Yours for the Night (6 page)

As the cab took him across the bridge and back downtown to the hotel, Garrett noticed runners and groups of tourists taking their Sunday walk over the bay via the bridge.

“How far is it to walk over and back on the bridge?” he asked the driver. Maybe he’d put on his running clothes, grab his camera and start his vacation by running the length of the most famous bridge in the U.S., with the exception of The Brooklyn Bridge, which he had also run across.

“A little less than two miles, point-to-point, but watch out for the bikers, they can come up on you fast sometimes,” the cabbie warned, and Garrett nodded.

“Sounds like a nice way to spend a Sunday,” he replied.

For the rest of the way back, the cabbie chatted with him, giving him some good ideas for things to do around the city, off the beaten track. Sights that he would find interesting like the Moraga Steps—a neighborhood stairway that went up a hillside, with one hundred and sixty-three steps that were redone with art tiles by local residents to beautify the neighborhood. There was also the Bison Paddock in Golden Gate Park, which he thought he might visit after his run.

More enthusiastic about setting out on his own for the day, Garrett paid the fare and thanked the man for his suggestions with a generous tip before heading into the hotel to change.

As he changed and got set up for what he needed for his excursion, he looked down to check the time and found he hadn’t put on his watch. It was still on Tiffany’s night stand, by her bed, where he had taken it off the night before. He’d been so distracted by their nocturnal fun, and then with the unfamiliar morning routine after waking up in her bed, that he’d completely forgotten to put it back on.

It was his grandfather’s watch, one his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday. Garrett had to get that watch back, and smiled at having a good excuse to see Tiffany again. Pulling the card from his wallet, he looked at the number at the bottom and dialed.

* * *

T
IFFANY
WAS
READY
to pull her hair out by the roots as she watched the police poking around her shop. She was exhausted, frustrated beyond the telling of it and wishing so much that she could have one thing in her life that didn’t blow up in her face. Maybe this was karmic payback for her breaking her vow not to be impulsive this past weekend, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret any of it.

Garrett had been worth it.

Too bad a promising final morning with him had been cut short by business, an emergency call from the police: Jarvis Jewelry had been robbed. Her family business, started by her great-grandfather, Jarvis Walker, had suffered the only robbery in their history, and it had happened on her watch.

Tiffany looked like hell and she felt like it, too. Yanking on a pair of black yoga pants, a black T-shirt, sneakers and a sweater, she didn’t exactly look like a retail manager as she encountered the swarm of police, none of whom wanted to tell her anything. She asked questions, smart ones, she thought, but was met with silence. Worse, they seemed to think she could be a suspect. It looked like an inside job, they said, and then proceeded to ask her scores of demanding questions.

She knew why. This wasn’t an ordinary, random break-in. There had been a series of robberies that had been plaguing jewelry stores from San Jose to the entire Bay area, and they had been the most recent victims, even though the cops wouldn’t confirm that.

The wedding covered her during the daytime hours, but the robbery had happened after that. She didn’t relish having the police find Garrett at his hotel to confirm he had spent the night with her. How embarrassing. As if it wasn’t bad enough to walk out on the guy in the middle of the night and not even see him for breakfast—and potentially more lovely sex—the cops would ask him if he was her alibi.

“Ma’am, we will need the contact information for the man you claim to have spent the night with, and we need it now,” a severe-looking officer said again. She frowned up at him, but then sighed. He was only doing his job.

“Can’t you at least tell me what was stolen? If you have any leads? I need to call my parents. They are the owners, and the insurance, and—”

“You can do that after we confirm your alibi.”

“Fine,” she said through her teeth. “He’s staying at the Westin St. Francis, and his name is—”

She was interrupted by Chumbawamba singing “Tubthumping.” Saved by the ring tone, she thought, not recognizing the number as she answered.

“Ma’am,” the officer interrupted testily, but she glared at him and answered.

“Hello?”

“Tiffany, it’s Garrett.”

“Um, hi, how—”

“I grabbed one of your business cards when I left this morning. I hope you don’t mind,” he said before he continued. “Anyway, I left my watch at your place. It’s a special watch, a gift. I was wondering if there might be a time I could meet you to pick it up?”

“I—um, of course, but listen, I need a favor, too, if you have a minute,” she said hesitantly, peeking up at the officer, who was looking increasingly suspicious.

“What’s that?”

“I need you to talk to the police, right now,” she said quickly, giving the phone to the officer before Garrett could ask anything else.

“Here. He’s on the phone,” she said to the officer, her cheeks warming again. Hopefully the officer wouldn’t want details.

The cop took the phone and spoke to Garrett, his expression relaxing somewhat as he did, and he stopped looking down at her so accusingly.

“I’ll need you to come down and sign a statement to that effect, if you can, Mr. Berringer,” he said politely, before handing the phone back to Tiffany.

“Your boyfriend wants to talk to you,” he said, before he strolled away.

“He’s not my—” she tried to correct, but the cop was already gone. She looked at the phone, taking a deep breath.

“Garrett?”

“Hey. So what’s going on that you need an alibi, not that I mind providing one. Are you okay?”

He sounded so concerned, it touched her. Not many guys would be this cool about being dragged into something like this, at least none of the ones she’d known. She’d followed every single protocol for closing up Friday night before she had left, and she related every detail to Garrett on the phone, needing to tell someone.

“Tiffany, this is not your fault, okay?” he said calmly. “There’s no way you could predict being robbed. What did the police say?”

“They haven’t told me anything much yet. They were too busy thinking I might’ve been in on it. All I know is that they think it was an inside job,” she said. “It’s very likely this is one of the serial robberies that’s plagued the city lately, though they haven’t confirmed that.”

“Robberies?”

“Four other stores have been robbed in the last six weeks. Each appeared to be an inside job, but all of the employees have been cleared. The thieves only take a few select items, usually very high-end stuff,” she said, and then realization dawned. She’d been so upset about the officers not telling her anything that it hadn’t registered until right now.

“Oh, no,” she said more to herself than to Garrett.

“What? What’s happening?”

“We only have one thing in the store that these thieves would be after,” she said urgently, standing up and pushing past a few other police officials to find the detective in charge. “But no one was even supposed to know about it.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Can you wait for me?”

She paused. He was coming to her store?

Irrationally, she looked down at her clothes. She hadn’t put on fresh make-up from the night before, and her hair…she didn’t even want to think about her hair. The way the officer who had been interviewing her kept staring was proof enough that she was less than put together at the moment.

But the idea of having him there with her was a nice one.

“Okay, I’ll wait for you,” she said.

She heard him say something, probably to the cab driver.

“You’re in a cab already?”

“I was already in one, coming back from your place. I’m not far away, the driver says. I’ll be there in two minutes,” he referred back to her.

“Oh. Okay. I’ll be out front.”

Garrett arrived in what seemed like only seconds later. As he crossed the sidewalk to her, he didn’t even seem to notice her less than polished appearance. He took her in his arms for a hard hug and then looked down at her.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I am, but I’ll be better when I know the vault wasn’t breached.”

But in her gut, she knew what was coming. This was no ordinary robbery. Garrett nodded, his mouth flattening, and his arm staying on her shoulder, supportive.

“Let’s go do that, then,” he said.

They went in and walked directly up to the detective in charge, who turned his attention to Garrett as if working on some invisible male radar that told one man in charge that another alpha male had entered his territory.

“Detective Ramsey, I need to know what was stolen—did they get into the vault?” Tiffany asked, straightening to her full five-seven.

The detective’s eyes met hers, and then moved to Garrett.

“Detective Ramsey, SFPD North. And you are?”

“I’m Garrett Berringer, a friend of Ms. Walker’s.”

“Why did you think it was an inside job?
Is
this one of the serial robberies?” Tiffany asked boldly on the heels of Garrett’s introduction. She put a hand on the detective’s arm, refocusing his attention on her. “Did they get into the vault?”

He stared for a second before offering a curt nod. “Yeah, they did.”

Tiffany closed her eyes, fighting to stay composed.

“The diamonds. They’re gone?”

“The vault is empty. Can you elaborate about what was in it? What diamonds?” the detective asked.

Tiffany took a deep breath. At this point, it didn’t matter if it was her fault or not. Everything her parents had worked for was on the line. The loss was just too great. She’d let her family down, big-time.

“A special collection of very rare pink diamonds,” she said weakly. “They were being set into rings for the daughter of an Argentine political official, and we were holding them before they went to the gem cutter. My parents acquired them in Spain, and they were our biggest find.”

Both men were silent as she shared that news. What she didn’t add was that her parents had taken a sizable business loan against the store to build the new vault and purchase the rare gems, hoping to enter a new level of sales, since local sales were down. They had leveraged their equity in the store, and the insurance alone could do them in if it didn’t pay out.

“What were they worth?” Ramsey asked.

“Pink diamonds of this quality are relatively rare, and the market demand is high. These were exceptional, priced at about one million dollars per carat.”

“And how many carats?”

“There were two one-carat diamonds in the vault, and one half-carat rock. They’d been appraised, certified and were due to be sent to a gem cutter this week. We’ve kept it all very low-key.”

“So someone had to know they would be gone soon, and that they had to strike now,” Garrett added.

“The only ones who know are my parents, the Argentines and myself.”

Detective Ramsey looked at Tiffany with a considering gaze that told her she might not be completely off the hook. Just because she had an alibi didn’t mean she didn’t have accomplices. She read enough mystery novels to know that. She also knew police, overworked and stressed by pressures to solve many crimes, often took the most obvious route to solve the problem.

“If you can catalog the rest of your inventory to let me know if you’re missing anything else, I would appreciate that, Ms. Walker,” the detective said.

“Of course.”

“And in case we need you, don’t plan any trips out of town any time soon, okay?”

Tiffany stiffened at the hint of accusation; her heart was slamming inside her chest. “Of course,” she said calmly, proud of herself for that much.

“How could someone do that without a blast being heard, or triggering alarms?” Garrett asked, stepping forward.

“No blast. That we can tell, they just walked in and emptied it out. They obviously knew that the diamonds were there. Someone had the codes, the combinations and the door was left open. It’s what ultimately set off the alarm, though they were long gone by then, which is why it has to be an inside job. Who has those codes?”

“Only my parents and I do. That’s it.”

“Is the lock digital?” Garrett asked.

She nodded.

“It could have been hacked. Do you have a computer forensics team?”

Detective Ramsey eyed him speculatively, reassessing him as more than “a friend.”

“The lock is on a non-networked circuit, separate from the system that notifies the security team of a breach,” Tiffany said miserably.

“It still could have been hacked on-site,” Garrett said. “In which case, they have to have someone very good with technology on their team, and I’d think that gives you a place to start. There can’t be too many jewel-thief hackers in the world,” he added.

“That’s a good theory,” the detective said, pinching his chin.

“I have some contacts you could use. People who might know who could do that kind of work,” Garrett said, explaining about Berringer Bodyguards.

The two men started talking as if she wasn’t even there, and Tiffany was tempted to scream to make sure she was. On one hand, she was fascinated by what Garrett knew, and thankful for the help he offered; on the other, she had been effectively cut out of the conversation.

When they were done, Detective Ramsey turned to her. “I’ll need you to check the inventory, and an officer will take your statement,” he said, and she nodded, about to say something as he turned away.

“Well, nice to know he acknowledges my existence,” she grumped, crossing her arms across her middle.

“Most of those guys aren’t too chatty, not in the middle of an investigation, anyway,” Garrett said, opening his smartphone. “Don’t take it personally.”

“I’m not supposed to take it personally that he thinks I was involved?”