Spotless (6 page)

My hands bunched into fists. I couldn’t accept this. Couldn’t stand the way March’s words were already worming their way inside my head. “This doesn’t make any sense! And I swear to you she didn’t leave me a diamond or anything like that. All I ever received was some cash that had been sleeping in a bank account. I got six thousand dollars and nothing else. They didn’t—” My voice faltered as I recalled this episode. “They didn’t even give me her things. My dad disposed of them while I was still in the hospital, and I had
nothing
left from her.”

An emotion that looked closely like fake sorrow shadowed March’s features. “Didn’t you ever wonder why he would do that? Erase her like that?”

A cold, prickling sensation radiated from my spine throughout my body. Of course I had. My father and I weren’t big on drama or personal discussions, though. Months after my relocation to New York, I had timidly brought up the issue and expressed regrets that I had no actual souvenir left from my mother, only memories. Knowing myself though, it probably sounded like I had dropped my toast on the peanut-buttered side or missed an episode of
MythBusters
. I could still remember that lunch at the Russian Tea Room, during which I had stared down at my blinis while my father vaguely apologized, claiming he had no idea I wanted to keep her things, and that no one even knew if I’d ever wake up, back then.

One thing hadn’t changed after all these years: I was still a champion at looking down and shunning people when I didn’t want to listen to what they had to say. My gaze focused on the tips of my ballet flats, covered in mud and glistening grass blades; I blocked March’s voice, his very existence. What did my father know?
Really know?

“Island? Island?”

I felt March’s hand on my shoulder, bursting through my bubble, and looked up to see a line of worry on his brow. “Are you still with me?”

“I . . . Yes . . . I am. Go on.”

He nodded. “As I was saying, in 2004, the Board sent her to Pretoria to steal the Ghost Cullinan, but she betrayed them and disappeared with the stone. She fled to Japan, where—”

He stopped there, perhaps out of some shred of decency. I didn’t need to hear again that my mom had burned inside her car, and that the only reason I was still alive was that a passerby had extracted me from the wreckage that day.

“Even if any of this was true, I know nothing about that damn stone,” I mumbled.

“Didn’t she leave any sort of hint? Try to remember.”

“How would I know? That notary was a good-for-nothing anyway. We never received any paperwork,
nothing
!”

A spark lit in March’s eyes. “Notary?”

“Yes, I know he contacted my dad once, months after her death. But we never heard from him again. My dad said he had no way to reach the guy.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was better this way: the estate was negative anyway.”

“Did your father say that? That your mother’s net worth was negative?”

“Yes. Look, I was fifteen . . . I don’t really know . . . I dropped the issue, okay? It was just a bunch of bad memories.” I looked away, fighting a mixture of anger and shame. I had given up on my mother’s will so I could forget, be strong like my father and act like she had never existed. Only now that I was confessing it out loud did I realize how ugly, how cowardly that decision had been.

Of course, Mr. Clean didn’t care about my feelings; he cared about the facts. “What was the notary’s name?”

“Mr. Étienne. He was calling from Paris. Don’t waste your time with the yellow pages. I checked once, years ago. My dad was right: found no trace of him.”

March appraised me for a few seconds, his face blank, and it dawned on me that now that he was done squeezing out what little intel I could provide, he was probably going to kill me. When he finally opened his mouth to talk, I was busy addressing a silent prayer to Raptor Jesus for the sake of my poor wretched soul.

“Well, that’s settled then. First we’re going to question this Mr. Étienne.”

“
We?
You mean . . . in Paris?”

He gave me a candid look—the first since I had met him. “Where else? Your mother was no rookie. I doubt she left the Ghost Cullinan in the hands of her notary, but if she did leave a will, it might contain
indications as to where the diamond is. I’m sorry, but we’re not done. I still need you.”

I gauged him suspiciously. One could hardly trust a professional killer, but then again,
he
was the one carrying the rifle, so my options were limited—and by limited I mean: “March or Creepy-hat, pick your favorite Saturday night date.” That being said, the guy seemed in no hurry to get rid of me, despite his claim that it was his specialty. There’d been several occasions for him to maim or kill me in the past twenty-four hours, and he hadn’t acted on any of them. No, March was a consummate sociopath, but I had a feeling he wasn’t actual psycho-killer material.

And at the moment, he was the only door to my mother’s past. A past that was quickly catching up with me and might swallow me whole if I didn’t find a way to either escape, or help March find the Ghost Cullinan and give it back to its (il)legitimate owner.

I gave him a decided nod. “I get it. I’ll go with you.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“I don’t want to go back with that guy,” I muttered, in guise of an explanation.

Lowering his weapon, he stepped forward, closing the distance between us, and raised my chin with a gloved index finger. His eyes plunged into mine in a way that made me pray I had been right about him not being psycho-killer material. His low, dangerous voice sent an unpleasant chill all the way down to my knees. “Let’s be clear. I’m a little old-fashioned. I usually try not to hurt women too much. But if you hide anything from me, Island, I’ll make an exception . . . and all the crying in the world won’t help.”

I nodded hastily, and when he let go of me, breathed a shivering sigh of relief. Placing a firm hand on my back, March steered me toward the woods and away from that sinister glade. As he did so, I turned my head to look at the two bodies still resting on the humid ground. When
my nose caught the scent of fresh blood mingling with wet leaves, I fought a wave of nausea. “March, what about—”

He checked a black chronograph on his wrist without looking back. “Rislow doesn’t leave loose ends. A cleaning team should be here for them soon . . . which is why we need to leave now.”

So that was Creepy-hat’s name: Rislow. I thought of asking March if he might be waiting for us already with a rifle of his own, somewhere in the vicinity, but I figured it was unlikely, since March didn’t look particularly worried. He led us through the desolate woods, and I tried my best to keep up with his pace without falling face-first on the ground, steadied by his hand on my shoulder.

“Are you scared of the cleaning team?” I murmured as we reached his own car, a black Lexus that lay hidden a quarter mile down the small road I had arrived on.

“No.”

“Oh. Have you ever . . . cleaned a cleaning team before?” I insisted.

“Yes,” he sighed as he helped me into the passenger seat.

I didn’t ask him for the specifics, but I do recall wondering if I would get lasting PTSD over all this.

FIVE

The Road Rules

“Let’s be real. If you purchased this book and are currently riding alone with a man, he’s, in all likelihood, one of the following: a relative / a taxi driver / a kidnapper.

—Aurelia Nichols & Jillie Bean,
101 Tips to Lose Your Virginity after 25

If what you listen to says something about who you are, then March’s musical tastes confirmed my earlier impression that, even if he wasn’t a psycho killer, he
was
a terrible human being. Old country? Really? We were in New England, somewhere near a place called Barnstable, and a cold drizzle covered the windshield while Bobby Bare’s drawl filled the car, asking Jesus to drop-kick him through the goal posts of life. Oh well, at least March had been kind enough to free me from the handcuffs, thanks to some sort of universal key—I had no idea they even made these.

As we drove through miles and miles of pine woods, though, I did start to mentally fill a scorching review of March’s chauffeur service. I had no choice but to give him a one-star rating, because this simply wasn’t how you drive when you carry guns and rifles in your car. As a
teen, I had been used to my father’s boorish driving and constant challenging of speed limits. March was nothing like him: his driving was smooth, slow, mindful of other drivers and cute animals crossing, and, to sum it up, completely lame. I mean, stopping on the side of the road to text?
Who
does that anymore? I refrained from huffing every time we paused in front of a red light waiting for no one to cross, rubbing my feet against the floor mat in impatience.

I caught him glancing at my muddy shoes and rolled my eyes. So what if I got a little mud on his carpet? No big deal.

Okay, maybe big deal.

“I’m sorry for being a little tense, Island. I suppose I’m not used to having guests in the front seat. My clients usually ride in the trunk, you know.”

Wow. He was the first person I’d met who could turn the gentlest apology into an ominous threat. Squirming uncomfortably, I peeked at his profile while he drove. Could you read noses like you read the lines of a hand? Were men with nice aquiline noses more prone to pursuing criminal careers than others? If so, where did Hitler’s and Al Capone’s bulbous appendages fit into my newly established table of criminal noses? I spent several minutes lost in my classification efforts, until my thoughts drifted to my mother’s own “criminal career.”

“March, that diamond . . . how big is it? Is it really worth two billion?”

The usual poker smile swiftly fell in place, and I was beginning to understand that the man smiled whenever he needed to conceal his hand. For all his skills, March was actually a shitty bluffer. “Approximately 4,137 carats.”

My jaw went slack. “Sweet Jesus, that’s like”—I did the math in my head—“almost two pounds! It’s bigger than the Cullinan, right? Why does your boss call it the Ghost Cullinan?”

He tapped his fingers against the wheel while we waited at a red light. “When the Cullinan was discovered near Pretoria in 1905, one of
its sides was perfectly smooth, likely the product of a split. The experts concluded that the stone was actually half of a bigger diamond and that the remaining part might still await in the Premier Mine.”

“The Ghost Cullinan?”

“Precisely. It was eventually found in early 2004. Tests confirmed its purity equaled the Cullinan’s and that it topped its sibling as the biggest natural diamond ever found.”

“So the Board decided to dig in—”

“Excellent choice of words. They charged Léa Chaptal with the task of stealing the stone from the Premier Mine before its discovery was made public,” he went on. It felt strange, almost painful, to hear my mother’s name in his mouth.

“Why didn’t she deliver it to them? What happened?”

He shrugged as the car restarted. “I’d be tempted to ask
you
.”

“Hilarious.”

“Thank you.” He smirked. “To answer your question, your mother’s motives are unknown. What we do know is that she had two accomplices. The first one was eventually identified by the Board. He went into hiding, and it took them ten years to catch him. His name was Victor Koerand. Ever heard of him?”

I shook my head. “You say ‘was’ . . . so he’s dead? Is he the guy who said my mother left me the Ghost Cullinan?”

“Yes. The Board found him in Tenerife a few weeks ago, and they sent someone to discuss the matter with him,” March confirmed.

A little chill made my scalp prickle. “You.”

“No.”

Reflecting on this laconic answer for a second, I gave it another try. “Creepy-hat?”

It seemed to take him a few seconds to figure out whom I was talking about, and when he did, a chuckle escaped his lips. “Yes. As much as I dislike his methods, he did bring results. Koerand confirmed the existence of a second accomplice, likely the one who convinced Léa to
double play the Board and keep the diamond. Koerand helped Léa and that man access the vault in which the Cullinan was kept . . . and that’s when your name came up. ”

“I never had anything to do with that guy! I don’t even know him!” I nearly yelled.

March’s lips pressed together in a thoughtful expression. “Koerand’s tale was quite interesting: according to him, Léa became wary of her mysterious partner and tried to back away from their deal.”

“How so?”

“He claimed that Léa had been planning to give the Cullinan back to the Board after all. There’s no evidence of this being true, though. Léa made no attempt to contact the Board during the three months she spent in Tokyo.”

The more March spoke, the more I wondered how the hell my mother had been able to swim among such sharks. So far, every player in this game seemed to be either a gangster, a pathological liar, a corpse, or a combination of the three. “What do I have to do with this? Did the Board threaten to hurt me? Maybe this is why she was so afraid to go to them and waited instead.”

March went on. “Koerand said that Léa knew she was in danger; she was convinced that she didn’t have much time left to live.”