The Diamond Secret

by Ruth Wind

  I tucked my purse close and folded my arms over my chest as we headed west, down the street toward the sea. "You stole the jewel?" I prompted.

  "Yes," he said. "I am, by profession, a thief."

  "And where did it come from?"

  He smiled slightly as we emerged onto the quiet promenade. "I imagined you had unraveled that by now."

  "Ah. The Kingpin. The drug lord." I paused at the top of a short set of steps to the sand. The last fingers of light gave a backlight to the Goat Fells on Arran, and splashed against the windows of the expensive homes lining the beach.

  Luca inclined his head. "You do not know who it is?"

  "Who? You mean the drug lord?"

  "Yes. They called him The Swede."

  "Doesn't ring a bell. Should I know it?"

  "Perhaps. It will explain the Maigny connection."

  I waited, but he was savoring his moment. I spread my hands. "Well?"

  "Henrik Gunnarsson."

  "Still nothing," I said. "And while I know Maigny would not particularly care for a close examination of his business, I wouldn't think drugs would appeal to him." He preferred art, jewels, antiques. "Drugs would be too messy."

  "Let's walk," Luca said, gesturing.

  I frowned at his stalling, and stopped where I stood. Wind came off the water, brisk and invigorating, but it would soon be very cold. The wind skittered up my skirt and I shivered. "Let's not. We can stand here on the bridge."

  "As you wish." He faced the sea, putting his face in profile, and I saw something ancient in the Semitic angle of his high-bridged nose, the fullness of his lips. A profile meant for an ancient Greek coin. No, not Greek. An ancient Romanian coin. Yes, that worked. A Gypsy prince, that was Luca, both wild and elegant. The wind gusted his scent of oranges toward me, and I found myself breathing it in before I knew what I was doing.

  Dangerous.

  In a hard voice, I said, "Tell me."

  "Maigny hired me to steal the jewel from Gunnarsson. They are old, old rivals—something that began over a woman who became Maigny's mistress. You may remember her."

  "He had a lot of mistresses," I said with a shrug.

  "I have the impression this one might have meant a little more to him. Elena?"

  I didn't say anything, but memories swished forward. A woman with a deep bust and long legs and beautiful shoes, chuckling at me. A man with ice-blond hair and cool eyes, smoking on a balcony in Paris. Paul, his jaw hard, ordering them out of his house. I couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. "I remember her, but not because he was somadly in love." Though I supposed he might have been. What did I know—or care—of adult love affairs at the time? "She betrayed him. Stole something, maybe. I can't remember exactly."

  "Yes, she betrayed him. She stole a Celtic brooch from him, and took it to Gunnarsson."

  "I see." And I could. I could imagine the cold fury that must have overtaken him when he discovered her treachery. "So, how did Gunnarsson end up with the Katerina?"

  "It was largely to thwart Maigny," Luca said.

  "Ah." Old, bad blood. How typical of men. "So Paul wanted it as payback for the earlier theft." It was a test to see how much he knew.

  He glanced at me below his lashes, quick and measuring. "Not exactly. Partly, of course, but he has been seeking this jewel for twenty years or better. Something to do with his father." He shrugged, and leaning on the bridge, laced his hands together. "I don't know."

  "His father was a thief, like you," I said. I watched a pair of gulls wheeling against the eggplant-colored sky. "He spent years tracking down the Katerina, and managed to at last steal it from a war criminal who'd fled to Brazil. Paul was young, eight or nine, and saw the jewel when his father brought it home."

  "Mmm." Luca's murmur was sympathetic—and knowing. "I can guess the next part. Maigny's father was murdered and the jewel disappeared."

  "From what I gather, it was quite brutal. Dismemberment, maybe even decapitation."

  Was it my imagination or did Luca shudder slightly? "So it goes with curses."

  I thought of Gunnarsson, he of the Kingpin's Crown Jewels that I'd been brought in to evaluate. He'd been garroted. "Did you know the Kingpin?"

  "No." The word was short and cold. "He was dead before I arrived. He had only held the Katerina three days."

  "And was murdered."

  He looked down at me, his hands quiet on the stone balustrade of the bridge. "Yes."

  "Who did it?"

  "Who knows? Perhaps it was your Maigny."

  "No." Paul was a very wealthy man with an eye for beauty who'd made his fortune in canny investments. While I could credit the idea of his hiring a thief to steal a gem from a drug lord with whom he had an old grievance, I didn't think he was a killer. "Who else wanted the jewel?"

  He made a pishing noise. "More to the point, who did not?"

  I nodded. "And you have now stolen it yourself."

  "Yes."

  "Has he paid you?"

  "Half."

  I raised my eyebrows. "And now you've stolen it and have his cash and there are others after the jewel, and if you live another week it will be a miracle." I tossed my heavy braid over my shoulder. "And you dragged me into this mess, why?"

  "It belongs to Romania," he said.

  I half snorted. "And a thief cares about that, why?"

  He gave me an injured look. "My country is poor but proud, and she has been overlooked. Our wealth comes in claiming our own heritage and taking pride in it. If the crown jewels of England were stolen, wouldn't a British thief wish to return them?"

  "I suppose." I was still picking up a note of insincerity. Something not quite right. A gust tossed handfuls of dust into my eyes. "Let's go back." We turned around, and I noticed a pair of lovers kissing on a bench. Something about them looked—off.

  I frowned. Or was I just being paranoid? Not everybody was paparazzi. "What do I have to do with all of this?"

  "Your name was in the newspapers after the murder."

  "Yeah. And?"

  He paused, put his hand on my arm. Again the night wind blew his exotic scent toward me, mixing it with the sea in a heady combination. I looked at his mouth, wondered…

  "When I saw your photo in the paper, I knew I had seen it before, but only when they mentioned your father was Gordon Montague did I realize that I could protect myself from Paul's wrath."

  I raised an eyebrow. "How will I protect you?"

  "Sylvie, think," he said. "Why choose you? He won't kill me as long as you are with me."

  "Why would I care if he kills you?"

  "It does not matter what you think. It matters that he will do nothing to endanger you. You are the most precious of all creatures to him, did you know that?"

  I snorted. "We haven't spoken in five years."

  "That may be," he said quietly, and lifted a hand to my face to capture a strand of long hair that had escaped my braid. He smoothed it back. "But it has not changed his feelings for you. He's very protective of you."

  Luca's fingers were graceful and delicate on my cheekbone, and as I looked up at him warily, I spied something in his blue eyes. Surprise, perhaps. A tendril of awareness unfurled on my spine as he took a step closer.

  From behind us came a shout, "Hey, Sylvie! Is that your new boyfriend?"

  I turned, instinctively, and the flashes went off, pop, pop.

  "Shit." I whirled away, putting my back to them. "C'mon," I said to Luca. "Let's get out of here."

  He had not moved, his hand still circling my arm. He appeared to be confused as he stared at the photographers, and I'm sure they caught very flattering, open-mouthed pictures of him. They'd run with some appropriately awful headline about shocking secrets or something appropriately comic-bookish.

  The flashes from the cameras lit up the night, and Luca scowled. "Who—?"

  "Fucking paparazzi," I said, striding away. "Where' s the car?"

  He hurried to catch me. "Language, language," he said with a chuc
kle in his voice.

  "You try having sleazy photographers taking your picture every time you're about to kiss someone." I was still stinging from an encounter in New York last spring, when the doggedness of a pair of photographers had cost me a developing relationship with a man I'd really liked. Joseph had been a professor at Berkley. He'd found the attention daunting, and dumped me.

  "Were we about to kiss?" Luca asked.

  I glared at him. "Don't be arch."

  He grinned. "The car is here." He pointed toward a car park near the train station. Behind us the photographers strolled along, shooting photos lazily, their cigarette smoke carried invisibly toward us on the night.

  He led the way toward a tiny Ford Mini. White. I raised an eyebrow. "Could you possibly have chosen anything less cool?"

  He made a face, brushed the question from the air with a wave of his hand, and opened the passenger door for me. There was that one moment of disorientation when I looked down and there was no steering wheel on the left. I started to duck into the car, but Luca captured my arm. Stopped me.

  And before I knew what was happening, he slid his hand into my hair, tilted his head toward mine and kissed me.

  Even as I was falling into it, I knew exactly what he was doing—for some reason he wanted our photos in the tabloids. He wanted something passionate and sexy. Under ordinary circumstances, I'd never be famous enough to make the covers, but with the news of the drug dealer's stash, and the sexy possibility of a lost gem, and the excitement over my father's current wins on the circuit, chances were excellent—especially with Luca's good looks—that we'd be plastered over them all tomorrow. For a split second, I wondered who he wanted to see us.

  I started to pull back, half offended, but who was I kidding? I was using him, too. It wouldn't exactly kill me to have my ex-husband see photos of me kissing some dashing foreigner. For a single long moment, I felt a ripple of satisfaction at the idea of Timothy standing in line in some grocery store, and the tabloids emblazoned with me and Luca kissing.

  That was where I was in one minute.

  The very next second, he lifted his head slightly, his hands cupped around my face, and he looked faintly puzzled. "Well," he whispered, and before I could gather my senses enough to move away, he'd bent his head again, claimed my mouth, and something shifted with both of us.

  Just that simple. He tasted exactly right. There are people you know are bad for you and you let them get away with murder for all kinds of physical reasons. That's all I can tell you about Luca. His mouth was as luscious as it looked, the lips full and delicious and somehow elegant. That scent of oranges, sharp as freshly grated peel, swept through me, made my hips soft, and I lost my head for three seconds.

  Or maybe it was thirty.

  I know my head fell back into his palm, that his thumb was on my cheek, that he might have been mugging for the cameras at first, but it shifted for him at the same instant it did for me, and there was nothing pretend in the sudden thrust of his tongue, the sparking electricity that ran in blue rivulets between us. That tendril of unfurling awareness on my spine moved trough my body, twining around those places our bodies touched—chest, knees, lips.

  I very nearly let go. His fingers slid down my neck, traced my collarbone—

  Some internal alarm screamed my name. I shoved him away. "Stop!"

  For one long second, he didn't release me, only hovered there a moment, eyes sharp and hot, one hand still tangled in my hair. His lips were slightly parted. I forgot there were photographers hovering. Forgot that I had a giant diamond stashed in my bra. Forgot I was in Scotland for a good reason and I needed to protect my integrity.

  Then his nostrils flared and he abruptly dropped his hands, moved away from me.

  "Get in," he said.

  Chapter 6

  Diamonds were worn by aristocratic families to ward off the plague during the Middle Ages. The poorest people always died first, since they lived closer to the docks, where the ships often brought the plague from other countries. The rich had an idea that since the poor went first, that displaying their wealth (diamonds) would keep them from infection.

  —Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewski, B.F.A.

  When I climbed into the car, he slammed the door and came around to get behind the wheel. He did not look at me as he turned the key in the ignition. I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.

  "Where is your room?" he asked gruffly.

  I gave him directions. He nearly turned the wrong way out of the parking lot, and cursed left-hand drive before he corrected his turn. "When will Britain catch up with the rest of the world on traffic?"

  "Never."

  "It's idiotic."

  I shrugged. "Probably."

  It took longer to get out of the parking lot than it did to get to the hotel, and we pulled up into the lot there. Lamplight glowed at the windows stacked up into the darkness.

  Would I invite him in? Under other circumstances, I might have. But I would not do it tonight. There were too many volatilities built into it. Too much at stake.

  I got out. He followed me, keys in hand, to the back of the car. Without speaking, he opened the trunk, let me grab my bag, and slammed the top down again.

  "Thanks," I said, and headed toward the door of the hotel, rolling the case behind me. He followed.

  I stopped. "What are you doing?"

  "Coming with you."

  "Why?"

  "What are you going to do, Sylvie?" He scowled. "Turn it in to the authorities?"

  That was exactly what I should do. My career depended on my doing exactly that. Why was I hesitating? "I don't know yet."

  "Before you act, Sylvie, will you think on it? It belongs to Romania. If you take it to Maigny, it will never be there again."

  "He has no part in this. I told you, we haven't spoken in years."

  "So you say." He paused. "If you will help me return it to Romania, I will make it worth your while."

  "If I do that, my career is over, Luca."

  "Not if it appears that I kidnapped you."

  I shook my head. "No."

  He lowered his eyes, then looked at me. "And what if I kidnap you now?"

  "You would have done it already if that was what you intended." I paused with my hand on the door to the hotel. "Would have been much easier for you all around, wouldn't it? Grab me in San Francisco, make sure Paul knew so he didn't kill you and then get the jewel back to Romania."

  "Yes."

  I met his eyes. "But you didn't. You're a thief, but not violent."

  A slight shrug. He started to speak, then paused. Looked toward the parking lot. "If—"

  I waited, but he didn't finish. "'If…?'" I prompted.

  "If I return the jewel to Romania, I can perhaps regain the good opinion of my family. It would mean a great deal to me."

  Something about his plea moved me. The diamond felt almost as if it started to hum against my flesh. "I'm so tired," I said. Touched cold fingers to the middle of my eyebrows. "Do you suppose we could talk about all of this in the morning?"

  "Very well," he said. "Let's get my bag."

  We went into the hotel, and the girl nodded to me. I went up the stairs, not wishing to wait for the tiny, narrow elevator. My room was on the third floor. Luca didn't say a word. His keys jingled in his hand as he followed behind me. It occurred to me that I should be afraid of him—but I wasn't. My instincts, honed in dozens of cities throughout my childhood spent following my father around the circuit, told me that Luca meant me no harm.

  I thought of his mouth, that luscious kiss, and considered the possibility of letting him sleep in my bed tonight. And what kind of an idiot I'd be if I let him.

  But you know, it had been a long bad year. My divorce anniversary was in two days. Sometimes what you want is a little affirmation that you're attractive, that you've still got it. Or maybe I just wanted the warmth of another person's skin next to mine.

  On the landing, I paused. "I'm really not going to giv
e you the jewel."

  "I will not ask it." His eyes were luminous and direct. "Take it to the police, let it be stolen again, let another fool be murdered."

  "Or perhaps I'll take it to Paul," I said, dangerously.

  "That, too, is an option. But a criminal who wants it for greed will surely be swept away by the curse, will he not?"

  "Why would I care?"

  He smiled. "Why, indeed?"

  I turned my back and climbed the rest of the stairs. My door was the third one down. I paused for a second outside, and turned toward Luca. The door fell open beneath my hand, and startled, I turned back.

  Holding my breath, I silently began to push it open. It was nearly impossible to keep my hand away from the priceless weight nestled beneath my left breast. The door moved heavily on well-oiled hinges, an inch at a time. There was a light on within. I couldn't remember if I'd left one on or not.

  My cell phone rang.

  Three things happened at once—I scrambled to pull it out of my pocket; Luca leapt forward to push the door the rest of the way open, just as someone inside the room came hurtling out. I ducked, instinctively rolling toward one side.

  I shouted, "Look out!" but Luca was already down, a red gash opening over his brow. I only had a hazy impression of a burly man in a sweatshirt before I saw the gun he carried in a white, freckled hand. I dove for the floor, my cell phone ringing again. Luca was on his feet, rushing for the intruder, but the man headed straight down the hall and disappeared into another hallway, presumably stairs for the staff. Luca went after him, but returned in a moment, shaking his head. "He's gone."

  The cell phone rang again, loud against my thigh. I reached for it, thinking to flip it open, but just as I got it into my hand, doors started opening along the corridor. Luca grabbed me and shoved me toward the elevator, jamming his fingers against the buttons.

  I managed a muffled, "What—?"

  He pulled me into him, an arm across my chest, his mouth against my ear. "We must look like lovers. Be still." He let go of a laugh, as if he were drunk, and hid the blood on his face by ducking into my shoulder.

  The elevator came and he shoved me inside it. The doors closed. I yanked out of his grip, hit the second floor button. "I'm not going with you."