The Golden Girl (16 page)
LondonScotland Yard
G
reen and crimson fire escaped myriad facets of the diamond. Cut in the asscher stylea stepped square cut with cropped cornerseach slight tilt or turn of the jeweler’s tweezers released another scintillating wink of color. Even beneath the harsh fluorescent lights of Scotland Yard’s interrogation room, the rock put on a show.
There must be a flaw. Nothing in this world was perfect.
At the back of her thoughts Becca Whitmore heard whistling. Symphony No. 8 in B minor? That one of the Scotland Yard inspectors would cruise down the hallway whistling Schubert made her smile. Someone must have stepped out on the town last night for a bit of culture.
“Miss Whitmore, I am told?”
Thoroughly startled by the male voice, Becca dropped the diamond. It clinked onto the Formica table and then jumped onto the creased ultrawhite card she always used to lay out gemstones.
A whistle acknowledged her jumpiness. “Sorry,” the man offered. “Will dropping it damage the thing?”
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Becca resumed her composure. “No.”
Why then had she been so jumpy about dropping the gem? It was too early, and she was still on New York time, which should find her snuggled in bed.
“Diamond is one of the hardest substances found in nature, Mr….”
“Agent Dane.”
A slender, six-foot-tall advertisement for laid-back leaned in the doorway to the interrogation room, wearing a presumptuous smile and a pale blue turtleneck sweater. Tufted blond hair warred for one direction on his scalp, and lost. Right hand cocked at his hip flared back a black tailored suit coat to reveal sculpted pecs beneath the snug sweater. The Brits had a thing for close-to-body tailoring, as if they still clung to the 60s-era style.
Swank, Becca thought.
He tugged out a leather badge wallet from inside his coat pocket and flashed it quickly. “Agent Aston Dane. MI-6.”
The wallet snapped shut as Becca stood and offered her hand. “Becca Whitmore.”
Grasping her hand with both of his, he pumped twice. A simple band circled his right thumb. Silver? Cool, relaxed. Thumb? Open. She had a knack for judging a person by the jewelry they wore. Men, most particularly, offered intriguing analysis merely for the subtleties their choices uncovered.
“Nice to meet you. Could I see that badge again?”
Still holding her hand, Dane winked. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Becca tugged her hand from his grip. A lift of her eyebrow challenged. “I don’t need a little slice of plastic to prove my credentials.”
“Oh? And yet, who the bloody hell
is
Becca Whitmore?”
“I’m the gemologist.”
“Ah! Yes, the expert in gems imported from the good old US of A. I was told an American was making the trek. From the JAG?”
He referred to the FBI’s Jewelry and Gem program. They only worked thefts in the United States, and so had handed the case on to the CIA. The CIA had been the one to contact Becca’s superior, Renee Dalton-Sinclair.
This case had begun in New York, but had quickly gone international with today’s theft in London.
Yesterday’s attempted theft involved a request for a very specific ten-carat diamondthe very diamond sitting on the white card, Becca presumed. The New York gems dealer had told the thief she’d sold the stone, and then he’d shot her in the head.
The victim? One MaryEllen Sommerfield. Becca knew the woman from the occasional purchase or meeting at a gems convention. MaryEllen was still alive, a bullet lodged in her frontal lobe as if a ticking time bomb. Surprisingly, she remained coherent, and had been able to give the details to the questioning officers.
She’d also told the officers she’d sold one ten-carat stone to a London jeweler who had plans to create a necklace for a Transylvanian countess, and another to a Paris dealer. Had the thief been aware there were two stones? He hadn’t made such knowledge apparent to MaryEllen.
Becca’s cover was more than a story; she actually was a gemologist. But she was so much more. Recruited into the Gotham Roses four years earlier by Renee Dalton-Sinclair, Becca served as an agent in an undercover operation that concentrated on crimes committed by the rich and untouchable. Those “good ole boys” who lived above the law and could get by with nearly anythingyes, even murdermerely by flashing their cash or the incredible power of political connections.
On the surface, the Roses were made up of young socialites who focused on charity and giving back to the community. Nary a crime fighter in the bunch. Hardly the sort the criminals would expect to come beating a path in their wake.
Less than two dozen of those exceptional young women were aware of and worked for the covert branch of the Gotham Roses, which cooperated with the CIA, FBI and other crime-fighting agencies.
Fate had placed Becca in the path of a fleeing purse snatcher several years earlier. Reacting to instincts she’d never known she possessed, she’d swung her Fendi bag, catching the thief in the face and laying him out flat. Renee Dalton-Sinclair had witnessed this scene from the back seat of her limo.
Renee Dalton-Sinclair was a gorgeous and powerful woman married to Preston Sinclair, a noted businessman who had been incarcerated for embezzlement. The scandal had been the motivating force behind Renee’s creating the Gotham Roses. Renee answered to a mysterious woman the Roses knew only as the Governess. Becca often wondered if she were CIA or FBI, or someone higher.
No matter, the Governess had made it clear she wanted intel on this caseand hard evidence. Suspicions from unnamed sources suggested there was something different about these two diamonds.
What had Agent Dane asked? Ah, was she with JAG.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss my orders,” she finally said. The usual excuse. Scotland Yard knew the CIA had sent her here. “You said you’re with MI-6?”
“We’re the obvious match for this case” His pause ended in a forced smile. He smoothed his palm down the front of his thin blue sweater. Summoning the truth or concocting a lie? It was the kind of pause Becca was familiar with, and used herself, when needed.
“So what makes you believe this case is organized crime?”
Agent Dane stepped backward and slapped a hand over the wall next to a large picture window. The expanse of glass changed from a light-blocking white to reveal it was actually a two-way window.
“Exhibit A,” he offered, crossing his arms and ankles to pose beside the scene.
Inside the room sat a thin man in black sweats. Blood trickled down his stubble-darkened jaw. A vivid purple bruise marred the left side of his forehead. Hands secured behind his back, his head hung, and his shaved scalp revealed a scar that curved around his ear.
“Is that the thief?”
“You’d bloody better believe it. Picked him up as a lovely bonus prize along with the diamond. Sergei the Dog, a middle-tier thief.”
“Middle-tier?”
“Sure. You’ve got your scummy low-class blokes who do smash-and-grabs and tilt over little old ladies on street corners.” He ticked off his fingers as he explained. “You’ve got your upper tiers who do exquisitely planned heists. And then there’s the middle, who are basically all the rest. They work in groups or are hired by the big blokes who haven’t the time or motivation to delegate the upper-tier heists.”
“I see.”
“Good on you, Miss Whitmore. I like a woman who picks up the ball without fumbling. There’s also a notation on Sergei’s record that he’s snitched for the SVR. Er, that’s the”
“I know what the SVR is.”
“Stupid Violent Russians.”
Becca compressed her lips and crossed her arms. “What is it about the Russians you don’t like?”
“Besides the Cold War?” He shrugged. “It’s a joke. You know, humor?” He sighed and punched a fist into his opposite palm. “Tough room. SVR, Russian intelligence,” he said. “But isn’t that an oxymoron? Russian. Intelligent?”
Despite her reservations, Becca had to smile at that one. Ah, hell, she let out a chuckle.
“Whew. The room is finally starting to warm up.” Dane’s smile was easy and it piqued Becca’s attention. Yes, definitely an open man. Direct opposition to her need to keep things close. “So the CIA has flown you all the way over to London for that pretty little rock?”
Nodding and exhaling a sigh, she said, “Don’t remind me of the flight.”
“Don’t like to fly in airplanes?”
“I fly well enough, it’s over water that makes me, mmm” she tilted her palm up and down “nervous.”
“Hydrophobic?”
“Yes.” And, far too much information to reveal to a perfect stranger.
He gestured to the diamond. “A nice piece. Ten carats, I believe. Snatched earlier this morning from a gems dealer over in Liverpool. But I don’t understand why the entire store was not ransacked. There were other gems of equal size, yet this bit of sparkle was the only thing taken.”
“It is curious nothing else was stolen,” she agreed. “There was no sign of forced break-in at the New York store. The dealer said the thief specifically asked for this stone. As if he knew she had it. And yet, she had only purchased it five days earlier.”
Picking up the diamond, she redirected her focus. Hefty. Solid. The asscher-cut was rather ugly. Herself, she preferred the classic round brilliant-cut stones.
Either way, it was an extraordinary showpiece. A stone this size would likely be utilized as the key setting in a necklace or brooch. Only the wealthiest of wealthy could touch such a fine piece, a social set with which she was familiar.
What troubled Becca was that someone had tried to kill for this diamond. Murder didn’t seem necessary. Had the London theft been foiled by the arrival of Scotland Yard? No time for murder? Or had the thief’s MO changed? Was this even the same thief who had struck in New York? Or had that man alerted another in his gang to the sale?
If it was organized crime, as Agent Dane had alluded, the scenario seemed likely.
She fished out a disk light from her valise. It was a little larger than a quarter; a snappy little device Alan Burke had designed for her. A squeeze of the rubber case produced UV light on one side and white light on the other side. Alan was the gadget guru for the Gotham Roses, who operated out of the brownstone on Sixty-eighthAvenue. Alan never met a challenge he couldn’t fill or a foreign movie he didn’t like.
Leaning over the table to block some of the unnatural overhead light, Becca beamed the ultraviolet light across the diamond. As expected, the diamond fluoresced. But wow, it fluoresced…pink! Most diamonds fluoresced blue, and fluorescence wasn’t necessarily favorable when pricing a stone. More fluorescence tended to make the diamond murky, sometimes oily in color when viewed in natural daylight. As an attribute it was prized only if the fluorescence cut the yellow in the stone to produce a blue-white color.
But this stone wasn’t yellow; in fact, it was quite clear.
“That’s odd.” Flipping the light disk to white light, Becca then tilted the diamond to redirect the blocks of prismatic color beamed across the white card. There was something…
Startled at her discovery, Becca turned the crown of the diamond toward the tabletop. By beaming the white light through the lower pavilion of the gem, it produced a kaleidoscopic dance of light on the pale gray Formica. Within the glow, small, dark spots littered the colors…in a pattern.
Letters?
“There’s something on the table of this diamond. An ion beam brand?” she spoke her suspicions out loud.
Dane leaned over the table. “There’s something inside the diamond?”
“I’m not sure.” Becca held up the diamond before him. “There is a method jewelers use to mark diamonds in a minute manner. It’s completely invisible to the naked eye, unlike the oft-used laser engraving burned into the girdle. This is the girdle.” She ran a finger around the edge of the diamond. “Ion beam branding deposits identification codes or matrices inside the diamond, which are only viewable with a high-powered microscope.”
“And where is yours?”
“Not here. The 200x microscope required is too large to lug about in my little case. But what makes the discovery strange is that I didn’t need it.”
She flashed the light over the crown of the diamond. Just one more check. Indeed, a faint pink glowed within the stone.
“Brilliant.”
“Yes, but check this out.” She flashed the white light across the stone. “Hell.”
“So that’s where diamonds come from, is it, Miss Whitmore? Hell?”
This time, Becca did not see anything. No letters or branded matrix. In fact, the marks she had seen were now completely gone.
“This isn’t right”
“Oh, blighted bollocks!” Dane dashed from the room.
Whatever had bit him in the ass?
Becca spun to the two-way window. She jumped up and rushed to it, slapping her palms to the glass. The suspect convulsed on his chair.
Dane appeared and grabbed the man by the throat. White spittle oozed over his tightly clamped lips. The agent pounded a fist against his chest then released the bound man with a thrust. Still strapped to the chair, the man fell backward, landing on the floor, his feet in the air. He didn’t move.
Dane shouted, “Sod me!”
He flung his arms out and turned to approach the two-way window. He gave the glass a good pound with his fist. Anger stretched his mouth to a tight sneer.
He kicked the chair leg, and exited the room.
Becca rushed to the open door and peeked out to find Agent Dane standing in the hallway, hands to hips and head shaking. He looked to her and fisted the air again. “Bastard killed himself.”
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