The Diamond Affair (21 page)

Evie.

She was gagged,
her feet bound together and her hands behind her back, presumably also bound. Her
eyes were puffy and closed but in the dull light, Ruby could just make out the
rise and fall of her chest.

She lived.

Ruby nearly
choked on her relief.

Then she saw the
tear stains down Evie's cheeks and the black bruise around her closed eye. Bile
rose to her throat. She wanted to throw up.

With great
effort, she swallowed and stepped up to the door. Three, two, one...

"Put the
weapon down, Frankie," she ordered. It amazed her that her voice could
sound so calm when everything inside her was on heightened alert. "I've
got a gun and I'd be happy to use it on you."

Frankie only
laughed. "Question is, would you?" He turned, slowly, an ugly smile
twisting his mouth. "So glad you could come, Mizz Jones. I do hope you
followed instructions and came alone."

"Of course I
did," she snapped. "Evie, can you stand?"

Evie nodded and
began to rise, her back pressed against the wall for support.

Frankie's arm
shot out at his side, his gun pointed at her. "Don't move."

Evie sank back
down to the floor. A whimper escaped her white lips then she fell silent. It
was hard to tell from her battered face whether she had closed her eyes or not.

"Didn't you
hear me, Frankie?" Ruby said, putting all her remaining courage into the
words. "I'll kill you—."

"No, you won't."
He sat down and stretched out his legs. "Your gun's not even loaded."

How did he know? She
wanted to cry out in anguish but she forced herself to remain still. Calm. "The
deal was to let Evie go once you got me." She held out her arms. "Well,
you got me. Now let her go."

He looked to
Evie, cowering in the corner of the room, her body shaking uncontrollably. Then
he looked to Ruby again. "No. I think I'll keep you both. Make that
kill
you both."

"You can't!"
Ruby shouted over the top of Evie's renewed sobs. "I have the Florentine. If
you kill us, you'll never find it."

He laughed again,
a hollow sound that resonated around the room. "You don't have the
diamond."

Ruby's heart
actually stopped beating. "I do," she whispered. "You've been
chasing me for it for days."

He looked at her
as if she was a page behind. "No, I've been chasing
you
for days."

"B, but I
don't understand. What's so special about me?"

He crossed his
legs, the picture of a relaxed man. The gun lay loosely in his lap but he still
held it and Ruby had no illusions about whether he would use it. "That's
the funny thing." He laughed. "Nothing. There's absolutely nothing
special about you. You just happened to be in the right place at the right
time. Or make that the wrong place at the wrong time."

The pieces of the
puzzle began to fall into place, revealing the bigger picture. The foyer of Beauvoir's
office. The conversation between the armed guards who were transporting the
Florentine—the one she was supposed to have overheard but didn't.
Frankie
had been the one to suggest she'd taken it. To set her up.

"
You
have the diamond?" she muttered, almost unable to believe it.

"Now you're
catching on."

She shook her
head. This didn't make sense. "But if you have the diamond, why are you
still here?"

The folds of skin
around his cheeks and mouth twitched but whether in a grimace or wince was hard
to tell. "You don't know the half of Guy Beauvoir's empire. He has eyes
and ears everywhere. There isn't a place I could go and fence the Florentine
without one of his men descending on me in a matter of hours. So I needed to buy
some time. I needed a fall guy, or girl, to take the heat off me long enough so
I could get away. By the time he works out you're innocent, I'll be free and
rich."

"Then it
is
just me you want." If Ruby only had one person to worry about—herself—she
had a better chance of escape. "Let Evie go."

Frankie tilted
his head to the side. "I have a better idea. To make this seem really
authentic...how about I kill you both."

"No!"
Ruby shouted. "This has nothing to do with her!"

"I can't
very well let her leave now that I've told you everything, can I?" He
barked out a laugh. "Get over next to your friend, Mizz Jones. That's it,
nice and close. Don't think I'll take the chance on tying you up. You've got a
good right hook given the chance to use it. Sit on the floor."

Ruby sat beside
Evie who nudged closer. Violent shakes racked her body but she held her chin up
and was doing her best not to show her fear. Ruby put a steadying arm around
her shoulders and squeezed.

"I don't
understand. That first night you came to my workshop—you really were looking
for the diamond at that point, weren't you? You had ample opportunity to kill
me then if that had been your aim."

He nodded. "Very
good. You're right, I was. I thought you did have it. My information proved incorrect
and I later learned it was safe. However, our little confrontation that night
did give me the idea to set you up. A damned good idea if I do say so myself."

So if he hadn't
actually stolen it first—who had? Did he have an accomplice? "We'll get
out of this," she said to Evie. A thought struck her. "Jake's on his
way. He's bringing Beauvoir and a few mates." She got the impression
Frankie was more afraid of his boss than being locked up in prison—maybe it was
enough to distract him.

"Then we'd
best get this over with, hadn't we?" he said. But instead of aiming his
gun, he dug into his jacket pocket. He pulled something out and threw it at
Ruby. She caught it.

The smooth,
multi-faceted rock felt solid in her palm, familiar. "The Florentine!"
She blinked down at the diamond that had caused her so much trouble. She couldn't
believe it.

She
didn't
believe it.

The facets didn't
capture the light. Not as much as they should. And it didn't feel quite the
same. Lighter maybe. "It's a fake."

He snorted. "You
didn't expect me to give you the real thing, did you?"

"You want
them to find this on me," she said, the finality of her situation sinking
in. He'd considered everything. How had she thought she could ever out-smart
him? He might look stupid but he was far from it.

Her throat
clogged with tears but she swallowed them. For Evie's sake, and for her own. She
wouldn't let Frankie see what he'd done to her. Her pride might be all she had
left but she would die with it in tact.

"But why?"
she said, closing her fist around the stone. "It's not a very good fake. A
gemologist could tell in seconds."

"You think Beauvoir
will have a gemologist with him when he discovers your bodies? Not likely. By
the time he does find out it's a fake, I'll be far away. Out of his reach."
He smiled widely.

"How are you
going to explain my death? Surely they'll put it together quickly when they can't
contact you and I turn up with a bullet hole in my head. Since you're the one
who's been after me these last few days, you'll be the most likely suspect. To
Jake anyway."

Jake. What would
he think when he found her dead? How would he react? Would he care?

Yes. He would. She
knew it, deep in her soul. Their love-making had meant something to him,
perhaps as much as it had meant to her. He simply wasn't prepared to admit it
to her or himself for reasons probably tied to his father, and perhaps even to
what had happened in Afghanistan. He'd not given so much as a hint as to why he
owed Matt a favor. She would have to ask her brother.

When she got out
of this.

If.

As she saw it,
she had two options. Overpower Frankie as she'd done the other night, or wait
for Jake to turn up. Since she doubted Frankie would let his guard down around
her a second time, she had to hope for a knight in shining armor in the shape
of Jake.

She knew he would
figure it out and come for her. It was simply a matter of time.

So she did the
only thing in her power left to do—kept Frankie talking.

"You really
have been thinking." He shrugged. "Since you ask so nicely, I'll tell
you. Your boyfriend will come across a murder suicide. Your murder," he
wagged the gun at Ruby, "and her suicide. She's already written the note
and everything. I posted it to my boss on the way here."

Evie nodded once
and buried her face in her drawn up knees.

"About the
time Beauvoir figures out that the diamond in your pocket is a fake, he'll get
the note. In it Evie here will say that you were working together. But you betrayed
her and hid the real one, replacing it with this fake. You were going to leave
the country with the Florentine but she found out. She was furious. She shot
you. But then she felt remorse and also realized she had no idea where the real
diamond was. She decided she had no option but to shoot herself too or end up
in jail or at the bottom of the Yarra River if Beauvoir got to her before the
cops did."

"Why would
she kill me here? She knows nothing about this place. If I was the one doing
the killing, I would bring her here to set up you or Beauvoir." She thrust
out her chin with more bravado than she felt. "Your plan is a little shaky
on the finer details, Frankie."

He stood and pointed
the gun at her. She bit the inside of her cheek, tasting blood. "It only
needs to work long enough for me to get away," he said. "It doesn't
matter if it doesn't stand up to a thorough investigation."

And that was the
horrible truth. It didn't matter. Frankie could be on a plane within two hours
and out of the country in a few more. Once gone, he would be virtually
untraceable. A man like Frankie would know how to get lost and stay lost for a
long time.

"Why did you
go to Aaron's place if you weren't looking for the Florentine?" she asked.

"Same reason
I took Evie. Make it look real, like a falling out between colleagues. But you fucked
that plan up so I had to make another one. This one." He shrugged. "Enough
questions. Untie your friend," he said to Ruby. "She's going to shoot
you."

Evie gasped
around her gag. Ruby's blood froze in her veins. She had to get away. Had to
save herself and Evie. If she could just distract Frankie long enough—"

"Now!"
he shouted.

Ruby's fingers
shook but she managed to untie the knots on Evie's bonds. When she was free,
Evie embraced her. "He's going to do it," she said, dragging in deep
breaths between sobs. "But I won't kill you. He can't make me."

"I don't
have to. Because I'm going to do it myself." Frankie lifted the gun.

Ruby went numb. Her
brain shut down. Her body went slack. It was only thanks to Evie's tight grasp
that she remained upright. Her gaze lost focus and Frankie became a blur
through her pooling tears.

He aimed at Ruby's
head.

Evie screamed.

Ruby closed her
eyes.

The gun fired.

CHAPTER 18

I can't lose
her too.

The single
thought pounded through Jake's head on the interminable drive to save Ruby. He hardly
heard Beauvoir's directions but somehow he managed to follow them.

At some point on
the drive through Melbourne's outer suburbs, he realized the sharp pain in his
chest wasn't a heart attack waiting to happen. It was heartache. Gnawing,
gaping, heartache. He
needed
Ruby.

And that scared
him.

But not half as
much as the thought of losing her.

Please
, he silently begged,
not her too
.

Not like everyone
else—his parents, one after the other, those Afghani kids. He'd lost everyone
he'd ever cared about, some through violence, some simply because they decided
to walk away. But they'd all left him one way or another.

He wouldn't lose
Ruby too. Not like this.

He pressed his
foot down on the accelerator of Beauvoir's sports car. Houses and endless
freeway slipped past his window then became trees that towered over the narrow
road. For the last half hour of their journey, they saw no other vehicles.

"Turn here,"
Beauvoir said.

But Jake skidded
to a stop instead. The car Ruby had taken from the Brighton house was parked on
the side of the road ahead.

She was here. That
was one thing to be grateful for. But if he was too late...

"The cabin
is down that driveway," Beauvoir said. "You can just make out a light
through the trees."

Jake got out. It
was better to leave the car on the road. The element of surprise...

He ran. The moon
had retreated behind pregnant clouds, covering him. He couldn't hear Beauvoir
behind him. It didn't matter. The man wasn't a threat anymore.