The corner of Sam’s mouth kicked up.
She wanted to lick it, so she looked away.
“Most of the time,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck so that she wouldn’t reach for him, “the miner just finds a stone big enough to get himself drunk or laid with enough left over to buy food for the next week of gambling. Only instead of going to the corner convenience store to buy another lottery ticket, these Joe Schmucks go back to the mines and gamble in unsafe pits and die young.”
“But not without hope.”
She sighed and clipped her hair loosely at the base of her neck. The hair wouldn’t stay put that way for long, but the way Sam was watching it — and her — was making her pulse kick.
My problem, not his, Kate told herself bitterly. Federal robots don’t think with their dicks. In fact, I wonder if they even know they have one.
“You’re right,” she said. “In nearly all cases this is voluntary rather than slave labor. It’s just that I’ll never forget the first time I saw mining in Brazil. Or Thailand. It was a real shock for this First World girl. Of course, that was before I really understood the first axiom of buying rough gems.”
“What’s that?”
“The closer the mine, the more likely you’ll buy synthetics.”
Sam laughed and wished she hadn’t tamed her intriguing hair with the clip. It was making things easier on him, but sometimes easy just wasn’t as much fun as hard.
That was something else he wasn’t going to think about.
“No joke,” Kate said.
Her dark glance drifted over him. Pale shirt with sleeves rolled up. The weapon and harness she’d been afraid to touch when she tucked him into an uncomfortable bed on her couch. Dark jeans that hinted at long legs and bluntly stated that he was male.
And aroused.
Okay, so he’s not a robot. So what? Healthy men get hard over toothpaste commercials.
And from where she stood, that was one healthy male.
“At mine sites I found synthetic rough mixed with so-so real rough,” Kate said, looking everywhere but at him. “A hundred yards away, I found synthetic locally cut stones mixed with batches of so-so natural locally cut gems. I found buckets of synthetic stuff in local jewelry stores whose owners assured me they carried only natural gems lovingly set in eighteen-carat gold. Yeah. Sure. And I’m the Queen of the Damned.”
“So the closer the mine, the better the chance of fraud?”
“That’s my experience.” She wondered if it was safe to look at him again and then decided it might never be safe. “Someone who goes to the backwaters of any country figuring to score big on a stone purchased directly from ‘ignorant’ miners or country folk is going to get taken for a real expensive ride.”
“Voice of experience?”
“I bought my share of crap,” she said wryly. “I think of it as the price of learning a business. Now I buy my rough through reputable wholesalers. I pay them a markup, sure, but travel isn’t cheap and neither is experience.”
Sam walked over to one of the worktables and stared down at the mysterious equipment. It was that or touch her. That would be a bad move. Really stupid.
Really tempting.
“Okay,” he said. “You’ve bought rough from a reliable source. Then what do you do?”
“Study it.”
“For what? You think you’re being taken for a ride even after all the precautions?”
“I’m not looking for synthetics in my rough,” Kate said. She looked at her hand gripping the edge of the table. Fingers that were grubby from tools and grits. Short nails, no polish. She wondered if Sam would want to have such unfeminine hands on him. Then she remembered the fit of his jeans and knew the answer. Her pulse kicked. “I’m trying to decide which of all the possible shapes will bring out the best in the stone for the least amount of wastage.”
Sam made an encouraging sound. At least he hoped it was encouraging rather than the throttled growl of a frustrated male.
“An otherwise good piece of rough might have a cluster of flaws,” she said quickly. “If I cut them out, the remaining rough could make me a lot of money. Or it could fall apart and leave me with junk. That’s the risk I run. That’s why you can buy good wholesale rough at a decent price. No one is certain what the final stone or stones will be worth, if anything.”
“Okay, it’s a gamble.” He stepped closer and told himself he wouldn’t remove her hair clip. “You have the rough. You study it. You choose a shape. You start cutting.”
“Grinding, actually. I don’t so much cut stones as grind away the excess to reveal the natural beauty within.” With her fingertip she stroked the metal rod that was holding a gem on its tip with the help of dop wax. “On this one, I’ve already set the angle that the rough will meet the lap.”
“Lap? Like a dog at a dish of water?” Or a man loving a woman.
“Um…” The sudden intensity of his eyes made her feel like she was on the receiving end of a teasing, tasting lick. Oh, God, I’m losing it. Frantically, Kate gathered what was left of her wits. “Think of a lap as a kind of flat, circular sander, like a CD with steel teeth,” she said, talking so fast the words almost ran together. “You use the coarsest lap for the basic shaping, then work your way up through to the finest lap and grit for the polish. Along the way, each separate facet of the stone requires another setup on the equipment to ensure that each facet is the correct shape and angle.”
“Can’t machines do it?” His voice was deeper than usual. Almost husky.
“Sure.”
Kate turned away from Sam. His intense blue eyes were making her edgy. Needy. Hungry. It wasn’t that he was ignoring her words. He was listening intently.
Too intently. She could almost feel his interest.
“Kate?”
And she knew that the physical attraction electrifying the atmosphere wasn’t one-sided. She just didn’t know what would be the smart thing to do about it, except talk as though her life depended on it.
“Most of the medium and low-end cutting is done by simple machines run by badly paid workers in the Third World,” she said. “Ranks and ranks of cutters hunched over in rooms filled with the scream of stone being ground and a haze of silica dust. Real assembly-line stuff, and lethal to the workers if the air isn’t properly filtered.”
“Is it?”
“Sometimes. And sometimes…” She shook her head. “High-end cutting is different. It’s one of a kind. I’m cutting collector stones or designer stones. Each is unique. Preset computer programs are worse than useless for me. The quick and easy way doesn’t get the job done for me. Any job.”
Sam took the clip out of her black hair and smiled at the results — and at the sudden drawing in of her breath. “What comes next?”
“I wrestle you for my hair clip?” she said, spinning to face him. The look in his eyes made her wonder what sex on a worktable would be like. “Forget I asked,” she said quickly.
“Not likely.”
“Once the stones are cut,” she said, talking over his words, talking fast before she did something really stupid, “in most cases they’re sold by the pound or kilo to mass jewelry makers. Again, most of the assembly work is done overseas in India and especially China. Really rare stones are bought as is by collectors or investors or designers. The vast majority of the stones are cut in Asia for use in mall jewelry or hobbyists or — I’m babbling. Stop playing with my hair.”
“I’m not touching it.”
“You want to,” she accused. “You’re thinking about it.”
“What about you? Are you thinking about it?”
“Sam, help me with this. Or am I wrong about what happens to agents who sleep with their informants?” she asked hopefully.
He closed his eyes. When they opened, they were no longer smoldering with hunger. “No. I’d be sent to Fargo or fired. If the brass could manage it, they’d do both.”
She let out a quiet breath and told herself she wasn’t
disappointed. Really. Feeling like you’d been dropped off a roof didn’t count as disappointment.
“A fate worse than death,” she said lightly. Now remember to breathe. Good girl. I knew you could do it. “We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen. Right?”
“I’ll get back to you on that.” Then he sighed. “Right.”
Sam allowed himself one more thought about burying his face in her hair and feeling her legs wrap around him as he pushed in deep. Then he shoved down the human and dragged the agent up to the surface again.
“If you were stealing stuff from couriers,” he said, “where in the gem food chain would you start? Overseas?”
Like a light switch. Back to cop mode. Kate told herself she was grateful. Then she told herself again.
“No,” she said tightly. “Not overseas.”
“Why?”
She let out a long breath and told herself that her pulse was normal. Entirely. Normal. For a sprinter. “They haven’t heard of Miranda over there and their prisons are shit holes.”
“Personal experience?” he asked, surprised.
“Not mine. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
“Oh, it’s real,” he agreed.
“Personal experience?” she asked dryly.
He didn’t answer. He hitched a hip up on the sturdy table and shifted his weapon harness so that it rode comfortably. “So you wouldn’t start near the mines. Where would you go next?”
Actually, I’m thinking of pulling out your gun and shooting the cop so that Sam can come out to play. If I’d known I had only one chance, I’d have jumped for it.
All she said aloud was, “I’d go to a big international wholesaler that imports stones into the U.S.”
“Why?”
“They move a lot of gems with inventories that read pounds and kilos. It would be easy to mix the stolen and the legal together, as long as you haven’t stolen anything outstanding.”
“Like the Seven Sins?”
Her nod sent her dark hair slipping and sliding along her neck.
Sam swatted down the human and hung on to the cop.
“For all the expensive advertising,” Kate said, “colored gems — especially treated colored gems — aren’t that rare. Or that unique. A bucket of small blue sapphire rough isn’t going to raise your heart rate. Cut and treated, maybe it would make your pulse kick, but only for a few moments.” She blew out a long, quiet breath and felt her own pulse slow. Better. Much better. “Then you start seeing the differences in cut and quality and color. There’s a lot of junk out there.”
Sam tried to imagine a bucket of gems. He couldn’t. But that was why he had his own private expert. She could imagine all that and more.
It was what he was imagining that was the problem.
“And if that isn’t enough, by the time you’ve been through an assembly-line cutting and polishing operation,” Kate said, “you’ll hold a handful of low-end cut gems and all you’ll think is what a pain it will be to put all the tiny bits of glitter into a silver necklace or ten-carat gold.”
He tried not to, but couldn’t help it. He laughed. If nothing else, it eased the claws of desire digging into him.
“It’s true,” she said.
“I believe you. I was just thinking of childhood dreams of treasure chests and pirates. What would Blackbeard have said?”
“Bluebeard.”
“Whatever.” Sam’s grin said gotcha. “So you dreamed too.”
“Doesn’t every kid?”
His smile faded. “No. Dreaming takes energy, health, hope. Those things are real scarce in some times and places.”
Before Kate could ask about the shadows in his eyes — cop or human? — he was talking again.
“Okay, you’ve picked your wholesaler,” he said. “Now what?”
She blinked, accepted the change of subject, and said, “The wholesaler could also be a jewelry maker, a retailer, or a gem trader. All that’s required is large quantities of gems coming in, enough so that some extra stuff here and there wouldn’t ring alarm bells. Maybe whoever owns the company doesn’t even know what’s happening. A few corrupt employees would be all it takes.”
“What if the stones aren’t, uh, ordinary?”
“You cut them again until they are. Or you hide them until the statute of limitations runs out.”
“Seems a waste.”
“If you paid for the finished stone in the first place, it’s a waste to cut them all over again. If not, all you’re out is the cutter’s time — and the cutter in this case is probably a machine.”
“What about the Seven Sins?”
“I’m afraid that six out of seven have already been reworked and reduced to stones weighing between two and five carats.” Her voice was bleak. “Maybe, just maybe, a ten-carat stone would sneak past the necessity to be anonymous. Either way…” She shook her head. “Something incredibly rare and beautiful has been lost forever. Blue sapphires like the Seven Sins just don’t come out of the mines anymore. They probably don’t even exist outside of a few private collections and a handful of museums.”
The look on Kate’s face made Sam wish he hadn’t asked. But that was his job — asking questions that had unhappy answers.
“So the gangs knocking off couriers,” he said, “wouldn’t have any trouble getting rid of the goods in the States, even if it’s rough gems rather than Rolex Oysters.”
She risked a glance at his eyes. Blue. Intent. Cool. Full cop mode. That’s good. Really.
Okay, it isn’t, but it sure is safer.
“If the gangs couldn’t unload their stuff here,” she said, “they could do it overseas. Not everyone has my prejudice against foreign prisons.”
“But on the whole, you think it would be more likely that the stuff from couriers who get clouted in America ends up in America?” Sam asked.
“Depends on the package.” Another long breath. That’s it girl. Heart rate back to normal. “We have a huge market for entry-level colored stones. Everybody’s buying and selling them, including your grandmother on Internet auctions. Given that, why ship stuff to India, which already has its own historic supply lines for colored gems?”
“Could you give me a list of likely outlets for stolen gems?”
Kate hesitated. No doubt about it. He was all cop right now. “Likely as in shady or likely as in having a big enough supply line to bury some extra goods?”
“Both. The Purcells, for instance. From what you know about the business, could they have been a regular outlet for hot goods?”
She bit the corner of her mouth.
“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “You won’t have to swear to anything in court.” Yet.
“I’ve heard gossip.”
“What kind?”
She started pacing along the edge of the nearest worktable. As she walked, she fiddled with the equipment without changing any of the settings.
“Kate?”
After a moment she turned to face Sam. “I hate gossip.”
“I figured that out after the way you kept Lee’s secret,” Sam said. Then he noticed the change in her expression at her half brother’s name. “Did Lee?”
“Did he what?”
“Hate gossip.” Sam’s voice, like his expression, was neutral and patient.
Kate hesitated, then shook her head unhappily. “It was his one vice.”
“What did he tell you?”
She laced her fingers together. “Damn it, Sam, I could open my mouth and ruin some honest dealer’s life.”
“Or you could keep your mouth closed and shorten your own life,” he said bluntly. “Whoever whacked the Purcells wouldn’t have pulled a single punch for Saint Teresa and you know it. If you don’t, I’m telling you now, loud and clear. Bad guys just love it when you play nice with them. Don’t do it, Kate. It will kill you.”
For a long time there was only silence.
“All right,” she said finally, sighing. “The Purcells had the reputation
of not asking too many questions about previous owners if you sold them stones at a really good price.”
Sam already knew that, but he nodded to encourage her.
“The outfit called Worldwide Wholesale Estate Gems doesn’t have a great reputation,” she said reluctantly.
“In what way?”
“It’s pretty much common knowledge that more loose stones came out of the company than ever went there set in estate jewelry. Particularly from South American sources.”
Sam made a mental note of the name. He’d bet that the corporate headquarters was in Aruba or Panama or some other place where the banks were friendly and the questions nonexistent. The answers too. It took an act of God or a world-class hacker to get information out of those places.
“Some of the importers who supply the hobby trade have uneven reputations,” Kate said. “Starr Crystals and Overseas Coral and Gems come to mind.”
“Would these outfits be able to handle the kind of high-end stuff that couriers sometimes carry, especially for a gem show like this?”
“Probably not, unless they were spotting for private collectors or lining their own retirement accounts.”
“Some of the couriers we lost were carrying Rolex watches and gold coins,” Sam said. “Could they go to the same outlet as the rough and loose-cut stones?”
Kate thought about it. “If you have a chain of jewelry stores, maybe. Several such operations follow the gem circuits, because they make their own jewelry and like to keep in touch with what new colored stone is hot in the trade. Peyton Hall’s family operation is one. Morgenstern and Sons is another. Heartstone Gems and Jewelry is a third. They’re all here in Scottsdale. Then there are the nationwide chains.” She shrugged. “There are three other big ones I could name and maybe fifteen in the next tier. Any of them could be an outlet for stolen goods, either at the national level or through a corrupt local manager. Their representatives also follow the gem circuit just to keep a feel for what the trade is doing.”
“What about the local pastor?” Sam said wryly.
She laughed. “In other words, I’m giving you too many suspects?”
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