The Sapphire Heist (A Jewel Novel Book 2) (5 page)

CHAPTER NINE

They showered, and he washed her hair, then soaped her body. She savored every second of it as he moved his hands from her breasts, to her belly, down her legs. She was slippery and wet, and he couldn’t take his hands off her.

She liked it that way. She loved the attention. She was damn glad they’d moved past her doubts over him. Sure, she might be facing a whole new spate of them when it came to the case, but she was facing them head-on with him—a partner and a temporary lover. He excelled at both roles, she was learning.

“I’m hardly dirty,” she said as he spent more time than needed washing her calves.

“I know, but I can’t seem to stop touching you. Your fault for being so sexy,” he said, then he stood and dropped a kiss on her nose. She smiled and sighed happily.

She wasn’t wild about fighting, but a misunderstanding that led to hard, hot make-up sex and a tender moment in the shower was A-OK in her book. She grabbed the bar of soap and returned the shower favor, washing his arms, flat belly, and back. She shampooed his hair, too, loving the way the wet strands felt in her hands. She leaned his head back under the spray and rinsed the shampoo. Soon, they stepped out of the shower and toweled off.

Her stomach growled.

He arched an eyebrow in question.

“I think I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since we had eggs for breakfast many moons ago. Want to take me on a date, roomie?” she asked with a coquettish jut of her shoulder, as if she were reeling him back in.

He shook his head, bemused as he finger-combed his hair. “You crack me up. You go from thinking I stole from you to wanting me to take you out for food?”

“I do,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows as she met his gaze in the mirror.

“Then I’m taking you on a date. Even though you’re a pain in the ass, but evidently that’s one of the things I like most about you. So get ready to be wined and dined,” he said, giving her an order.

She clicked her bare heels together and saluted. “Yes sir. May I have the lotion now? And a full report on your findings from the gallery, sir?”

“I’ve only been trying to tell you about it since I left, but you had your mind on other things.” He handed her the hotel lotion.

“I did, but now you’ve satisfied me, so I’m ready,” she said, even though she knew sex wasn’t what he’d meant.

As she rubbed lotion into her legs, he explained what he’d found at the gallery. “Here’s what happened. As soon as I got into Isla’s office, I knew Penny’s tip was wrong about the diamonds. I’m not saying she lied or anything. Just that whatever knowledge she had no longer applied. There were clearly no gems in Isla’s office at all.”

“I think she worked there a while ago, so maybe her info was out of date,” she offered.

He squirted toothpaste onto a brush. “Yeah, that’s probably what happened. Because the walls were completely bare. Not a damn thing on them. But, being the brilliant private-eye-slash-bounty-hunter that I am,” he said, tapping his temple, “I wasn’t going to squander my chance and cry in the chicken soup over the absence of frames. I did some digging.”

“Naturally.”

“Looked through some drawers. Pawed around the desk. Made sure she wasn’t hiding the diamonds elsewhere. And fortunately, Isla is quite organized. Did you know that?” he asked, then began to brush his teeth.

“No. I haven’t been debriefed on her organizational skills. Please, do share all you know about how she sorts her drawers.”

He smirked, brushed, and spat out the toothpaste. “She’s a dream to investigate. She has nothing. Her office is like a shrine to simplicity. I think she’s one of those people who hates things.”

“Except for sex toys and olives.”

“Well, obviously. Sex toys are awesome, and olives aren’t so bad. In any case, she has one of those sleek metal desks with one drawer. Only pens in it and a Moleskine notebook. She had some nuts on her desk.”

“Nuts?” She arched an eyebrow.

“They usually grow on trees, they’re high in protein and fat, and you eat them. You’re familiar with nuts?”

She tapped her chin as if deep in thought. “Ah, yes. Nuts. Now I understand.” She rolled her eyes. “Point being, that’s an unusual thing to have on your desk.”

“Maybe she keeps nuts around for a quick protein hit. Anyway, she also has only one file cabinet. And it’s not even the metal kind. It’s one of those fancy, cloth-drawer thingamajiggers that women like.”

“We all like fancy cloth file cabinet drawers?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was that an overgeneralization?” he asked drily.

She held her thumb and forefinger together.

“Anyway, so on the top of it I found some paperwork and that’s what I took. Basically, it’s a document saying Isla donated fifty grand last month to a charity that builds schools in Africa. It’s in one of the countries where there was a ton of diamond mining with child labor, and kids were affected by it. This charity was set up to help them go to school and earn an education.”

“Is it the one where she’s listed on the website as being a major donor?” she asked, then gave him the name of the charity.

He nodded. “Same one.”

She dropped her towel and enjoyed the way his eyes followed her naked body even as she left the bathroom and headed to her suitcase. “Do you think she’s cashing in diamonds for charity? You said before you thought they might be converting some of the diamonds bit by bit,” Steph asked from the room, focusing on the notion of Isla
and
Eli, not just Eli pulling off this con solo.

“That would be an interesting twist, wouldn’t it?” Jake said as she pulled on panties and a bra, then hunted for her blue dress with slim white stripes. “First night I was here, I saw at her gallery that the Lynx paintings sold for five thousand a piece. Today, when I peeked in the drawer in her gallery, the records show that she’d sold ten of them.”

“Maybe she’s putting the proceeds from her gallery into this charity. Do you think it’s connected?” Steph asked as she shrugged on the light cotton dress.

Jake emerged from the bathroom, and it was her turn to enjoy an eyeful of his naked glory, and my, was he glorious. She frowned as he put on boxers. “Makes me sad to see you in clothes.”

“Speaking of clothes, you need to add a bikini,” he said, gesturing to her dress.

She lifted an eyebrow. “Something you want to tell me?”

He fixed her with a stare. “Yes. That
something
is bring a bikini for tonight.”

She smiled, grabbed one, and stuffed it into her purse. “Done.”

“Excellent. And to answer your question, there seems to be some kind of connection. There has to be,” he said as he grabbed a pair of cargo shorts.

She clasped her hand over her mouth as an idea slammed into her. “What if they cashed out all the diamonds, Jake? What if there is no more missing money? Maybe it’s a lost cause,” she whispered, frowning, as the possibility of coming up empty-handed clanged in her brain. No justice, no chance to do the right thing. What if the thieves got away with it?

“It happens,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone as he snagged a shirt from the closet and put it on. “Not every job is solvable. Sometimes people move on and the money is gone, even when there’s proof, like there is here. We don’t know what they’ve done with the diamonds they bought from the Frayer mine. All we know for sure is a few were stolen, and they’re supporting a charity for those affected by the diamond economy,” he said.

“And what if we find them? You’re not going to turn him in, are you?”

Jake shook his head. “I work for clients. My client wants this handled as quietly as possible.”

“Will Andrew turn him in?” she asked, quaking with worry.

“I don’t have that answer, but he seems more focused on restoring the money than on turning him in.”

That’s why it was even more important for her to get to the diamonds before the thieves did. Besides, if the diamonds went back to Andrew’s company, that wasn’t a bad option, either. They certainly didn’t seem to belong to Eli, and the thought that her stepdad might be a thief was like an injection of pure sadness in her bloodstream.

“I need to see him again,” she said, swallowing thickly, fighting back the kernel of worry camped out in her. This was the hard part. Confronting him. But if she was ever going to get to the bottom of this, she had to stay ahead of the others who were after his stones. She had to use her advantages. “I’ll give him a call in a few minutes. Set something up. See what I can find out.”

“Maybe another breakfast at Tristan’s.”

That name jogged her memory. Tristan. Tall. Gray-haired.
“Tristan.”

He nodded. “Right, the guy who owns the restaurant.”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “But he’s also tall and has gray hair.”

Jake’s eyes widened. “Go on. Does he own a green Honda?”

“That I don’t know. But what if he’s going after the diamonds? He works near the bank, and remember that time I saw him on the diamond merchant street when I grabbed you and made out with you so he wouldn’t see me?”

“I could never forget a prelude to the first time you came screaming my name.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes. It’s true. You came hard in the back of the car and you were absolutely calling my name.”

“Fine. Yes, it was epic. But back to Tristan. Could he be after them? Do you think he’s our Mr. Smith?”

“It’s possible,” he said. “What’s his motivation, though? Usually, there’s a specific one.”

She snapped her fingers. “Eli said Tristan wanted to do business with him, but he didn’t seem too interested. Maybe Tristan is pissed because Eli turned down a business deal?”

“Nice work, Sherlock. Let’s make him suspect number one.”

She nearly jumped in place when another idea slammed into her. “Wait. There wasn’t any art in the gallery office, right?”

“Correct.”

“But Penny said Eli was always checking out the frames in the gallery office,” she said, making a rolling gesture with her fingers as the words spilled out of her lips, coming as quickly as the clues added up. “And Isla told me as I was leaving today that they moved the diamonds. And if the walls are bare in her office, but there’s art hanging in the nightclub in oddly shaped frames . . .” She knit her eyebrows, letting him reach the same conclusion.

“You think they’re in the frames at Sapphire?”

She nodded, and a wide smile spread across her face. “I think Isla and Eli have some weird obsession with that art and that artist, and it’s because they think they found the perfect hiding place for their jewels. Inside the frames of his art.”

He quirked up one corner of his lips and shook his head. “I doubt he’d put diamonds in artwork in the hallway.”

“No, but didn’t you say he had some art on the walls in his office the night you scoped it out? But his manager walked out of the office so you couldn’t check it out?”

He stroked his chin and nodded approvingly. “I’m beginning to think we need to plan a return visit to Sapphire.”

“Yes,” she said as she adjusted the straps on her dress. “Perhaps we can get to the bottom of this Sapphire affair.”

As Steph called her stepdad and finished doing those things women do before dates, Jake wandered along the stone path that edged the hotel property. Time to update his client, and it was best to have this call out of earshot of other guests.

“This case is getting crazier, Andrew,” he said into the phone, his flip-flops slapping across the cobbled path on the way to the beach. “I’ve got to hand it to the guy. Eli knows how to hide things.”

Andrew heaved a sigh, but then tried to remain chipper. “But all the evidence points in the right direction. He did turn the stolen money to diamonds via the merchant, and it’s in the Caymans. So we can’t be too far off.”

Jake laughed and scoffed at the same time at his client’s optimistic attitude. It wasn’t that simple. Good jobs never were. “On the surface, yes. But I honestly don’t know if we’re going to get the diamonds because I don’t know if he still has them,” he said, slowing his pace as he rubbed a hand against the back of his neck.

Andrew grumbled something that sounded like a string of curse words.

“Sorry, but it happens,” Jake said.

“I know, but I want to do everything I can to find the diamonds and return them to the fund. We have the proof, and if we can get them back, we can restore the fund more quickly than if we have to go through lengthy legal battles. I want to do it before we have to go to the SEC and make this more public. I’ve got customers talking about pulling out their money. Others are stressing about what was lost. I need to do everything I can before this gets out and our fund starts to go under.”

“I hear ya,” Jake said, but he highly doubted Eli would be moved by any sort of confrontation. The man was impervious. “And don’t think for a second that I’m throwing in the towel. Just want you to know the score.” Jake stopped to lean against a palm tree, staring out at the water. “We’ve narrowed it down from art to jewels, and we’ve got a few leads, but now some of the diamonds are being stolen. We’ve got someone else after them, since one of the diamonds was taken from Steph and one from Eli’s fiancée.”