filled with tears. “It’s our one-year anniversary. He’s such a good man, he does so much for me, and I was going to surprise him. We’re staying here while our kitchen’s being redone, and I had to leave to take care of my mom. I was going to miss our anniversary, but she’s doing so much better! He has no idea I’m even back. I’ve got champagne about to be delivered and I was lucky enough to get a dinner reservation at Silver Spoon—is that crazy or what? He’s going to be so surprised! And now I can’t find my stupid room key!”

  The concierge listened, his expression reflecting sympathy and then changing as she finished. He looked immensely relieved. “I can help you with that! That’s no problem. Do you have the card or the card number the room was reserved with?”

  “Oh.” Avery stared at him, wide-eyed. “Ollie handles all of that. I just mostly carry cash.”

  Mr. Summers nodded. “All right, no worries. We can just give him a quick call to confirm we’re giving you an extra key. What’s his full name and room number?”

  She put a hand on the man’s arm. “Oliver Renell, room eight twenty-two. I really wanted to surprise him. Please . . . how about if I leave you my ID, and I’ll bring him down with me later to collect it?” She dug in her bag for her wallet. She had half a mind to pull out a fifty along with her license, but something about the man’s demeanor told her not to try that. She tipped her head just a little closer to him. “Are you married, Mr. Summers?”

  “Yes, fifteen years,” he said, smiling.

  “Oh, how wonderful. Then you know. You get it.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What’s that?”

  “That you have to celebrate the little things.” She wiggled her ring finger. “This is the second time around for both me and Ollie. You really have to appreciate the little things to make a relationship work. Make it all count. Right? I really wanted to surprise him.” Avery looked down sadly.

  Mr. Summers turned and went to the registration desk without another word. Two minutes later he pressed a key card into Avery’s hand. He covered it with his other hand. “I know it shouldn’t be necessary, ma’am, but I do need to hold your ID until Mr. Renell can call or come down. Do you mind?”

  “Oh, I could kiss you!” Avery smiled at the man. She really could have. She handed him her sophomore-year fake ID. “He’s going to be so surprised. Thank you, Mr. Summers!” She spun on her heel and headed for the elevators.

  “Ma’am,” he called out as she was about to step into the elevator, the ID in his hand.

  Avery turned around, holding her breath. Was he about to mention her last name not being Renell on her ID? She’d say she hadn’t had a chance to change it yet, or she’d kept her maiden name. She should have gone easier on tonight’s makeup. She hadn’t been thinking about how young she looked in her Zoey Stone photo. Yikes. “Yes?”

  He smiled. “Happy anniversary.”

  She relaxed. “Thank you!”

  Avery knocked on the door of room 822. The whole ruse to get the key was simply so she could make the elevator work. She remembered from a couple years ago during a gemology convention here that the elevator control panel required a room key to be inserted in order to press the floor buttons. She had no intention of invading Oliver Renell’s privacy any more than necessary.

  When there was no answer, she knocked harder. She pulled out the purchase contract for the ruby and scanned it, finding Renell’s phone number on the third page. Not sure if she’d be calling his hotel room, a cell phone, or a house phone somewhere else, she dialed. She heard the room phone ringing in the distance, but no one picked up.

  She hadn’t planned for this. The man was so reclusive, it had never occurred to her that he might be out. Or possibly he’d seen her through the peephole and wouldn’t answer. Which would make sense, too, if it was her father on the other side of this door, not wanting to be found. Much as she couldn’t imagine her dad refusing to see her, Avery also realized she was missing several pieces of this particular puzzle. But she knew her happiness at seeing her dad alive and well would far outweigh how upset she’d be at him.

  She shook her head. God. She was getting as bad as Tilly. All she was doing was setting herself up to be disappointed. Stop it, Avery. She knocked extra loud, one more time, with no result other than a grouchy woman down the hall sticking her head out of her room and yelling, “Get a clue, no one’s home.” Sheesh.

  On impulse, Avery put the room key card in the slot, and the light turned green. She shot a furtive glance up and down the hallway as she entered Oliver Renell’s room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The man was dead.

  Avery clapped a hand over her mouth to cover her scream. The man who had to be Oliver Renell had been shot in the center of his forehead and was lying faceup on the floor by the bed. If not for the gory bullet hole in his head, he would have looked as if he’d decided to take a peaceful nap on the floor. His navy-blue pajamas with white piping were still creased on the seams, and his slippers were on his feet. His complexion was the same shade as the pale-gray hotel room walls. He had to have been dead since at least this morning.

  She stepped out into the hall, looking both directions and spotting a housekeeper pushing her cart. “Help! I need help, please! A man’s been shot!” Despite his awful skin color, Avery darted back into the room and knelt by the man’s side, reaching out a shaking hand to check his pulse at the side of his neck. His skin was cool and unyielding, that give, the softness under the surface that indicated life, missing. There was no pulse, no movement from his chest. She recoiled, pulling her hand back and standing. This was very much not William Ayers. The weight of disappointment was crushing. Avery closed her eyes, drawing in a hitching breath. She hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up; she’d tried to prepare herself for this, for learning her father was really gone, but real tears now seeped from under her eyelids, and she covered her face with both hands. Some part of her had believed she’d find her dad when she opened that door.

  Half a dozen people crowded into the room at once, talking, giving orders, going through the motions of verifying there were no signs of life. In need of somewhere to look that wasn’t the dead collector, Avery’s gaze rested on the small corner table. The hotel notepad, pen, and Renell’s laptop sat on the tabletop, perfectly neat and perpendicular to each other. The bedside table held Renell’s phone, two equal stacks of quarters, and a small dish with a tie tack and cuff links, all tidy and in their place. There wasn’t even a jacket slung over a chair. The hotel manager moved out of the circle of people surrounding Oliver Renell, letting paramedics and police close the gap. She gently put an arm around Avery’s shoulders, leading her away from the body.

  “You shouldn’t have to see this, ma’am. Are you all right? Are you the one who found him?”

  Avery nodded. Oh no. She shouldn’t be here. Not as Zoey Stone, Renell’s fake wife, and not as Avery Ayers, who’d conned her way into a room key. Her mind whi
rled with the horrible possibilities . . . but she couldn’t be held accountable if Renell had been dead for hours, could she? Plus, she’d yelled for help.

  “Are you his wife? Daughter?”

  “Wife,” she murmured, moving slowly backward in the direction of the elevators.

  “Let me find a chair for you. You look peaky. We’ll let the first responders do their job, and I’ll sit right here with you until one of the officers comes to talk to you, all right?”

  No! She had to get out of here. “Okay,” she replied, and the hotel manager sped off down the hall in search of chairs. Avery took her chance and ducked into the stairwell, descending two flights before suddenly imagining the hotel manager telling the police that the dead man’s wife had fled toward the stairs. She exited the stairwell and grabbed an elevator from the sixth floor to ground level. The concierge had his back to her, but that might not last. She went the opposite direction through the elevator alcove down a long hallway to the right, scanning the brass plaque on the wall: BANQUET HALLS A, B & C. She hazarded a quick look behind her, but the hallway was empty. Maybe there was an exit at the end of this godforsaken unending hallway?

  “Wait! Stop!”

  Avery’s heart lurched, stopped, and then took up a wildly rapid pace high in her chest. The voice could be Mr. Summers or a cop. She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t look back. She ran. She pushed through the heavy, twelve-foot-high wooden door of Banquet Hall C and raced across the ballroom to the staff area, which thank heavens had an exit door on the opposite wall. The banquet hall door clapped closed on the other side of the staff door. Avery stumbled through the exit and found herself outside in bright sunlight. She looked left and then right, trying to get her bearings, and kept running.

  Thank goodness she hadn’t wanted to pay the exorbitant parking garage fee and had instead used metered parking two blocks away from Beckworth Suites. Ten minutes later she was on her way out of Manhattan.

  Her entire body seemed to be vibrating, she was so unsettled. A call came in through her Bluetooth and she instantly answered, somehow sure it must be Micah checking on her. It wasn’t.

  “Avery, it’s Art Smith.” He sounded out of breath.

  “Art?”

  “You shouldn’t have run.”

  She gasped. “That was you? Yelling at me to stop? You could have said so!”

  “I didn’t think I needed to. Avery. You just fled a crime scene you were the first to discover. Using an alias.”

  “Ugh! What was I supposed to do? There’s no way I could explain why I had to lie to get up there! They’d have thought I was making it up, about him being so secretive and reclusive.”

  “Listen, I can’t talk now. You’re heading home?”

  Avery glanced in her rearview mirror, sure he was following her. It’d be impossible to tell in this traffic. “Yes.”

  “All right. Go straight home; we’ve got round-the-clock surveillance set up at your house now. I do need to go over what happened this afternoon and get your description of what you saw. Do you mind if stop by for a few minutes around seven or so?”

  When Avery hung up, she left a quick message for Stefanie at the house, letting her know that if she saw a car out front, not to worry; it was the police keeping an eye on things. She then called Micah and told him she’d just discovered Oliver Renell dead in his hotel room. She called Sir Robert after that and repeated the same details. Sir Robert did that thing he did when something surprised or perplexed him: a long, low whistle, typically followed by scratching his chin between his thumb and forefinger. She could almost see him doing it now.

  “And you’re fine? Did you see any sign of who might have done it?”

  “No. I mean yes, I’m fine, but no, there was no sign, or at least I didn’t see anything. I wasn’t really in the room long enough to see much other than Oliver Renell dead of a gunshot wound to the head. I think he’d been dead several hours, or maybe even since yesterday. I don’t know.”

  “Have you told Goldie yet? What about Francesca?”

  Avery shook her head, even though she was alone in her car. “No. Why would I tell Francesca?”

  “I don’t know,” Sir Robert said. “I could tell them, if that helps. Shall I call Goldie for you?”

  “Yes, actually, please.” All Avery wanted to do was get home.

  “Oh,” Sir Robert said before hanging up. “That Johnstone fellow called again for you. He won’t say what it’s about. You never called him back?”

  Avery smacked her forehead. “I totally forgot.” No wonder. The last few days had been a blur. “I’ll call him right now. Would you read me his number?”

  Edward Johnstone picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Johnstone, hello. This is Avery Ayers. My colleague said you called for me?”

  “Thank you so much for the call back, Ms. Ayers. I was calling to inquire about the large ruby you’re working with currently. Have you verified yet whether it’s a genuine Burmese ruby?”

  Avery’s voice caught in her throat.

  “Ms. Ayers? Did I lose you?”

  She cleared her throat, recovering. How on earth did this person know the exact type of ruby she and Micah were dealing with? “I’m here. You took me a little by surprise, I’m afraid. Who is your point of contact, please? Do you work for the museum?”

  Now Johnstone took a moment before replying. “I’ve been . . . intrigued with the Emperor’s Twins piece. I understand the recently submitted ruby is quite possibly the missing eye of the dragon. I was simply hoping for an update on your findings, if you might be able to share that with me.”

  Avery frowned, looking up to see that she was about to miss her exit to Lilac Grove. She quickly got over two lanes and merged onto the smaller highway that would take her the rest of the way home. “I’m sorry, Mr. Johnstone. I’m not in a position to release any information about our assignment. I suggest you get in touch with MOA’s chief curator, Goldie Brennan, regarding any questions you might have.”

  “I understand.” The man’s voice betrayed a smidge of disappointment.

  Avery had expected an argument but got none. “All right then,” she said. “Have a good evening.” She reached out to press the end-call button on her car’s touch screen just as Johnstone spoke again.

  “Don’t let the ruby out of your sight.”

  “What did you say?”

  “The ruby and the medallion should be under your eye alone or locked into Acquisitions Pending at all times. Trust no one.” The line went dead with a click.

  What in the world? Of course the ruby and medallion should be locked up at all times. Who was this Edward Johnstone, and how did he know about the ruby—that it was indeed a Burmese ruby and possibly the dragon’s eye? And why was his name so familiar to her? She’d heard it from Sir Robert twice this week, but she didn’t think that was it. Where had she heard the name Edward Johnstone before?

  The last twenty minutes of her drive seemed to take forever. She burst through the door of her house, intending to head straight for the safe behind the mirror in the office. She’d already planned to go through the rest of those items tonight anyway, but she wanted to dive in right now. Halston greeted her in the foyer, Stefanie following close behind.

  “He’s feeling better!” The girl smiled at Avery. “He’s actually had a good day. He’s eaten three times, he took the pain pill with no problem, and he’s obviously happy to see you! He got up when he heard your car at the end of the drive.”

  Avery knelt down and hugged the sweet dog gently around his neck and shoulders. “Good boy, puppy. I’m so glad you’re feeling better!” She handed the dog sitter the folded bills she had ready; Stefanie was worth every cent. “I’m so grateful you were free today.” Stefanie agreed to come back tomorrow and stay until Aunt Midge and Tilly got home in the afternoon.

  After Avery and Halston had had dinner together in the family room, where Halston was nice and comfy, Avery emptied the safe behind the mirro
r in the office, carrying everything into the family room and spreading it all out on the coffee table. She glanced up, suddenly very aware of all the windows and open curtains in her house. She went room to room, closing window coverings and triple checking all the locks. Settling back down in front of the coffee table, Avery slowly perused the scattered items. Her mom had been a bit of a pack rat; she never threw anything away if there was the slightest chance it could important. Avery figured that was why she’d built a substantial collection of small decorative boxes.

  The floral boxes from the safe varied widely in size from tiny enough to hold a ring to large enough to house a teacup, and there were miniature envelopes as well, and scraps of colorful paper with notes jotted down, a few newspaper clippings, several pens, and a few photocopies from what were probably library books. The collection was organized chaos. The first small box held around a hundred tiny multicolored paper clips. That was all. The next one Avery opened contained one lone bottle of Wite-Out. The third held a tiny set of highlighters. In the remainder, she found a combination lock, two watch batteries, two keys, and a red-and-black loupe.

  As she sorted through the scraps of paper, two in particular jumped out at her. One was the article she and Tilly had seen that covered information about spinels, and the other was a square of orange paper with math figures in her father’s narrow, slanted handwriting scrawled all over it. But not just any math. Avery recognized the numbers as an expression of chemical composition and refractive index, listed as 1.712 to 1.736. The number on the opposite margin, 3.59, was circled. Given the context, that number had to be the magnitude, also known as the specific gravity. Holy cow. Was she looking at her father’s findings on the medallion’s ruby?