He was so fucked.
Mickey opened his eyes to squint at Iris and idly wondered if she had any idea she was torturing him more with that flimsy bathrobe than with her wild stories about Russian czars and revolutionaries. He rubbed his temples some more, wishing he had that bottle of painkillers, but he’d left them in the car.
Focus. This crazy myth sounded exactly like the kind of bullshit story Cosmo would spin, but if there were any truth to it, Mickey needed to know. “Are you saying the Bolsheviks took the necklace?”
She shrugged, then thankfully smoothed out that pucker in her robe that had been granting him teasing glimpses of a rounded white breast. “According to my mom, the necklace could never be found. Alexandra was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. As the revolution gained momentum, it’s said she sent the jewels to ten of her royal relatives throughout Europe. Years later, a small group of Russians started a search to acquire the ten gems and bring them back to their homeland.” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “It’s rumored they belong to a powerful family in the Russian mafia.”
Mickey watched her with fascination. She’d become positively vibrant as she spoke about this myth. Clearly, she didn’t want to believe it, yet it was real to her.
“If someone owned all ten stones, with or without the necklace, would they be worth ten million dollars?”
“And then some,” she said with a laugh. “These stones were believed to be flawless examples from the first find of alexandrite. Their link to the Romanovs increases their value. To have all ten as a set, even without the necklace, would be to own history.”
His headache started to recede. At last he was on the right track. “I need those ten stones if I’m going to help Cosmo. Not the real ones, but something close enough to buy us some time. Can you help me?”
Her lips parted in surprise, and hesitation clouded those brandy eyes of hers. After a moment, they became brilliant with determination. “How soon do you need them?”
“Honestly?” He laughed. “Two nights ago.”
“Well-” She put the papers on the table and adjusted her robe as she leaned back. Finally, she met his gaze again with a sheepish grin. “Not that I’d tell this to everyone, but my mother received copies of these gems years ago. I still have them.”
“Where’d she get them?”
“Her aunt sent them to her from Russia as a special gift. Now, they’re not real alexandrites, but they should look really close to these pictures.”
Mickey’s pulse revved. He might survive this assignment after all. “And they’ll change color and everything?”
Iris nodded. “They’re treated with a chemical called vanadium that causes the color to change under different types of light.”
“Will you give them to me? I’d say lend, but if something goes wrong, I might not be able to get them back.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I’m going to turn them over to my boss and hope like hell they buy me enough time to find Cosmo and the real gems.” The lie pricked his conscience. He really intended to use the gems to broker an introduction to Turner’s boss and capture them both. But that should still help keep her father alive. He reached for her hand. “There are risks here, Iris. These people are dangerous.”
She squeezed his fingers. “But you think you can save Cosmo?”
“Yeah.”
“Then come by my shop around ten. I’ll have the copies ready.”
Unable to stop himself, he leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “You’re the gem, you know that?”
She rose, flustered by his attention. “It’s what I do.”
Stiffly, he stood. Retrieving the papers, he prepared to leave, but one thing troubled him enough to make him stop. “Iris, there are others who work for my bosses. Someone else might show up and ask for the gems. Don’t trust them.”
She awarded him a gamin smile. “Like I trust you?”
Her bright smile was a sucker punch to his gut. “Don’t even trust me,” he said soberly.
It was nine o’clock when Iris arrived at the Bellagio and let herself into Lying Eyes. She’d called Ginny to give her the morning off, and Iris intended to use the next few hours wisely.
As she did every time she entered, she took a moment to survey her empire. With the lighting dimmed, the showroom was reduced to a minor twinkle instead of the loud sparkle it normally cast. Cubic zirconias masqueraded as the finest diamonds, while chrysoberyls of all colors portrayed rubies, sapphires and emeralds. A number of the lower-valued gems played themselves-topazes, garnets, amethysts and opals.
Alexandrite was so rare she’d never attempted to display the simulated copies she had. It would be too difficult to explain to people about the history and the color-changing magic.
A soft pounding on the store’s glass door shook her from the reverie.
“Iris!” a faint voice called.
She discovered Allie, dressed in black cargo pants and T-shirt, outside. The willowy blonde carried a cardboard box in her arms and a backpack flung over her shoulder.
Swallowing her frustration at this latest interruption, Iris hurried to the door. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Allie ducked her head at Iris’s tone. “I called your apartment, but when you didn’t answer, I got a feeling you’d be here.”
“And what’s Edgar doing here?” Iris made a conscious effort to soften her delivery.
It worked, drawing a slow smile from Allie. “He needs his aunt Iris. I got called into a brush-up rehearsal, and I didn’t want to leave him at my place all alone.”
“He’s a rabbit-”
“But he doesn’t like to be alone. You can understand that, can’t you?”
It wasn’t so much the words, but the way Allie said them that had Iris stepping back to let the blonde and the rabbit enter. Yes, dammit, she understood completely why someone wouldn’t like to be alone. How often had she been alone growing up, with her mother caught up here at the shop and Cosmo gallivanting wherever he pleased?
Allie walked without hesitation to the back room, where she placed the box on the floor. Her sinewy arms hauled the rabbit out and tucked him against her body. The rabbit nuzzled her neck. “He’s really the sweetest thing,” she said with a chuckle.
“Can Sweetie Pie Edgar stay in the box? I don’t want to be picking up any little gifts he chooses to leave.”
“You’ll be fine. He’s litter trained. I’ve got a box and some litter in the backpack.”
“You’re joking, right?” Iris didn’t believe in a litter-trained rabbit.
When Allie didn’t respond, Iris turned to find the blonde in one of those eye-to-eye communions with the rabbit.
A chill stole up Iris’s spine, but she downplayed it. “Now what’s he saying?”
Allie’s eyes never left the rabbit. “I get the sense that no matter what happens, he doesn’t want to be left behind. He needs to look after you.” Even she sounded puzzled.
“Don’t you mean I need to look after him?”
The blonde’s brow furrowed in concentration. “I don’t think so, but then, it’s an inexact science.”
I’ll bet. Iris still had to wonder if all the hocus-pocus with Edgar was some con Cosmo had taught Allie.
Allie considered her before adding softly, “Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful, sis.”
Iris laughed off her uneasiness. “Don’t worry. I’m doing a little work here, then I’m headed home for the rest of the day. I’ll take Edgar with me, but will you come get him before this evening?”
“Sure.” Allie lowered the rabbit to the floor. With a soft groan, she brushed at the white bunny hairs on her black shirt. “I should be done with rehearsal before two.”
“Sounds good.” Iris escorted her to the big glass doors.
Rummaging in one of the many pockets covering her pants, Allie withdrew a long piece of silver leather studded with dark red gems. “Edgar slipped out of this, and I couldn’t get it back on him to save my life.” She held it out. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“Sure,” Iris lied. The poor animal was already living part of his life out of a cardboard box. She wasn’t going to force a collar on him, too. With a quick goodbye, she locked the doors after Allie left.
In the back room, she tossed the collar onto her worktable. Edgar explored beneath it, his ears swiveling this way and that. In case he made a sudden break for it, she closed the door to the sales floor before returning to the worktable, where she unzipped the backpack and found a small cat litter pan and a bag of some sort of new-age looking litter.
“You so owe me, Cosmo.” She placed the filled pan in the corner. “Bathroom’s over here, Eddy.”
The rabbit blinked its red eyes before resuming an exploratory hop around the workroom.
“Are you looking for something to eat? You should have told Allie if you were hungry-she would’ve fed you. Now you’ll have to wait until we go home.” She straightened and pushed a stray curl behind her ear. “Look at yourself, Iris Fortune. You’re talking to a rabbit.”
Determined to prove she could overcome all the chaos tossed her way in the past thirty-six hours, Iris straightened her cropped periwinkle jacket and smoothed her palms down the matching skirt. With the flick of a switch, she illuminated her worktable with bright lights then dug in her purse for a small set of keys. They jingled as she crossed the room to a set of fireproof filing cabinets. A total of fifty drawers lined the wall, all unlabeled, but Iris knew the contents of each and every one. This was where she kept the raw stones and metals for her jewelry pieces. Even though she didn’t deal in real diamonds, sapphires, pearls or emeralds, the value of these costume gems caused her insurance agent palpitations.
Unerringly, she inserted the key into drawer number thirty-three. She rarely opened this drawer as it only contained her limited copies of alexandrite and a stockpile of aurora borealis rhinestones. Inside, everything lay in place, just as it had the day before when she’d looked for signs of Cosmo tampering with her things. Gingerly, she withdrew the tray of alexandrite and carried it to the worktable.
On the tray rested a dozen or so loose stones, smaller gems she could incorporate into jewelry pieces-not that she’d ever needed them. There was also a square box Iris hadn’t opened for years, but now she lifted the lid to consider the high-quality copies within. Each close to ten carats, they were a family heirloom dating back to the 1920s when, according to her mother, her great-grandfather had cut them to resemble the Romanov gems.
Don’t ever sell these, Iris. So her mother had said time and again. But Iris knew her mother would have handed them over willingly to help Cosmo if he were in trouble.
Unshed tears blurred her eyes for a few moments. These ten stones had been her mom’s treasure. Iris had always believed the Romanov necklace, like the crown, was merely a myth, but if it did exist? Authentic stones like these would be priceless.
And Mom would have loved seeing them.
She tried to push the box away, but felt an extra drag to it. How odd. Exploring the white foam on which the stones lay, she discovered an uneven surface beneath them. Confused, she lifted a corner of the foam to find more gems beneath it. Adrenaline shot through her system as she removed the foam to reveal its hidden layer. Yesterday she’d examined the store to see if Cosmo had taken anything. It hadn’t occurred to her he might leave something here.
She set the white foam with the ten vanadium-treated stones aside. In the box lay a playing card.
The queen of diamonds.
“Dammit, Cosmo, where are you?” she whispered.
With the playing card rested ten more matching gems. Beneath the bright light of her worktable, they glowed a dark blood red, a little lighter than garnets. Four were ovals, another four were rectangles, and two were squares. But geometry didn’t begin to express the faceted edges that cast brilliant rainbows onto her wall, or the clarity of the stones.
A sudden thought made her scoop up the gems and carry them to the bathroom, so quickly, she nearly tripped over Edgar. Here, she flicked on the overhead light, its fluorescent tubes blinking to a bluish light. With a deep breath, she willed herself to look once more at the stones.
They’d turned an olive green. The color change added a dose of reality-in the myth, these alexandrite were supposed to change from vivid red to vivid green. Maybe daylight would make the green more pure. Still, there was no denying what she held. Her heart swelled with emotion. How her mother would have longed to see this day.
Edgar hobbled over to sniff her ankles while Iris stared at the gems, almost afraid to breathe. It was as if someone had made a fairy-tale come true and given her these magical, mystical, historical, terrible, cursed…stolen gems.
“He loves me so much, he left me a death wish,” she muttered when reality hit her.
Soberly, she carried the gems back to the table, pulled up her stool and sat, engrossed in them. Without taking time and setting up the refractometer, she couldn’t authenticate them as true alexandrite, but her brain screamed this was no scam. Focusing her light, she fitted a small magnifier to her eye to examine one of the gems. The blood-red stone offered incomparable clarity-even more amazing was the cut. Alexandrite was notoriously hard to cut into gems, tending to fracture on unexpected lines. One by one she examined the ten stones, only to admit these were the work of a superior craftsman. A shiver raced up her spine. If all her mother’s tales were true, her ancestor had cut these for royalty.
Were they truly from Czar Alexander’s crown? Had they then moved to the Empress Alexandra’s necklace? And how had Cosmo gotten hold of them?
With a start, she realized she needed to make a swift decision. She scanned the various gems before her again, then her gaze slid sideways to where Edgar’s silver collar with its fake red rubies lay. Biting her lip, she held one of the alexandrites up with the collar. Yes. She didn’t hesitate, afraid she’d talk herself out of the idea. With a pair of needle-nose pliers, she attacked the gem settings on the collar, deftly removing the lightweight fake rubies from their settings. These she tossed into a plastic cup on her table. A glance at the clock reminded her she had less than an hour before Mickey arrived.
While she’d like to trust him with her discovery, she didn’t dare. She’d give him her mother’s copies, just as he’d asked. This real alexandrite she’d hide on Edgar’s collar and hope an opportunity to help Cosmo presented itself.
With careful precision, she fitted the alexandrite gems one by one to the settings on the silver leather collar and soldered them in place. She worked quickly, sacrificing artistry to make sure none of the gems could accidentally fall out. When she finished, she hid all the clues to what she’d just done. She pocketed the playing card and started to throw away the plastic cup with its vivid red gems before she thought better of it. Someone might ask where they’d come from, so she stashed them into drawer forty-eight, which held a quantity of gaudy cheap stones. Last step of her plan, she hunted down Edgar and fitted the silver collar back onto his furry neck.
The rabbit shook his head at the unwelcome weight of the stones, but his beady red eyes watched her. For a moment, she swore he understood-and approved-her motives.
She was definitely losing it.
Scanning the workroom, she verified that she’d put everything back to order. She’d returned her own smaller imitation alexandrite back to drawer thirty-three. Edgar wore his same bejeweled collar. Or at least, that’s what anyone would think, so long as the rabbit didn’t go out into bright sunlight and make the stones turn green. All that remained on her worktable were her neatly organized tools and the ten vanadium-treated corundum she’d promised Mickey.
Soft footfalls on carpet made her turn to see the workroom door opening. She wasn’t surprised to see him. Honestly, the guy could sneak into a sealed box.
He must have stopped by his home, because he now wore dark jeans and a black T-shirt. Mirrored sunglasses perched atop his head. “I locked the front door behind me,” he said with that wicked smile of his. “Any luck?”
Iris swallowed her trepidation and steeled herself to lie. “Lots of it.” She refocused her lamp over her table. “Come see for yourself.”
He peered over her shoulder at the ten gems displayed on the table. Beneath the bright light, the red glowed as dark and rich as newly spilled blood.
“They’re so perfectly matched,” Mickey said.
“The original gems were all cut from one stone. They ended up roughly the same size, though there were some different shapes.”
“You’re sure these are worth ten million? I mean, if they were real?”
“And then some. With their cultural and historical significance, they could be worth twice that. The Russian government would probably kill to have the originals returned to them.”
“Well, what’s a few more killers after them?” Mickey scooped the gems into his hand. “Will they really turn color and everything?”
“Look at them under the bathroom light. It’s the closest I’ve got to natural daylight.”
Mickey carried the gems to the small bathroom and flicked the switch. “I’ll be damned.” He looked back out at her. “This isn’t natural?”
“Those are treated with vanadium, so it’s not as strong a change as real alexandrite, but so few people have ever seen real alexandrite-”
“Let’s hope our luck holds out.” Mickey dropped the gems into the velvet bag she held open. “They won’t chip in here, will they?”
“No, corundum has a high density factor. Like diamonds, they’re nearly impossible to chip.”
He drew the string on the bag, but before he tucked it into a pocket, he stopped. “I can’t thank you enough. You may have just saved my life.”
Warmth flooded Iris’s face. They’d be having a much different discussion if he ever found out she had the real gems. “They’re meant to save Cosmo.”
“I’ll do what I can.” He turned and practically tripped over Edgar. “Where did he come from?”
“Allie got called into a rehearsal.”
He stared down at the rabbit. “You know, that collar… I didn’t think to check it. You don’t suppose Cosmo would-”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I checked them already.” She hoped she didn’t sound like she was lying. To her relief, Edgar hopped away from the bathroom light toward the worktable.
Mickey watched her but didn’t seem to notice her words. “Thanks again for these.” He patted his pocket, but his eyes burned with that predatory intensity she found so alluring.
But kisses were out-she couldn’t risk involvement with someone she didn’t trust. And you’re engaged, remember? She retreated to her table where she realigned her tools. “You’re welcome. And if you-” No, as much as she wanted to tell him the truth, she couldn’t risk it. She swallowed again. “Call me if you find Cosmo.”
“First thing. You’ll have to lock me out.”
“Oh, right.” Apparently, he could break into places, just couldn’t break out.
She followed him across the sales floor and let him out the front door. Already traffic inside the casino was picking up, mostly tourists and seniors in shorts and T-shirts, baseball caps and sneakers. One older foreign gentleman wearing a caftan and turban perused the window displays. Somewhere in the casino, a slot machine paid out with a repetitive ching-ching-ching.
Iris once thought hitting a jackpot would always bring happiness, but now she knew money was only one small part of the equation. She’d give millions just to see Cosmo again. Catching herself daydreaming, she stepped back inside, closing and locking the door behind her.
She returned to the workroom to finish cleaning up. “Come on, Edgar. You can help with some paperwork until it’s time to open.” She looked around for the rabbit, but the back doorbell interrupted her.
“UPS,” called a male voice from beyond the door.
Of course they’d get here early today. Iris hadn’t thought about them because Ginny usually worked the early shift and dealt with deliveries. Prepared to warn the guy to watch where he might step, she went to the backdoor and unbolted the lock.
Immediately, the door was kicked open, nearly striking her in the face.
Too late, she recalled it was Sunday.
Justin waited in the backstage area at the MGM Grand. Despite his normally grounded perspective, he experienced a twinge of awe at the scope of the surroundings. The airspace soaring above the stage was filled with black drapes and dark lighting instruments. The exotic dance show they staged here was all about lights, music and bare female bodies.
He was relieved the female bodies hadn’t been invited to the technical rehearsal.
The problem was no one seemed to have been invited to the technical rehearsal. No one except Allie Fortune. And him.
A motion in the heavy draperies had him reaching for his weapon before he saw Allie slide from the darkness. Her black attire made it that much harder to track her in the darkened theater. The last thing he needed was to shoot an innocent civilian. Once was quite enough for his career.
He relaxed into a neutral posture as she approached. Her black running shoes squeaked across the wooden floor of the stage, disrupting the somber silence. A single light bulb on a short pole cast a puddle of light but made no impact on the shadows.
Frankly, the whole place gave him the creeps.
“Didn’t you say something about a rehearsal?”
She stopped before him, the light behind her casting a halo around her hair and silhouetting her lithe body. Justin swallowed and dragged his mind firmly back to business.
“I did,” she said. “But I lied.”
“You lied?”
Her features were difficult to read in this lighting, but she nodded.
“Why?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted to meet his. Dilated by the darkness, her pupils made her normally golden eyes look black. “Can I trust you?”
Justin hated that question. It was the most loaded question in history. Immediate responses triggered in his mind. Why? Are you guilty of something? What is it you need? They were all qualifiers, because no one could be openly trusted in all situations.
She watched him with those wide eyes.
He wondered again if she needed rescuing. A woman like Allie didn’t deserve crappy things happening in her life. He’d like to help her.
“Can I?” she gently prodded.
“Yes.” So much for qualifiers.
Her sudden warm smile paired with the halo around her golden hair made him think of angels and all the good things in the world. “I thought so. I knew you were on Daddy’s side.”
“But I need to uphold the law-”
“You said you didn’t think Daddy had done anything wrong. You needed him for questioning. And I want to find him. I’m worried that he’s in real trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” As casually as possible, he took her arm and turned her so half her face was lit by that one glowing light.
She hung her head, eyes downcast. “I don’t know. Daddy always told me about his projects, his plans, his crazy schemes, but in the past couple months he’s been unnaturally silent. Kept telling me to move on with my school, my career.”
“Do you think he told your sisters anything?”
That made her lift her head. “Maybe. Did you know Cory and I went to Iris’s last night?”
“Yes.” He knew because Mickey had told him while they were at the morgue. Probably best not to let her know that little tidbit.
“Thanks for telling the truth.” She turned her head to scan the expansive theater as if danger lurked in the shadows.
His senses alert, Justin started when an air conditioner kicked on. Exhaling, he said, “Allie, tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m narking on them. I mean, this is bigger than telling tales out of school, right? Daddy could be in real danger.”
He nodded.
“Then I need to do everything I can to help him. And I think you stand a better chance of finding him then they do.”
“They who?”
“My sisters.”