Ruth Wind - The Diamond Secret

It was early evening, still light, and there were plenty of people out walking. Too dark for sunglasses, and I had not thought to bring a hat. I was worried that I might bump into someone I knew—a cousin or a neighbor of a relative—and they’d want to join me, and then I’d have to say no, and then there would be hurt feelings all around. Plus, until I could figure out what was going on, I really didn’t want to take the chance that this business might put somebody in danger. Besides me, anyway.

I really wished I hadn’t stopped at my grandmother’s house.

I kept my head down. The street was busier than I would have expected for mid-March. There were tourists around, mixing with the matrons in their cardigans, plaid skirts and sensible shoes, teenagers with piercings and their shaved heads. It all made me very aware of both my jet lag and my empty stomach, which now roared in response to the smell of meat and onions in the air. I paused for a minute, looking around.

And damned if I didn’t see my cousin Keith three doors down. Luckily, he was talking on a cell phone and didn’t see me. I ducked behind a crowd of Australian schoolteacher-types and followed them into the pub. I found a seat in the dark back room, ordered a pint of Stella and the most ordinary meal in the world—pie, beans and chips—and tried to figure out what my next moves should be.

The jukebox played old rock and roll quietly. At the bar sat a gathering of after-work males. The sound of their voices—that lilting accent, always the sound of my mother—eased the tension in the back of my neck. I took the first big breath I’d had in a half hour.

Beneath my left breast was the comforting bulk of the diamond. Who had made sure I got it? Why?

As if called by my questions, the man from the airport materialized at the end of the room. He stood there, staring straight at me, for a minute. No longer smiling, and I didn’t know if it was the light or my fresh knowledge, but he looked older and a lot more dangerous than he had sleeping over the Atlantic.

The certainty penetrated my jet-lag fog: he, too, had a part in this.

I knew he was too good too be true. I cursed myself for being attracted to him anyway.

He approached and gestured toward the empty seat in front of me. “May I?”

I just looked at him. He sat down, and I realized he was older than I first thought—early- to mid-thirties instead of a decade younger. The bartender came over and he ordered a pint.

The bartender nodded. “Want something to eat?”

“I ordered the pie,” I said.

He nodded. “Another then.”

When the bartender was gone, the man took off his leather coat and rubbed a hand across his face. “Pssh,” he said, and leaned on his elbows. Even in the darkened room, his eyes were astonishing, like chips of blue marble. Looking at the shirt I’d taken from the suitcase, he said, “My sister bought me that shirt in Paris. It’s my favorite.”

“I’m keeping it for my troubles.”

His gaze slid admiringly down my body, over my breasts. Somehow—I don’t know why—a European man can almost always get away with that, while it’s only the rare American who can. His eyes came back to my face. Direct contact, eye to eye.

He had those beautifully cut lips, a slight grizzling of black beard. Good hands. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he moves his hands. An old boyfriend of mine used to just barely scratch the top of a cat’s head. It was frustrating. Guess what else was frustrating?

“It suits you,” he said. It took me a moment to realize he meant the shirt.

“Thanks,” I said, then shook my head. “Let’s not play games, all right. You need to tell me what’s going on. Who are you? And what is this really about?”

He leaned back to let the bartender set down his pint. Waited until he was gone before he said, “You found it, then?”

“A little hard to miss.”

A slight inclination of his chin, not quite a nod. “And you have it?”

I gave him a look. “What do you think?”

“Good.”

“Where are my things?”

He drunk from his glass of beer, thirstily. “I have your bag in my car.”

“I was furious about my leather pants. Do have any idea how much they cost?”

“I have good reasons to involve you, I swear it.”

“Where does Paul Maigny come into it?”

The heavy lashes swept down for a minute. Good. He wasn’t a total fool if he was smart enough to be afraid of Maigny. “May I tell you after we eat? It would be safer.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe we can take a little walk on the beach, eh?”

If I hadn’t been so bloody starving, I’d have insisted we go right then, but there was nothing to be gained by skipping a meal that would be served any minute. “All right. Maybe in the meantime, you can tell me your name. You already know mine.”

“Luca Colceriu.”

“What do you do?”

One eyebrow lifted elegantly. “That’s saved for later.”

I lifted my beer and took a slow sip. A burly man with a receding hairline walked to the jukebox and put in some coins. “Well, then, what shall we talk about, Mr. Colceriu?”

“Do you know the legend of this jewel?”

“Bits and pieces,” I said. “Not the whole thing. Something about a prince, and curse.” I almost touched the comforting solidness of it beneath my blouse and resisted. It was there.

“It was discovered in India, in medieval times,” Luca said. “A Romanian prince—”

“Ah-ha. Romanian. Of course.”

He looked confused. “Pardon me?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t place your accent earlier. Romanian, of course.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, on with the story.”

Looking a little bewildered, Luca continued. “Yes, well, the prince purchased it and had it made into a splendid necklace for his wife-to-be.”

“Katerina.”

“Yes. Three days after he gave it to her, she was gruesomely murdered by the prince’s rivals. The prince, in his grief, ordered her buried with the gem around her throat, and then he killed himself. His younger brother took the throne.”

A jewel that had been buried in a grave now pressed into my left breast. Even with my passion for stones, that was a little unnerving. “Eww.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Our food came, two heavy white plates of plain Scottish pub fare. It smelled heavenly—like onions, like meat and fat and a thousand blipping memories of my mother. I picked up my fork and took a deep breath before digging into the beans. “Perfect,” I said.

He followed suit, without my reverence, and nodded. “Not bad.”

“Back to the jewel,” I prompted. “Someone must have done some grave-robbing, however, because it’s not down there around her neck anymore, is it?”

He took his time, then in his slightly formal English said, “It was two generations before enough of the curse had ebbed for people not to be afraid of it. A greedy priest, with his eye on the papacy, twisted church law for a new prince to dig it up, retrieve the jewel.” He took a bite of pie, washed it down with beer. “The priest was killed by a lunatic three days later, a leper who’d lost his mind and killed three others before he was restrained.”

I scowled, and maybe it was my imagination, but it suddenly felt the jewel was very hot against my skin. “What about the prince who ordered it dug up?”

“I do not know about him.”

There are some things worth enjoying, and food was one of them. Despite the weird circumstances, the danger, the jewel, I was determined to enjoy my first Scottish meal in nearly five years. Hot food. Good food. Heaven. “I guess mass murder isn’t a new thing after all, huh?”

His teeth flashed, white and square. The grin lightened his whole face, and I could suddenly see through to someone else, a man who made jokes in a language I didn’t understand, to friends he’d known his whole life, who all lived a life entirely different from my own.