MOONLIGHT ON DIAMONDS (27 page)

But that was as far
as he got before John clocked him in the chin with his free hand. Quinn’s head
jerked back and he fell into the end table.

“That’s for almost
getting Veronica killed!” shouted John as he got out of bed, no easy task with
one hand cuffed. He slugged the FBI man one more time, knocking him
unconscious. “And that’s for almost getting
me
killed too!”

John breathed hard as
rage flooded him. He could murder Quinn with his bare hands.

He flexed his knuckle
and shook out his wrist, inhaling deeply. Closing his eyes, he repeated the
serenity prayer over and over in his head as he sank back onto the bed.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the
difference.
God grant me the serenity to accept the
things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom
to know the difference.

He said it until it
became a mantra. Then he just sat there for a moment with his eyes closed and
willed himself to calm down. His anger subsided as his blood pressure slowly
returned to normal.

He leaned down toward
Quinn and frisked the unconscious FBI man until he found the key to the
handcuffs. After setting himself free, John awkwardly lifted his ex-partner’s
chubby frame onto the bed, cuffing him to the headboard and leaving the key
just out of reach on the side table. He pulled a blanket up to Quinn’s chin and
tucked him in for the night. He’d have a nice black eye and a sore chin when he
woke up tomorrow. John shrugged. His ex-partner had been complaining about
needing a good night’s sleep for the past forty-eight hours—now he’d get it.

John dressed quickly
and switched out the light as he left the room making sure to post the “DO NOT
DISTURB” sign on the door.

He made his way down
the back stairs to room 211. He listened at the door, but no sound came from
the White Russian’s suite. John glanced around quickly and jimmied the lock.

The door clicked
opened. He slipped into the pitch dark room as quietly as possible. He stood in
the entrance hall listening for a moment, but the place seemed dead to him.
Carefully he took a few steps farther in and snapped on the lights.

The suite was empty.

John searched the
closets and drawers, but came up with nothing.

He left the suite and
headed down to the front desk. A thin, unfriendly-looking woman stood behind
the polished wood staring at him as he came toward her. Self-consciously, John
ran his fingers through his hair. Did it show on his face that he was involved
in some mysterious doings? He quickly flashed the concierge one of his bright,
disarming smiles. “Hello there, how are you?”

“Very well, sir.”

“Um, I was wondering,
is Nicholas Bezuhov still in residence here?”

“The prince?” she
asked, coming a bit more to life.

John bit his tongue.
“Yes, that’s him.”

She shook her head.
“No, I’m sorry, sir. He checked out around six o’clock this evening.”

“Right before he left
for the ball…,” muttered John to himself. Then remembering the concierge, he
smiled again and handed her a few bills. “Thanks.”

****

The platinum
convertible flew down the highway as fast as John could push her. At well past
two a.m., the road was almost empty. The air was sharp and cold; the wind
smacked his face as he pushed a hundred miles per hour, but he didn’t feel it.
Pennsylvania was a blur in the dark whipping by him, but he didn’t see it.
There was only one thought on his mind—getting the Hope back from Veronica.
There was only one person who could help him do that. Old Buzzy Rossmore.

The idea had come to
John as Quinn was walking him to his hotel room. He had realized, as he watched
his sallow, potbellied ex-partner, that he hated what Quinn had become—just a
scared little man doing what he was told with no more moral fiber than a rodent.

Maybe John had once
been like that, too. Maybe that was part of the reason he drank. His mind
flashed back to where he had been this time last March. He had woken up and
gone into the office as usual. He’d brought his coffee thermos filled with cheap
vodka—just for maintenance. He would drink steadily all morning, sneaking shots
in his cubicle until he found himself in a stall of the men’s room with his
thermos in hand just sitting there drinking.

Then something had
happened. Even though he’d already put away almost the entire contents of his
thermos, he hadn’t gotten drunk. The alcohol wasn’t working.

A wave of panic had
hit him hard and he’d looked around the industrial bathroom for something to
help. Of course there was nothing. He’d stood there disoriented with his heart
pumping and his adrenaline flowing. He’d felt his chest tightening up and he
couldn’t breathe. He had rushed to the sink, and turning on the faucet, caught
up handfuls of clean, cold water and doused his face in the icy blast. He
hadn’t stopped until his cheeks were numb and the fear was a little more under
control. Then he had raised his head and stood there with the water dripping
off his nose.

One question had
stood out in his mind.
What now?

With shaking hands,
John had picked up his thermos again and sucked down the last remaining drops
of lukewarm vodka. Then the strangest feeling had washed over him. He had felt
as if he stood outside himself and saw clearly for the first time the
desperate, angry man standing there trying to chase the demons away, trying
just to get through another Tuesday afternoon.

He had examined his
face in the mirror, as if looking at a stranger. It struck him then that he was
an alcoholic just like his dad. His expression was the same as his father’s had
been, the trapped secretive look in his eyes. There was no denying it. John had
wondered in that moment how he’d managed to justify what he’d been doing for so
long.

He hadn’t known then
that he would have to leave the FBI, or that he would have to go sit in musty
church basements and listen to a bunch of people whine about their lives, or
that he’d have to make coffee for those same whiners, or take orders from a
crotchety old bastard like Simon. He hadn’t known anything except if he didn’t
stop then, that day, that hour, he never would.

Since that time a
year ago, if he’d learned one thing it was that he could never hide from the
truth again and he had to do the right thing.

He still didn’t know
if there was a God or not, but he knew the devil intimately and he knew when he
stood at the crossroads, too. If he wanted to find a God to watch over him and
guide him, he couldn’t just close his eyes and pretend. He couldn’t just say
Cynthia Spencer and the Children’s Library Fund weren’t his problem. Or that it
didn’t matter if a hunk of sparkling blue rock, the color of Veronica
Rossmore’s eyes, sat in a museum for the people to see or not. Maybe other
people could do it and live with themselves, but for him, it would only be a
matter of time before it ate away at his soul and he reached for that first
drink. Maybe it would take awhile. Maybe even years, but it would mark the turn
down the wrong path at the crossroads.

He reached in his
pocket and fingered the beat-up black box that housed the photograph of his
father and his WWII medal. He thought about the hero his father had once been
and then about the wax-faced man with the poisonous liver lying dead on the
kitchen floor. That was where a wrong turn at the crossroads could lead you.

At a quarter to four,
John pulled up in front of the red brick town house on Ninety-First Street. All
the homes on the block were dark and quiet. Maybe the city didn’t sleep, but
this particular section of the Upper East Side sure did. John parked the car,
and fighting an attack of nerves, walked up to the front door and rang the
bell.

The musical chimes
echoed through the silent house. John tapped his foot nervously on the
doorstep. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to say, or even why he thought
Buzzy could help him. After all, the old man seemed to have about as much
control over his strong-willed daughter as he had himself.

He heard the sound of
slippered feet shuffling down the stairs. John swallowed and stood a little
straighter as the door opened. There was Buzzy Rossmore in his Japanese
yukata
, his gray hair rumpled, a curious
look on his face.

John noticed for the
first time that the archeologist had the same eyes as his daughter, only hers
were cold and hard on the surface with yearning haunted depths beneath, if you
could get that far. Buzzy’s crackled with good-natured intelligence and had
almost an innocent quality, like a baby’s eyes.

“What has she done
now?” asked the old man.

“She’s stolen the
Hope Diamond.”

Buzzy raised his bushy,
white brows and just stood there for a moment. Then cocking his head toward the
stairs said, “Then you’d better come in.”

The old man led the
way up to the same parlor where John had first encountered Veronica. The room
looked peaceful and quiet, lit by the lamplight spilling in from the street
outside. John thought once again how much it looked like an old-fashioned room
out of another century.

Buzzy turned on a few
table lamps and motioned for John to sit down. “Can I get you anything to
drink, Mr. Monroe?”

“Oh, no thank you,”
said John, feeling awkward now for having woken up the old man in the middle of
the night. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I probably should have waited ’til
morning.”

“Nonsense,” said
Buzzy firmly. “It’s not as if I were asleep. It seems the longer I live, the
less sleep I need.”

John didn’t know what
to say, so he just nodded.

“Anyway,” said Buzzy
sitting down in the ancient leather chair by the fireplace, “maybe you should
tell me about Veronica and the Hope.”

John explained the
situation as well as he could, making a great effort to emphasize that it had
not been Veronica’s choice to steal the famous jewel. When he finished, Buzzy
sat quietly, his old face sagging like a hound dog’s.

“I’m sorry about all
this,” said John, not really knowing what to say but wanting to break the
silence and somehow comfort the old man.

Buzzy Rossmore looked
up. “Why should you be sorry? I’m grateful to you for telling me.” He sighed
and rubbed his heavily lined forehead. “Lord knows Veronica certainly wouldn’t
be volunteering the information. If anyone is to blame, it’s me.”

“Listen, Mr.
Rossmore, maybe I’m speaking out of turn, but it seems to me Veronica’s a big
girl, and no matter how much I like her personally, she’s the one who decided
to become a thief.”

“You’re not a
parent,” observed the old man with a sad smile, “or you would never say that.
You’re also wrong about your premise. Veronica may be a big girl now, but she
wasn’t always. You see, all this began when she was still a child, after her
mother died. I didn’t know at first. We were in Luxor and I was working on a
dig in the Valley of the Kings. That’s how I dealt with Marie’s death. I went
back to work and put everything I had into it. I didn’t want to think about my
wife’s suffering and what I had lost. No amount of mourning could bring her
back, but when I was doing the work I loved, at least I felt like I was
building a future for myself and Veronica. Only, I’m afraid, maybe what was
best for me wasn’t necessarily best for her. It seems glaringly obvious to me
now. She was left alone too often in a foreign country with very few friends
her own age. She put on a brave front and never let me see her cry; I just
assumed she was all right.

“On Veronica’s first
birthday after her mother died, I wanted to do something special for her. So I
brought her to Alexandria. The minister of culture was throwing a New Year’s
Eve party aboard his yacht and I thought Veronica would enjoy getting out on
the water and watching the fireworks display over the harbor. Everyone seemed
to be having a good time, including Veronica. I suppose the champagne flowed
rather freely and some of the guests got a bit feisty. There was one woman in
particular, Rachida, the beautiful wife of a Moroccan pasha who was famed for
her exotic looks and such. Perhaps we spent a little too long engaged in
conversation. At any rate, I don’t think Veronica liked the woman. I imagine
she was still missing her mother. I suppose we both were missing Marie.” A
wistful expression crossed Buzzy’s careworn face.

“It’s difficult to
lose someone you love,” said John sympathetically.

“Yes, yes it is,”
replied the old man, his face still folded into a frown. “At any rate, the long
and short of it is, Rachida wandered up on deck to watch the stars over the
Mediterranean. Having had a few too many cocktails, she nodded off in a deck
chair. The rest of us were below in the ship’s grand salon playing charades, of
all things. I never noticed Veronica slip away. Later that night when the pasha
went on deck to look for his wife, she was still resting in the deck chair,
passed out from the alcohol. Her necklace, the priceless Winged Isis, had
vanished.” The old man shook his head still not quite able to believe it.