Carla Neggers - Betrayals

“I don’t need an excuse.”

“Then how come you’ve waited fourteen years?”

“Sofi.”

She waved her tea glass. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but I’ve gotten used to telling people what I think.”

Mercifully, David emerged from the kitchen managing to look both excited and grim. “Where did you get these stones?” he asked.

Rebecca shook her head. “Can’t say.”

“Are they one of your peculiar investments?”

Leaving the question unanswered, Rebecca gave Sofi a look. She’d just met David, which meant Sofi must have told the jeweler something about her. Of course, David could have read about her in any number of gossip rags over the years, including The Score.

David cleared his throat and became businesslike. “You’ll need more corroboration than just my say-so, but there’s no question in my mind that what I’ve examined are the famed Jupiter Stones.”

Rebecca suddenly felt light-headed. “Which are?”

“Ten corundum gems-nine sapphires and a ruby-commissioned by Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary for his wife, the Empress Elisabeth. She was unstable and quite an eccentric, and apparently she gave the stones away or lost them, probably in the mid-1890s. There’s extensive documentation of each stone, so there should be no trouble verifying if these are the ones. But I should warn you that no one’ll be satisfied without some explanation of how you came by them. They haven’t been seen since Empress Elisabeth’s day. The last time anyone even heard a rumor about them was in the late fifties when a Hungarian baroness claimed they’d been stolen from her by a jewel thief prowling the Riviera at the time. He was never apprehended-supposedly he was a French race-car driver who disappeared before the police could arrest him. The baroness committed suicide, and no one seriously believed she ever had the real Jupiter Stones.”

Sofi was impressed. “How do you know all this stuff?”

David shrugged off the compliment. “Any gemologist worth his salt knows about the Jupiter Stones. The Red Moon of Mars and the Star of Jupiter-the ruby and the Kashmir sapphire-alone are famous stones, but the entire collection…Well, now I can verify that it’s fantastic.”

“You don’t think you’ve made a mistake?” Rebecca asked.

“It’s possible, but no, I don’t think so. In addition to the stones matching the descriptions of the Jupiter Stones, the velvet bag they’re in is embossed with the Hapsburg imperial seal.”

“Are they valuable?”

David, ever the jeweler, smiled. “Name your price.”

His plane’s descent took Jared directly over Boston proper, glittering in the clear evening air. The city of his childhood had changed. In the new skyline, he spotted the distinctive outline of the Wesley Sloan-designed Winston & Reed Building on the waterfront. He wondered if Quentin was working late, and if his aunt was there, pretending she didn’t run the place when everyone knew she did.

The landing was smooth, but the inactivity of the long cross-country flight had gotten to Jared, and he couldn’t wait to be out in the city and moving. All he’d done for the past seven hours was think about Mai, about Saigon and the man from Saigon and the Winstons-and about the Blackburns. Why did Rebecca have to be in Boston? He’d considered staying away because of her. But he couldn’t. He had to see Thomas Blackburn; he had to get answers to the questions he’d left hanging for fourteen years.

He couldn’t take any chances. The white-haired man had come to San Francisco. Obviously he had seen Mai’s picture in The Score. Now he had seen her.

Jared took a cab to the Massachusetts State House and walked the rest of the way to West Cedar Street. Whatever else might have changed in Boston in the past fourteen years, he supposed Beacon Hill would be pretty much the same.

And he knew Thomas Blackburn would be.

After the long flight, the exercise and the cool night air felt good. Jared took the familiar shortcuts to West Cedar Street, not even tempted to go by the house on Chestnut where he had lived with his mother after her brief marriage to his father. The place belonged to someone else and had for a long time.

The Eliza Blackburn house was in hellish shape. Jared discovered the doorbell didn’t work and tried the brass knocker, in need of polishing.

Thomas Blackburn opened the door, the strong smell of curry emanating from inside the house. He squinted at Jared, then nodded with satisfaction, as if he’d been expecting him.

“Jared,” he said.

“Hello, Thomas.” Jared put out his hand, but that wasn’t enough and they embraced briefly. Standing back, Jared added, “You haven’t changed.”

Thomas gave him a small laugh, shaking his head because, of course, he had changed. He was almost eighty now. He didn’t stand so tall and straight, and there were more lines in his face, more weariness. Yet his eyes were still that intense blue, his gaze incisive and uncompromising as he studied Jared for a moment.

“It’s good to see you, Jared.”

“And you.” Jared choked back his emotion. “It’s been a long time, Thomas. Too long-but you don’t seem surprised I’m here.”

Thomas shrugged, but his expression was serious. “I suppose not. Come inside.”

They went into the faded elegance of the front parlor. Neither man sat down. Jared was restless, anxious to move after his long, frustrating day. The odor of curry was even stronger inside, and he recalled that Thomas had always liked spicy food.

“You saw The Score?” he asked.

Thomas nodded. “Rebecca showed me.”

R.J. Jared had devoured every word on her in the short tabloid article, but there’d been no mention of where she was living. One of Boston ’s pricey new condominiums? She was the first Blackburn in two hundred years to have money to blow, and he hoped she was enjoying every minute of it. But he couldn’t think about her now.

“Jared-” Thomas broke off, sighing. “Jared, what’s happened? The pictures have stirred up trouble, I assume.”

“Yeah. One of the assassins from Saigon -the one who shot me-saw them and must have realized Mai made it out alive.”

Leaving out nothing, Jared told Thomas about the scar-faced man from Saigon and his visit to Russian Hill, and even after fourteen years, it seemed right to unburden his soul to this aged, experienced, tortured man. The friendship they’d forged when Jared was in college and Rebecca still a kid in Florida remained intact, although in 1975, when Jared had come to Thomas shattered after his own experience in Indochina, still suffering the effects of two bullets in his shoulder, they had realized the decisions they’d arrived at that night might mean they’d never see each other again. Jared had already acknowledged, if not accepted, that he and R.J. were finished. But he’d understood then-as he did now-that whoever had shot him in Saigon had also meant to kill Mai, and could try again.

As he had fourteen years ago, Thomas listened without interruption or any apparent reaction. Finally, when Jared had finished, he asked, “Where is Mai now?”

“My father’s place, outside San Francisco.”

“Good.” Thomas clamped one hand on Jared’s upper arm, his eyes glittering even in the dim light of the parlor. “Go back to her. Stay with her. Let me find out what I can about this man and deal with him. My guess is he’s not after Mai directly.”

Jared stiffened with disappointment and increasing frustration. “I’d hoped you’d talk to me, Thomas. I need advice-answers. Look, after Saigon I was so crazed and in such a state of shock, I’d have gone to Peru and opened a butcher shop if you’d told me it was the smartest thing to do. I trusted you then, and I trust you now. But Thomas…You haven’t been straight with me. I can’t let it lie anymore, not with this bastard showing up on my doorstep. Talk to me.” Stemming his anger, Jared softened his voice and asked, “You know this guy, don’t you?”