The Good Die Twice (18 page)

Sara joined soon after, fresh as the morning
dew, her hair long and shiny. No sack dress today. Instead, she
wore bright yellow capri pants and a yellow and white flowered top.
“Yuk,” Sara said as she eyed Dagger’s choice of breakfast food. She
popped a bagel into the toaster and poured a glass of orange juice.
“How was the plane ride?” She spread cream cheese with salmon on
her bagel and slid onto the seat kitty-corner from Dagger.

“Pretty posh. Nothing like a company jet. You
should try it sometime.”

Sara shivered. “No thanks. I’m afraid of
flying.”

It took several seconds for him to realize
Sara was serious and to find the absolute humor in her fear of
flying. He laughed, his eyes twinkling. Shaking his head, he
reached out and slipped his hand behind Sara’s neck, wanting for a
brief moment to kiss her on the forehead, but thought better of it.
Simon’s voice kept echoing in his head…“Brother and sister? Right!”
Dagger instead released his grip and took a swig of his Pepsi.

Sara said, “Well, I’m sorry. There’s
something scary about sitting in a metal tube and letting someone
else handle the controls.”

Dagger explained his visit with Nurse
Reynolds.

“And she didn’t recognize any of the
pictures?”

“No.”

“And what about the woman who posed as
Rachel’s sister?”

“That’s just it.” Dagger wiped his mouth with
a napkin and tossed it on his empty plate. “She says she looked
just like Rachel.”

“You’re kidding!” Sara rushed to the living
room and Dagger followed. She showed Dagger the pictures Worm had
of Rachel and a woman who could pass for her sister. “These are
some of Rachel’s vacation photos.”

Einstein flew over to the perch in back of
the sofa. He playfully hung upside down by one foot and held a
fruit tree branch in the other.

“What are you up to, buddy?” Dagger asked as
he carried the pictures to the sofa and sat down. He used a
magnifying glass to examine the picture closer but it was of little
help.

“Worm is going to see if he can check the
studio that made the copies to see if they still have the
original.”

Einstein chattered away with a relentless
stream of ear-piercing screeches.

Dagger turned his attention to the box on the
coffee table where he had placed Rachel’s earring after Luke and
his boys stole the duplicate. He held up the earring and studied
it. The branch fell onto the cushion behind him so Dagger picked it
up and handed it over his shoulder at Einstein. But the macaw was
more interested in something else.

The earring was large and black, almost the
color of a Brazil nut and it was probably the biggest one Einstein
had ever seen. Without any forewarning, Einstein swooped from the
perch, snatched the earring in his beak and flew up to the catwalk,
where he perched on the railing.

“Einstein, no!” Dagger jumped from the
couch.

Sara ran to the kitchen and returned with a
large can of cheese curls. “Einstein, look what I have for you.”
She shook the can.

Einstein cocked his head to one side. With
his toes he grabbed the earring from between his beak and examined
his treasure.

Sara opened the can and held up several
cheese curls. “I’ll trade you, Einstein. That earring doesn’t taste
good at all. Come on. You know these are your favorite.”

Einstein gnawed on the earring, mentally
weighed the offering Sara held up, and gnawed with his beak
again.

“Einstein.” Dagger snapped his fingers. “No
more Baywatch.”

Einstein looked sharply at Dagger, stared at
the trophy and released his grip. He returned to the perch in back
of the couch.

“TREAT.”

“Here you go.” Sara held out her hand and
Einstein gently picked up the cheese curls.

“You broke it, Einstein.” Dagger held up two
pieces—the backing and the stone that Einstein had gnawed free from
the prongs holding it in place. He turned the dark stone over.
“That’s funny. The black color doesn’t go all the way through. It
doesn’t look natural.”

Sara asked, “What’s wrong with it?”

Dagger rubbed his fingers across the stone.
“The bottom of the stone is pink.” Dagger took the stone outside to
the garage where he gently dabbed paint remover on it. After
washing the stone thoroughly, he returned to the living room and
showed it to Sara.

“It’s beautiful!” Sunlight glistened off the
many facets of the gem. The stone was a soft pink color. Sara held
it up and marveled at its clarity. “I think I read about this
once.”

Dagger was fascinated with Sara’s knowledge,
attributed mainly to the abundant reading materials her grandmother
supplied for her in her home schooling. The bookshelves were
stocked with encyclopedias and almanacs. And having been such a
recluse growing up, all Sara really had was her grandmother and her
resource books.

Sara handed Dagger the stone and retrieved
one of her books. After several minutes she found what she was
looking for. “This is a pink diamond. It is the most expensive and
rarest diamond in the world.” She pointed to a picture on the page
as she explained, “They are produced in Australia, and a one-carat
diamond has been valued at over one million dollars.”

“One carat?” Dagger whistled. Einstein
followed suit with a piercing whistle of his own.

“Einstein, shhhh,” Sara coaxed.

The macaw fluffed out the feathers on his
head and accepted another cheese curl.

“Damn.” Dagger sat behind his desk and typed
on the keyboard. “This sucker has to be at least fifty carats. And
the mate is on her body, wherever that is.” He accessed the
Internet and typed in diamonds and Australia and let the system do
a search.

“Do you think it’s real?” Sara asked.

Dagger skimmed through the results of the
search. There were travel web sites for Australia and literally
thousands of web sites on diamonds. “I’m going to have to narrow
the search.” He went back to the SEARCH line and typed in pink
diamond, using the required quotation marks. It came back with
several hundred hits. The eighth one caught his eye. “I think I
found something.”

Sara peered over his shoulder. The web site
materializing on screen described the history of the Williamsburg
Collection, a stunning choker necklace of twenty pink diamonds with
a huge oval diamond suspended from the middle. The matching oval
earrings were identical to the one Dagger had sitting on his
desk.

“It can’t be the same,” Sara gasped. “Can
it?”

Dagger scrolled down the page, reading, “The
complete set is valued at four hundred million dollars. It had once
belonged to the Duchess of Williamsburg and is displayed at the
Argyle Museum in Argyle, Australia.”

CHAPTER 29

Dagger did his best thinking with a hammer in
his hand. The framework was in place for the Florida room; the
cement was set. The pre-fab structures available these days saved
time and money. Dagger had twelve windows on order and was nailing
the frames for the windows to the studs. Sweat trickled down his
tanned chest. He lifted his baseball cap, ran his forearm across
his forehead, and tugged the cap back down.

He had called Padre to fill him in on his
trip to the retreat. Padre had one of his men tailing Eric, but so
far Eric Tyler hadn’t done anything the least bit suspicious.

There wasn’t too much daylight left and the
mosquitoes would soon be searching for someone to nibble on. With
each whack of the hammer, Dagger added up pieces to the puzzle. Did
Luke or Eric pose as Rachel’s brother? Could Luke by chance been in
Australia around the same time as Rachel? Sara had called the
museum curator and left a message on the recorder. Dagger wasn’t
sure what time it was in Australia but he had a feeling their time
zone placed them one day ahead of Indiana.

He caught a glimpse of Sara behind the
screened patio door. Her young eyes looked tense, absorbed. It was
classic Sara. One bare foot was curled on top of the other, one
hand was clenched, the other had found its way to her mouth,
probably a fresh knuckle that hadn’t been chewed on yet.

“What’s wrong, Sara?” Dagger had to catch
himself sometimes. According to Simon, the inflection in Dagger’s
voice sounded more like he was asking, ‘What’s wrong, now, Sara.’
Having her around was like owning a cat. She would slink around
corners, silently watching him. Was easily startled if Dagger made
too sudden a move.

Dagger gathered up his tools and tossed them
in his toolbox. He was ready for a shower anyway. Sara backed away
when he entered through the patio door. He went right to the
refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

“Worm called. Sheila asked him to check on
who owns the title to my property.”

Dagger took a long pull from his beer and
shrugged. Sara kept chewing on her knuckle. The thumb and index
fingers on her right hand looked deformed from the swollen bumps.
She pulled her hand away and clasped both tightly. Dagger didn’t
understand it. There were times Sara could be so confident and
bold, like when Luke and his guys broke in. Then there were times
she looked and acted like a helpless twelve-year-old.

“She did say she was interested in buying the
place. But it’s not for sale.” He turned saying, “I’m going to take
a shower.”

Twenty minutes later Dagger found Sara
sitting on the living room floor surrounded by reference books. He
pulled his damp hair back behind his ears and peered over her
shoulder.

“What are you looking up?”

“Titles and trusts. I don’t have a title to
this property,” Sara confessed. “It was in grandfather’s name.”

“I’m sure your grandmother left it to you in
her will.”

“She didn’t have a will.” There was a hard
edge to her voice, which wasn’t what Dagger was used to.

“Sara, why didn’t you say something?” He
reached over to pick up one of the books.

“I can handle it.” She pulled the book from
his hands and tossed it on the stack.

“Okay.” Dagger retrieved another beer from
the refrigerator and plopped down on the couch, draping his legs on
the coffee table. Simon had told Dagger he was too hard on Sara,
expected too much, and in subtle ways made her feel useless and
ignorant. Even Einstein was quiet, as if he sensed an undercurrent
in the air and was ducking for cover.

Sara had a law book pulled onto her lap as
she leaned against the couch, legs crossed at the ankles, layers of
thick hair drifting over her arms and down the front of her dress.
Her lips moved as she read like a third grader struggling with the
pronunciation of strange words. One knuckle was making a subtle
move to her mouth. Dagger could be a cold-hearted bastard
sometimes, but at this moment, for the first time, he understood
the term heart-wrenching. He pulled his legs off the coffee table
and rested his elbows on his knees.

“I don’t even understand legal mumbo jumbo,
Sara. The bottom line is, either someone can buy it out from under
you or it reverts back to the Interior Department or the Bureau of
Indian Affairs or the specific tribal council.”

Sara remained silent, studying the words on
the pages in front of her.

“Sara, this isn’t like you. Stop being a
baby.”

He regretted it the moment the words spilled
out of his mouth. She turned on him with fire in her eyes, shoved
the books off her lap, and stormed upstairs to her bedroom.

“Jezzus…women.”

CHAPTER 30

“You certainly have my attention, Mr.
Dagger,” came the accented speech of J.C. Kinnecutt, the curator at
the Argyle Museum in Argyle, Australia, the heart of diamond
mining. Dagger pictured him gray-haired with bushy sideburns and a
pipe sticking out of his mouth.

It was nine in the morning and they were on a
conference call in Skizzy’s basement. He was videotaping the
diamond Dagger had found and transmitting it over the Internet to
Mr. Kinnecutt’s office.

Dagger asked, “What can you tell us about the
Williamsburg Collection?”

“It is made up of the finest quality pink
diamonds ever discovered,” J.C. began. “It has a delightful
history. Amory Beaumont was a diamond hunter commissioned by
Britain’s Duke of Williamsburg to find a fitting gem for the
Duchess. Beaumont discovered a mine in Perth, Australia in 1851 and
brought back a seventeen-hundred-carat diamond. The Duke refused to
let the diamond out of his sight and insisted the finest cutter
from Amsterdam be sent to Australia to cut and polish the gem. It
took the cutter close to a year to finish the job.”

J.C. spoke quickly, the excitement in his
voice growing as he continued. “In the meantime, Beaumont was
instructed to return to the mine and blow up the entrance to keep
others from finding a diamond bigger and making the Duke’s diamond
pale in comparison. But the Duke was a clever chap. He sent his men
to make sure Beaumont didn’t make it out of the mine. He didn’t
want someone else commissioning Beaumont.”

Skizzy made a few more adjustments. “Are you
ready?”

Dagger stood, legs apart, hands on his hips.
He had tried to apologize to Sara for last night but she acted as
if it never happened. She could be a lot more forgiving than he
could.

The sounds of squeaking wheels could be heard
over the computer microphone. Sara leaned forward, mesmerized by
the technology that allowed someone thousands of miles away to see
a diamond lying on a swatch of black felt right in front of
her.

An image of the diamond appeared on the
screen. There was unexpected silence from the curator. “Good lord,”
J.C. moaned. “Um, listen. Can you get one of your experts out your
way to check…no.” J.C. hesitated. “Show me more of the earring. And
can you zoom in?”

Skizzy rotated the camera, giving the image
an almost three-dimensional look.

“Wait now. Let me load my photos.” Within a
few minutes the computer showed a split screen, a picture of the
earrings from the Argyle Museum records and the image of the
earring lying on Skizzy’s table. “I don’t believe this.” J.C.
gasped. “It has to be the most excellent forgery I have ever
seen.”