Hidden Agemda (Kate Diamond Adventure) (14 page)

Mick stretched out a yawn. “So we probably don’t need to sit here and monitor these.

“Right,” Ace said, wondering why he couldn’t take his eyes off the dot on the screen. Probably because he wanted to make sure that Kate didn’t slip away without him being able to follow her. But not because he wanted to recover the Millennia Ruby first. Ace had a hunch there was a lot more going on here than just the theft of an expensive gemstone and, if his hunch was correct, keeping an eye on Kate could mean the difference between life and death.

“What do you think she’ll do next?” Mick stood and grabbed his coat from the back of the chair.

“Who knows, with Kate it could be anything … I just hope whatever it is, she brings that purse with her.”

Kate woke the next morning in a tangle of sheets. She’d had the dream again except this time the FBI director was taking Ace Mason’s badge, which made her feel vindicated … and a little sad.
 

Pushing her coppery curls out of her face, she tried to banish any thoughts of the handsome FBI detective. She’d spent the last year training herself
not
to think of him and she’d be damned if one little visit to FBI headquarters would ruin all her hard work.

She showered, blow-dried her curls so that they hung long past her shoulders, then made an attempt to swipe on some makeup. She didn’t know why she was taking such pains with her appearance, but it certainly wasn’t because she thought she might see Ace Mason again.

Throwing on jeans and an ivory silk blouse, she grabbed her navy blue pea coat and purse and headed over to the museum.

Gideon was in the lab, bent over one of the tables as usual. He hadn’t texted her, so she assumed the facial recognition program was still running. He turned around at the sound of the door opening and greeted her with a smile. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Kate noticed he wasn’t wearing a sweater vest. She wondered if her nagging was finally getting to him as she eyed his attire, which consisted of a gray t-shirt with a dark slate colored graffiti type design trailing down one side from shoulder to hem. The shirt was loose over black jeans. Kate suddenly felt uneasy as her eyes lingered on his shirt—who knew Gideon had such broad shoulders and muscular biceps?

“Is something wrong?” His wide green eyes stared at her from behind the thick glasses.

“No, Sorry.” Kate shook off the strange feeling. She felt odd, like she’d been checking out her brother. “Nice shirt.”

“Thanks. I’m trying to get away from the sweater vests,” he said with a wink.

Kate glanced over at the computers. “Did the facial recognition software find a match for Uncle Roger?”

Gideon’s face fell. “I’m afraid not. It finished running about a half hour ago.”

“It didn’t find anything? Is that possible?”

“Sure, if the guy doesn’t have a license or has never been arrested … or he could have had surgery to change the way he looks.” Gideon crossed over to the computers and brought up the still shot of Summers talking to Uncle Roger they’d fed into the software. “The picture isn’t that great either, so it could be that he’s in the database, but the software couldn’t match him since we only have a side view.”

Kate felt her stomach sinking as she looked at the computer and realized that Gideon was right. The picture was fuzzy and only showed one side of the guy’s face … but it was the best one they had.
 

Kate sunk into a chair. “Now what do we do?”

Gideon rubbed his chin in response and Daisy jumped up into her lap. Kate stroked the dog’s fur for comfort.
 

“We could look through some of the databases manually, but it would take a long time,” Gideon offered. “If he’s the one who hired Summers, he might have an arrest record … maybe the software couldn’t match him because of the angle of his face. We could look at the pictures ourselves.”

Kate screwed up her face. She didn’t want to be sitting in front of the computer looking at pictures when she could be out
doing
something.

“That sounds like it could take forever,” Kate said. “But you might be on to something. If he
is
the one who hired Summers to steal the ruby, he’s probably a jewel thief himself or associated with that business … and who do we know that knows all the jewel thieves in existence?”

Gideon snapped his fingers and pointed at Kate. “Your parents!”

“Exactly,” Kate said. “Can I call them on Skype from here?”

“Of course.” Gideon walked over to a computer at the end of the table and Kate followed. Sitting down in front of the computer, Kate logged into Skype, initiated the call to her mother and crossed her fingers that Carlotta was near her computer or had her phone.

After a few rings, Carlotta’s face filled the screen. “Katie! How are you?”

“Great Mom, how about you?”

“Wonderful. We’re just having a little gathering. Say hi to everyone.” Carlotta must have answered on her cell phone or iPad, which she now pointed away from her giving Kate a view of “the gathering.” Kate saw the familiar poolside setting of
Golden Capers
. The thatched roof Tiki bar was in full swing with Sal at the blender and a dozen senior citizens in Hawaiian shirts milling around with colorful plastic palm tree stemmed drink glasses in their hands.

“Everyone, say hi to Kate.” Kate heard Carlotta’s voice then the Hawaiian shirt-wearing seniors turned to wave and say their hellos. Kate knew all of them and her heart warmed—they were like family.

“You’re drinking already?” Kate’s brow creased as she looked at her watch. “It’s only nine in the morning.”

Carlotta’s face reappeared on the screen. “It’s just mimosas. Nothing too strong.”

Vic’s face appeared on the screen, pushing Carlotta’s out of view. “When you’re retired like us, time doesn’t really mean anything.”

Kate raised a brow at Gideon who laughed. Gideon had been down to her parents’ place a few times and really liked the older folks down there. He’d especially bonded with a few of them who were geeky inventors just like himself.
 

“I wish we were there,” he said.

“Is that Gideon?” Carlotta grabbed the phone from Vic with a dizzying movement before her face reappeared on the screen. She squinted at the display. “It is! Hi Gideon.”

“Hi, Mrs. D.” Gideon leaned toward the screen and waved. “Mr. D. … and everyone else.”

“So, how’s the ruby search going?” Vic’s voice boomed out of the computer.

“Well, that’s kind of why we’re calling,” Kate said.

“I’m sure Gideon was able to verify the one you stole was a fake,” Carlotta said confidently. “Did you locate the real one?”

“Yes, it was a fake, Mrs. D,” Gideon said. “Did Sal get his thumb back?”

“Oh, yes.” Carlotta panned the camera toward Sal again, then yelled, “Sal, how’s your thumb?”

Sal smiled and gave them the thumbs up. “Just like new. I appreciate the little addition you did, Gideon.”

Kate mashed her brows at Gideon. “Addition?”

Gideon shrugged. “I just made it a little handier by retrofitting a small can opener, screwdriver and knife into the prosthetic. They fold inside like a pocket knife—you can’t even tell they are there.”

“Yeah. Check it out.” Sal held up his thumb and pressed on the thumbnail. A small can opener popped out of the side and Sal used it to pierce a hole in a can of coconut milk. He grinned then slid the opener back in, holding the thumb closer to the cell phone to show how it looked like a normal thumb. “Really comes in handy.”

Kate laughed and waved to Benny who had stuck his head into the picture and was waving at her before the screen spun around again showing Carlotta and Vic.

“So, back to the ruby search,” Carlotta said. “We actually have some intel that might be of use to you.”

“Really?” Kate’s brows shot up. “Spill.”

“Crowder didn’t go underground, and he swears he didn’t have anything to do with the theft.” Carlotta lifted the paper umbrella out of her drink to reveal a wedge of pineapple, which she chewed thoughtfully. “It could be he doesn’t even know the real ruby was stolen and replaced … or if he was in on that, you stealing the fake ruby would be the perfect coverup for him. But according to our sources, he didn’t know anything about either.”

“But whoever stole the real ruby must have had inside help,” Gideon said. “And apparently Crowder wasn’t the one chasing Kate and Sal, so there’s another party involved.”

“We think we figured out how they stole the real ruby,” Kate added, then explained how she traced Nguyen’s fake identity to Summers and found the disguise and the big deposit in his bank account.

“Why would someone go to all that trouble?” Vic asked taking a sip from his glass. “Did you question this Summers character?”

Kate sighed. “Unfortunately, he’s dead.
 

“Oh, that could be a problem,” Carlotta said. “Do you have any other leads?”

“Just one and it’s kind of sketchy, but it’s the only thing I’ve got.” Kate told them about Uncle Roger and how the facial recognition software didn’t find a match. “But the picture’s kind of fuzzy and it’s not a head on view, so I was wondering if you guys would take a look to see if you recognized him.”

“Of course,” Carlotta and Vic said at the same time, then glanced at each other and giggled like teenagers.

Kate looked up at Gideon. “Can we show them the picture on the screen?”

“Yep.” Gideon gently pushed her out of the way to take over the keyboard. A few keystrokes later, Carlotta and Vic were looking at the picture of “Uncle Roger”.

From her screen, Kate saw them glance at each other and then Carlotta said. “That looks like Jimmy Benedetti, don’t you think? You know the one who used to wear those crazy shoes.”

“Crazy shoes?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, what were they?” Carla scrunched her face up then snapped her fingers. “Testoni. They were made out of some kind of alligator and had a gold and diamond buckle. He wore them all the time, said they were supposed to last forever.”

“Yeah, I guess they cost over thirty G’s,” Vic said. “He really stuck out in those shoes, which I never understood because most bad guys want to blend in. But I guess we all have our quirks. That’s definitely him though … and he’s wearing the shoes.”

Kate looked at the shoes of the man in the picture. They did look pretty fancy—she could even see a glint of light bouncing off one of the buckles.

“The strange thing is that he’s not a jewel thief,” Carlotta added. “Which makes me wonder why he would be mixed up in this.”

Vic’s voice was serious. “He’s a real bad guy, Kate. You’d better be careful if you’re going to get mixed up with him. He’s been associated with some violent criminals.”

Kate pushed away a tingle of fear—she wasn’t afraid of bad guys. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find him, would you?”

“We don’t actually keep tabs on these people. But we’d love to help if we can,” Carlotta said. Some of the other seniors had gathered around to listen in and Kate could hear them murmuring excitedly. Kate knew they all did want to help—apparently, it got boring sitting around having parties all the time.

“You’ve been a big help already,” Kate said. “Now that I know who he is, it’ll make it easier to track him down.”

“Okay, Kitten. Don’t make a move without letting us know,” Vic said.

“I won’t Dad,” Kate answered. “I’ll call you with my game plan as soon as I know what it is.”

“And don’t forget to let us know if we can help.” Kate heard Benny yell from behind her folks as she ended the call.

Gideon was already busy typing furiously into the other computer. “I’m going to do a look-up on Benedetti and see if I can get a better picture of him. Then we can feed that into the system and see if he’s taken a plane anywhere.”

“You can do that?”

“Yeah, the facial recognition software searches the airport databases and they have pictures on file for every passenger,” Gideon said. “I wouldn’t be able to tell if he traveled by bus, but I might be able to get a match from a car rental.”

Kate stared at the computer watching the numbers and images fly by at a dizzying speed while the software did its job.
 

She wondered if Jimmy Benedetti had the ruby. Her mother had said he wasn’t a jewel thief so most likely he was working for someone else. For now though, he was her only lead and she’d have to find him in order to get to the ruby. No matter how much of a violent criminal he was.

“You’re not going to go after this guy, are you?” Gideon looked at Kate with genuine concern.

Kate shrugged. “I think I have to. He’s our only lead and he probably knows where the real Millennia Ruby is.”

“But, your parents said he was violent. Maybe Max was right … your job is to find out who stole items from the museum and, if you can, retrieve them. There’s nothing in your job description that says you have to chase violent criminals to do that.” Gideon glanced at Kate. “Maybe you
should
leave that part to the FBI … or at least consider working with them.”

Kate felt anger rise up in her chest.
Didn’t anyone think she could handle this job?

She pierced Gideon with a look. “In case you don’t remember,
I
used to be the FBI. I think I have the skills to handle one little bad guy. Besides, last I heard, my job was to get back the
real
ruby and that’s exactly what I plan to do—no matter how many violent criminals I have to cross paths with in order to do it.”

Benedetti hadn’t traveled under his real name, but the computer matched his picture to a man that had boarded a flight from Boston to the Bahamas two days before.

It was too close for coincidenc
e, Kate thought. Benedetti had to be involved with Summers and the ruby theft, so she raced home and packed a bag, happy to be including more tropical attire this time.

On the way to the airport, she called her parents, who reminded her that they could get to Bermuda by boat in a matter of hours. And the residents at
Golden Capers
had plenty of boats. They’d happily meet her there.

Mercedes had been able to get her on a plane leaving Logan Airport right away and Kate worked on chewing her fingernails to nubs while she sat impatiently in her seat during the two-and-a-half-hour flight.