Amy Atwell - Lying Eyes

“Iris!” a faint voice called.

She discovered Allie, dressed in black cargo pants and T-shirt, outside. The willowy blonde carried a cardboard box in her arms and a backpack flung over her shoulder.

Swallowing her frustration at this latest interruption, Iris hurried to the door. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Allie ducked her head at Iris’s tone. “I called your apartment, but when you didn’t answer, I got a feeling you’d be here.”

“And what’s Edgar doing here?” Iris made a conscious effort to soften her delivery.

It worked, drawing a slow smile from Allie. “He needs his aunt Iris. I got called into a brush-up rehearsal, and I didn’t want to leave him at my place all alone.”

“He’s a rabbit-”

“But he doesn’t like to be alone. You can understand that, can’t you?”

It wasn’t so much the words, but the way Allie said them that had Iris stepping back to let the blonde and the rabbit enter. Yes, dammit, she understood completely why someone wouldn’t like to be alone. How often had she been alone growing up, with her mother caught up here at the shop and Cosmo gallivanting wherever he pleased?

Allie walked without hesitation to the back room, where she placed the box on the floor. Her sinewy arms hauled the rabbit out and tucked him against her body. The rabbit nuzzled her neck. “He’s really the sweetest thing,” she said with a chuckle.

“Can Sweetie Pie Edgar stay in the box? I don’t want to be picking up any little gifts he chooses to leave.”

“You’ll be fine. He’s litter trained. I’ve got a box and some litter in the backpack.”

“You’re joking, right?” Iris didn’t believe in a litter-trained rabbit.

When Allie didn’t respond, Iris turned to find the blonde in one of those eye-to-eye communions with the rabbit.

A chill stole up Iris’s spine, but she downplayed it. “Now what’s he saying?”

Allie’s eyes never left the rabbit. “I get the sense that no matter what happens, he doesn’t want to be left behind. He needs to look after you.” Even she sounded puzzled.

“Don’t you mean I need to look after him?”

The blonde’s brow furrowed in concentration. “I don’t think so, but then, it’s an inexact science.”

I’ll bet. Iris still had to wonder if all the hocus-pocus with Edgar was some con Cosmo had taught Allie.

Allie considered her before adding softly, “Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful, sis.”

Iris laughed off her uneasiness. “Don’t worry. I’m doing a little work here, then I’m headed home for the rest of the day. I’ll take Edgar with me, but will you come get him before this evening?”

“Sure.” Allie lowered the rabbit to the floor. With a soft groan, she brushed at the white bunny hairs on her black shirt. “I should be done with rehearsal before two.”

“Sounds good.” Iris escorted her to the big glass doors.

Rummaging in one of the many pockets covering her pants, Allie withdrew a long piece of silver leather studded with dark red gems. “Edgar slipped out of this, and I couldn’t get it back on him to save my life.” She held it out. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

“Sure,” Iris lied. The poor animal was already living part of his life out of a cardboard box. She wasn’t going to force a collar on him, too. With a quick goodbye, she locked the doors after Allie left.

In the back room, she tossed the collar onto her worktable. Edgar explored beneath it, his ears swiveling this way and that. In case he made a sudden break for it, she closed the door to the sales floor before returning to the worktable, where she unzipped the backpack and found a small cat litter pan and a bag of some sort of new-age looking litter.

“You so owe me, Cosmo.” She placed the filled pan in the corner. “Bathroom’s over here, Eddy.”

The rabbit blinked its red eyes before resuming an exploratory hop around the workroom.

“Are you looking for something to eat? You should have told Allie if you were hungry-she would’ve fed you. Now you’ll have to wait until we go home.” She straightened and pushed a stray curl behind her ear. “Look at yourself, Iris Fortune. You’re talking to a rabbit.”

Determined to prove she could overcome all the chaos tossed her way in the past thirty-six hours, Iris straightened her cropped periwinkle jacket and smoothed her palms down the matching skirt. With the flick of a switch, she illuminated her worktable with bright lights then dug in her purse for a small set of keys. They jingled as she crossed the room to a set of fireproof filing cabinets. A total of fifty drawers lined the wall, all unlabeled, but Iris knew the contents of each and every one. This was where she kept the raw stones and metals for her jewelry pieces. Even though she didn’t deal in real diamonds, sapphires, pearls or emeralds, the value of these costume gems caused her insurance agent palpitations.

Unerringly, she inserted the key into drawer number thirty-three. She rarely opened this drawer as it only contained her limited copies of alexandrite and a stockpile of aurora borealis rhinestones. Inside, everything lay in place, just as it had the day before when she’d looked for signs of Cosmo tampering with her things. Gingerly, she withdrew the tray of alexandrite and carried it to the worktable.

On the tray rested a dozen or so loose stones, smaller gems she could incorporate into jewelry pieces-not that she’d ever needed them. There was also a square box Iris hadn’t opened for years, but now she lifted the lid to consider the high-quality copies within. Each close to ten carats, they were a family heirloom dating back to the 1920s when, according to her mother, her great-grandfather had cut them to resemble the Romanov gems.

Don’t ever sell these, Iris. So her mother had said time and again. But Iris knew her mother would have handed them over willingly to help Cosmo if he were in trouble.

Unshed tears blurred her eyes for a few moments. These ten stones had been her mom’s treasure. Iris had always believed the Romanov necklace, like the crown, was merely a myth, but if it did exist? Authentic stones like these would be priceless.

And Mom would have loved seeing them.

She tried to push the box away, but felt an extra drag to it. How odd. Exploring the white foam on which the stones lay, she discovered an uneven surface beneath them. Confused, she lifted a corner of the foam to find more gems beneath it. Adrenaline shot through her system as she removed the foam to reveal its hidden layer. Yesterday she’d examined the store to see if Cosmo had taken anything. It hadn’t occurred to her he might leave something here.

She set the white foam with the ten vanadium-treated stones aside. In the box lay a playing card.

The queen of diamonds.

“Dammit, Cosmo, where are you?” she whispered.

With the playing card rested ten more matching gems. Beneath the bright light of her worktable, they glowed a dark blood red, a little lighter than garnets. Four were ovals, another four were rectangles, and two were squares. But geometry didn’t begin to express the faceted edges that cast brilliant rainbows onto her wall, or the clarity of the stones.

A sudden thought made her scoop up the gems and carry them to the bathroom, so quickly, she nearly tripped over Edgar. Here, she flicked on the overhead light, its fluorescent tubes blinking to a bluish light. With a deep breath, she willed herself to look once more at the stones.

They’d turned an olive green. The color change added a dose of reality-in the myth, these alexandrite were supposed to change from vivid red to vivid green. Maybe daylight would make the green more pure. Still, there was no denying what she held. Her heart swelled with emotion. How her mother would have longed to see this day.