“I need to go somewhere,” she announced in a dispassionate voice. “Will you come with me?”
Ray glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard of George Darby’s Fiat, which was lent to get them home tonight.
8:47pm.
An overwhelming sense of urgency staved off his own lethargy.
“As your security contractor, you know that I’ll be with you every step.” He turned from the dash to look at her. “As your friend I will go wherever you ask.”
Haunted eyes stared back at him from the shadows.
“Are you my friend?” she whispered.
A fist grappled inside his chest, looking for something to latch onto.
“Dammit, Amanda−I kissed you. We can try to pretend it didn’t happen. That is the wise thing to do. But for me to do that−” was incomprehensible. It was dangerous. It was careless. It was raw. “Yeah, I’d say it means I’m your friend,” he uttered thickly.
The rustle of her silky raincoat filled the tight car. She slipped a pale hand into her hair, locking the flaxen strands behind her ear.
“You’re probably right.” Her voice was hoarse. Emotion might not be visible on her face, but it had seized her vocal chords. “We should pretend that didn’t happen.”
A war waged inside him. A war more futile than anything he had clashed with in the past. Tormented, he reached for her hand.
Amanda’s long lashes fluttered down as she stared at that connection. After several seconds she extracted herself from the grip and reached for the dash-mounted GPS, tapping an address into it.
“This is where I want to go.”
Ray didn’t look at the monitor.
He had already guessed the destination.
***
Barren trees locked black limbs to form a sinister canopy. Granted, in daylight the cemetery grounds were most likely beautiful with vintage stonework and craggy knolls and vivid green patches of grass.
But not at night…
Ray walked alongside Amanda, fighting the urge to reach for the Glock he had returned to his jacket pocket. She warned of a patch of roots ahead and guided them around the obstacle. Her steps were calculated, the deep-seated muscle memory of a blind person traveling about their house.
Climbing a grassy embankment she came to a halt before a low rectangular stone. It was too dark to see its inscription, or any artistic carvings. She approached it and dusted her fingers across the top. She didn’t kneel. She didn’t whisper prayers. She just stood there, looking down at the ground.
“These are my parents,” she explained.
“I suspected that,” he answered quietly.
“It’s really just their ashes. The authorities finished up with their bodies very quickly I am told. They explained that there would be a lot less red tape transporting ashes from South Africa to London than bodies.”
Ray listened for sorrow in the recitation, but it wasn’t there. Her voice was clinical.
“When the ashes arrived my Aunt tried to explain in some flowery way that my parents had ascended to Heaven and left us a cloud of their essence in those two tiny jars. I was a little girl trying to assimilate what had happened to my parents, and all I got was two jars and a cloud story.”
When her voice faded, Ray was tempted to touch her again, but he stood still. Watching her. Watching what little the moonlight would reveal. Watching a stone that remembered two loving parents who were taken too soon.
“But Uncle George−” she surprised him when she resumed. “He took me aside and he sat me down. He explained to me that my parents were dead. Their death was unfair. He explained the process of what happened to them to make them fit in those two tiny jars. And he asked me what I wanted to do with the jars.”
“Woah.” Now he could see the similarities in character between George and Amanda.
“That’s what I needed, Ray. Even at seven years-old. I didn’t want clouds and flowers. I wanted to understand. I didn’t want to be coddled. From the moment I found my parents on the side of that road, I never wanted to be coddled again. I wanted to know. My whole life I have sought out answers to every question imaginable so that I could know. My thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. I ate up college courses, always going back for more. I researched for work. I researched tirelessly every day−because I wanted to know.” She drew in a ragged breath. “And so help me, God. I want to know who this man is that is threatening me.”
Now Ray did move in−closing the gap between them until his chest bumped her shoulder. He didn’t wrap his arms around her. He kept them straight at his sides. But eventually he felt her relax.
“How did you respond to your uncle that day? What did you tell him you wanted to do?”
She tucked her head down, speaking into her collar. “I told him that I wanted to bury them because that is what you are supposed to do with dead people. So he arranged for the ceremony and purchased this plot.”
After Ray remained silent, she sighed. “I know what you’re thinking. Elena, the Ice Queen. How could I be so cold?”
“You were seven years-old, Amanda. You were not cold. You were learning to cope.”
Her nod rustled her hair against his chest. “Yes. This plot allowed me a place to talk to them. And George and I would come here once a week with a basket and a blanket and I would tell my parents about London. I would tell them about my new school. I would tell them about my new business−”
On the last word her voice caught. That momentary yield proved his undoing. He reached for her arm, wrapping his fingers around it. Just that. Just that touch.
“So don’t you ever coddle me,” she whispered. “Tell me. Always tell me straight up. No matter what.”
In that moment, Ray knew this woman would forever remain in his soul.
“I don’t want to coddle you, Amanda. I want to put my arms around you, but that isn’t to coddle. No−that’s not why at all…”
Instead of admonishment he felt the surrender of her body. The soft dip of her back against his chest. With a wrench in his heart his hands slipped around her, nestling her even deeper into his warmth. He dipped his head into her collar, smelling the flowers.
You are all about flowers and clouds, Amanda. Beautiful flowers and the softest of clouds.
“They’re diamonds,” she whispered.
Did she read his mind? That he thought her eyes shined in the moonlight like diamonds?
“What?” he asked thickly.
“What the man is looking for. They really are diamonds.”
CHAPTER TEN
There. It was said.
It almost came as a relief.
It was a secret guarded for so long that it had nearly begun to fade away−like the proverbial tree falling in the woods. Until these malicious notes surfaced, the diamonds had been a detached memory. Although she tried to distance herself from the stones’ existence, the gem on her right hand was a constant reminder. It was there to ground her.
To mention them to Ray went against every fiber of her being−and yet, the disclosure came as a catharsis. Since childhood her aunt and uncle had vowed that the diamonds should remain a family secret. To speak of them would rip apart their lives when they were trying so hard to piece together normalcy for a young Mandy.
“I see,” he said.
Was there censure in that simple declaration? She couldn’t be sure. Winding around in his arms to face him, she was pleased to see that his hands had not dropped from her…yet.
“Can we go back to my apartment and talk about this? It’s getting so cold.”
His grip on her tightened, and she wallowed in the warmth of his broad chest. For the moment she would revel in his touch. It would be gone soon. He would judge her. He would turn her over to the authorities. Everything she had worked so hard for would be gone, all because she had confessed the truth to a man that was bound to dig it up soon anyway. He was too sharp. It was better to hear it from her.
There was no response so she gazed up, unabl
e to see his eyes in the new bank of clouds covering the moon .
“Ray?”
“You called me, Ray,” he uttered with no emotional barometer to gauge his tone.
His hand dropped to the small of her back, assisting her across the gnarled terrain. To her surprise he stopped and crooked back to face her parent’s grave. For a brief moment he bowed his head, and then pivoted to negotiate the path.
***
Sitting hunched over on the couch, Amanda watched Ray pace the interior of her apartment. After a second pass, which involved opening every closet, each bathroom, and several large cabinets, he came to a halt on the carpet before her.
“Sit down,” she suggested. “You must be exhausted.”
She was exhausted. Exhausted and nervous.
“I’m not in the mood to sit right now.” His expression remained stern but the edge to his tone eased. “Look, I told you upfront that the best way for me to protect you is if I was armed with all the facts.”
Amanda nodded, and kept her head down. How long ago was it that she was sitting on a couch watching a musical with this man? How long ago was it that he had kissed her?
Neither of those memories were depicted in the creature before her. Determination slashed harsh shadows under his cheekbones and about his jaw.
“Yes, I know that,” she conceded softly. “That is why I brought it up. But if you could please sit down it might make it a little easier to give you those details.”
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to budge, but eventually he moved to a plush seat across from her, settling down and hooking his shoe over his knee. Big hands gripped the arms of the upholstery. She stared at them as she began to talk.
“When I finally arrived in London with my aunt and uncle I was pretty much a lost soul. They were so kind to me−well, my aunt was so kind, George was George.” She grinned, but she was looking down so he could not see that. “Even then I appreciated his straightforward attitude. But, all that aside…I was hurting. At first I cried during the nights. Soon I came to realize that was fruitless. It wouldn’t change the fact that my parents were gone, and that now I was in a strange place. All I had from my past was my stuffed bear, Alvin.”
Instinctively, her glance shifted across the room to her bedroom doorway. Behind it was a walk-in closet, and up high on one of those shelves, Alvin still sat−her greatest supporter. Yes, he was worn from being over-hugged, but she doubted that he minded her zeal.
“At seven I was probably too old to drag around a stuffed bear with me everywhere, but he helped me to cope. We were having tea in the kitchen when Aunt Joyce noticed that one of his eyes was hanging loose. I was aware of it, but I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact. I was afraid she might try to throw Alvin away.”
Amanda fussed over a spec of lint on her thigh. “Instead, Aunt Joyce said she would repair the eye so that he would be good as new. I hugged her as hard as I’d hugged Alvin.” She smiled at the memory. “But when my aunt went to reattach Alvin’s eye, she felt a lump inside the hole. At first she thought a rock had somehow gotten inside the stuffed bear. She pulled it out along with a handful of fluffy innards. It was a pouch. She opened the pouch and poured out the contents on the kitchen table.”
“They’re rocks,” I had said, frowning.
Aunt Joyce called Uncle George over and pointed them out to him. “There are rocks inside Mandy’s bear. How odd.”
Motion caused Amanda to look up. Ray had hefted forward, with both feet flat on the carpet now, and elbows planted on knees. The intensity with which he studied her made her afraid to go on, but she delved back in time. In that kitchen she was safe with her aunt and uncle.
“There were two of them. One the size of a strawberry, and one−” her voice faded. She fought the impulse to go get Alvin. “One slightly larger than a golf ball. In retrospect, I guess I had felt them all along, but I thought they were the backs of Alvin’s eyes. They were amply cushioned inside their pouch so you never actually felt a hard edge.”
She hesitated for a second, and then added, “And there was a note.”
Ray’s eyebrow inched up, but he did not speak.
“It was just a few words, hastily scribbled on a hotel pad. “Mandy,” she recited, “if you find this pouch it means something has happened to us. We know we are being followed. Take these stones and make a good life for yourself. We love you.”
It took a moment to swallow past the knot in her throat.
“At first my aunt and uncle didn’t know what the stones were. They truly did look like rocks to me. There was no brilliant sheen—no exquisite beveled facets. They were dull, pasty-looking rocks. But based on the context of my parent’s letter, George had to find out. He was too leery to take them somewhere local for analysis so he traveled abroad−just to have the small one examined. To his surprise and the surprise of the Dutch gemologist, it was a blue diamond. Extremely rare at that size and extremely valuable.”
“How valuable?” Ray asked.
Amanda cleared her throat. “Millions.”
“I see,” he reclined in the chair. She didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. “And this was the smaller of the two stones?”
“Correct.” She swiped her hair behind her ear, but it stubbornly fell over her cheek again.
“He returned with the stone, looking over his shoulder the whole trip. Later in life, George explained to me that my aunt and he spent a long time deliberating over what to do with those diamonds. Naturally, they wanted to contact the authorities, but they were afraid that my parents’ reputation would be tarnished…that everyone would assume they stole them and were attempting to smuggle them out of the country.”
Weary beyond belief, she eyed the clock over the mantle. Almost eleven. She had to be up and in the office by six to catch up.
“So they did nothing,” she sighed. “They held on to the stones for several years, waiting to hear if anyone reported them missing or stolen. Stones of that size would not go unmentioned if they were stolen. For all those years, nothing was said, even with follow-up phone calls to the authorities in South Africa when my uncle would demand updates on my parents’ homicide case. Nothing. No one ever mentioned diamonds.”
“Finally,” she continued, “I grew older and talks of university came up. It was at that time that my uncle decided that my parents went through great trouble to hide those stones. He knew they would want their daughter to have them. He decided to sell one diamond. To conceal its worth and to distance himself from any local gemologists, he traveled to India and had the stone broken up, and the individual rough pieces cut and polished. Each were worth a small fortune. Accumulated there was enough to pay for my entire education, my aunt and uncle’s well-being, and the foundation for BLUE-LINK.”
“Was that one of them?” Ray nodded at her right hand.
Amanda held the gem up. Even in the ambient light it glimmered.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Let’s not kid anyone. My parents died because of these stones. This ring is a constant reminder of that. Sometimes it is beautiful. Sometimes this ring is no more than a garrote.”
Ray leaned forward and reached for her hand. Calloused fingertips slipped up her wrist, gently turning it so that he could view the ring. His touch sent shockwaves up her arm.
Amanda swallowed. She dragged her arm back to her side, leaving him empty-handed.
“So, go ahead. Judge me. Arrest me. Do what you must, but make sure you take it out on me. Don’t touch my aunt and uncle.”
Ray gave her a measured look. “Arrest you for what? You’ve done nothing wrong. If anything, it is your uncle who might have teetered with his morals. But, given the amount of time he waited, he certainly offered anyone the opportunity to claim it…I don’t blame his approach. What was he going to say, “I have these multi-million dollar diamonds in my possession, did anyone lose them?”
Stoic on the outside, but troubled inside, she didn’t respond to his provocation.
> “The note from your parents doesn’t reveal much.” Ray pointed out. He looked up sharply, probably having heard the strangled sound in her throat.
“I’m sorry.” He was sincere. “I have to deal with the facts, Amanda. It’s the only way to find your man.”
She nodded mutely.
“Their note tells us that they purposely hid the diamonds,” he continued. “But not where or how they acquired them. And it tells us−” Concern darkened his eyes, “−that they were worried about you, and that they wanted to make sure you were taken care of. That means they knew they were in serious trouble.”
He reached behind his neck, massaging there. “Given the fact that no one has filed a theft report for these diamonds I don’t see any laws being broken.”
“But−” she hesitated, “−this man obviously thinks they belong to him. How am I to know otherwise?”
“For one thing, by the way he’s conducting himself. If he was legitimate there would be no need for this drama.”
“You said this was cut from the smaller stone,” Ray continued. “What happened to the other blue diamond? If you didn’t sell it, is it in a safe deposit box in Switzerland or something?”
“It’s safe,” she declared.
Grateful that he didn’t push for now, she glanced up at the clock. “Ray−”
A shift in his eyes exposed a glimpse of the man who had kissed her. Tonight she had been with the SEAL, but now, for just a flash, she witnessed the impassioned man beneath.
He rose, long legs ascending until she couldn’t connect with those eyes any longer. A wide hand appeared in her view. She snagged it and climbed up before him.
Dusk Page 11
