Ruth Wind - The Diamond Secret

“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.”

“They’ll kill you for that jewel.”

“They! Who are they?”

“I don’t know. There were others who knew Gunnarsson had the Katerina. And someone killed him before I got there.”

“This is too much,” I said, putting my fingers to my temples. I desperately needed sleep, a break, some coherence.

“Sylvie, you must not be alone. Not until the jewel is delivered.”

“I don’t want any part of this!” I cried, and reached into my bra, yanked it out, tossed it at him. “You take it.”

The jewel, absurdly huge, fell against the floor with a thump and lay at his feet. He literally shuddered. The elevator moved, headed downward, and he punched the stop button.

The cubicle slammed to a stop. We stood there, staring at each other, with the blood dripping down his forehead, the jewel at his feet. “Please,” he said. “I will do whatever you ask. Help me.”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

Blood trickled into his left eye and he blinked, wincing, his fingers white on the stop button. He kicked the jewel back toward me. “I am directly related to the priest who had it dug from the grave. I cannot touch it. I need you.”

“You had to touch it somehow.”

He shook his head. “I picked it up with a glove, put it in a box.”

“You can do that now.”

“Please,” he said. “Help me. It is not for me. It is for Romania, for the first Katerina. For justice.”

For a long moment, I thought about it. There was more I didn’t know, more I wanted to understand, and it all bumped around in my head like boxes on a stormy sea. None of the story hung together. Probably a lot of that was exaggerated by the very real case of jet lag that was dragging on my brain cells.

But the one thing I did know was that I did not want to let the jewel go just this moment. Before I decided, I wanted to get some sleep. And if I were honest, didn’t some part of me want to carry it to Paul himself, like an offering?

“All right,” I said, and bent down to pick up the jewel. In my hand, it was startlingly alive, with a deep vibration I could feel through to my wrist. I looked at it. “It’s very powerful, this stone,” I said quietly.

Luca looked as if he’d throw up. “Put it away,” he said.

I tucked it into my bra again, then remembered my clothes, now sitting upstairs in the hallway. “Damn it! I want to go back for my clothes.”

“No,” he said, adamantly.

“I have a pair of very expensive custom-made red leather pants in that bag, damn it.”

“I’ll buy you a new pair for God’s sake. Let’s go!”

Clarity is the next step in determining the value of a diamond. Diamonds, more than any other gemstone, have the capability to produce the maximum amount of brilliance. And a diamond that is virtually free of interior or exterior inclusions (commonly called flaws) is of the highest quality, for nothing interferes with the passage of light through the diamond. To determine a diamond’s clarity, it is viewed under a 10-power magnification by a trained eye. Minute inclusions neither mar its beauty nor endanger its durability.

—www.costellos.com.au

In the parking lot, he headed toward his ridiculous little car. I shook my head. “I’m driving.”

He wiped his forehead, looked at the blood smeared on his fingers. “You’d better get me a towel first.”

I looked in the trunk, but it was as bare as every other rental car trunk in the world.

The pair of photographers, who’d obviously followed me to the hotel, swarmed suddenly out of the close, flashes popping. Grr. What an irritation!

“Get in the car,” I barked at Luca, and followed him in. “Put something over your face.”

“What? I do not have anything!”

“Use your hands, your arms. Cover the fucking blood, all right?” I turned the key. The engine rumbled to humming life, and I backed out, hit the road, letting the car have her head as we hit the open road headed south. Behind us, the photographers scrambled to follow us, but I knew they’d never catch me. Not in this car.

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