Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Max
Not quite believing my eyes, I zipped the coin compartment in the wallet before climbing off the bed, walking over to my bedroom door, and locking it.
The last thing I needed was Nicole—who was the sweetest girl but also kind of loosey-goosey with the concept of knocking before entering—to come barging in, see what I’d found, and start demanding answers.
I felt bad sometimes, knowing that Megs was lying to both of her partners about my job. But it was literally the only secret she kept from anyone. And we both knew it was what allowed us to afford a decently sized apartment, since both their salaries were likely too modest to afford anything other than a studio.
So, when we discussed my job in their company—which was almost never—we just said I was a courier.
It wasn’t, in the strictest sense, a lie.
When pressed about my odd hours, we simply said that rich people were demanding. Which was also true. And that, to make the big bucks, I had to be on call whenever they needed me to move shit from point A to point B.
It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was surprisingly infrequent that anyone actually asked specifics about my job. If anything, they were just saying that I worked too much. And when their boyfriend was in town, he—being a fellow workaholic—was always was quick to jump in and defend me.
Lock secured, I kicked off my shoes, turned on the big light, then grabbed a simple black pillowcase from my closet to spread on my bed.
Then, stomach clenching, I reached again for the wallet, unzipping the coin pocket, and carefully shaking the contents onto the pillowcase.
There they fell.
Dozens of brilliant little diamonds.
Diamonds.
The man’s coin purse was full of actual diamonds.
Or, at least, that was what my less-than-expert eyes said.
I grabbed the largest one I could find and walked over to the side of the room, careful to keep a grip on it as I ran the pointed end across the very corner of the window, and scratching it down.
Sure enough, there was a scratch.
It wasn’t exactly conclusive. There were other gems that could scratch glass.
So I raised the diamond to my mouth, huffed some air onto it, and watching how quickly the fog faded.
“Hm,” I murmured when it almost immediately cleared.
Those were really the only tests I could do at home without any equipment. But I was leaning toward them being genuine.
Diamonds weren’t exactly my specialty, despite working closely for very wealthy men and women for years. If you held up your engagement ring to me and I saw it all sparkling and catching the light, I would assume it was a diamond. Even if it was cubic zirconia or moissanite.
The only way I could know for certain was to grab one of the diamonds—logically, the smallest of the bunch—and take it to an actual expert.
Decision made, I swept all the other diamonds back up, putting them into the coin purse, save for the tiny one I carefully tucked into my own wallet.
I slipped my feet back into my boots and made my way to the door.
I was all of one foot into the hallway when Nicole and Megs appeared in the opening, arms folded.
“Go back to bed,” Nicole demanded with a brow raised.
“Normally, you know I don’t even try to tell you what to do,” Megs chimed in. “But it’s been over twenty-four hours without sleep. You need some rest. Whatever the work is, it can wait until tomorrow.”
Megs almost never put her foot down about anything. She was content to be the easy-going little sister, letting me be the controlling and demanding one.
But every now and again—especially when she thought I was being a danger to myself in some way—she dug in her heels.
This was one of those times.
I could see her thoughts in her eyes.
Namely, that I’d just made eight grand, so there was no reason I couldn’t take a couple of hours to recover before I got back to work.
I couldn’t exactly tell her that I was running out because I had, potentially, stumbled into, what? A quarter-million-dollar stash of diamonds. Maybe more.
I didn’t even try to contain the sigh that escaped me.
“I know sleep is hard sometimes,” Megs said, eyes softening.
She did know.
Because when you were a very young, pretty, small girl living on the streets, sleeping was one of the worst things you could do. I’d spent years trying to stay awake as long as possible until the hypnic jerks would startle me awake again and again until, finally, my body gave in.
It wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence to wake up to someone—on the tame end—trying to steal my meager, but very precious, possessions, or—on the darker end—putting their hands on me, trying to get in my sleeping bag, rolling me onto my back and starting to…
“I’m fine,” I assured her, thinking of how, when I found her on the street, I slept even less, staying awake all night long while she slept, holding a steak knife I’d found while dumpster diving, ready to gut anyone who tried to lay a hand on her. “I’m just restless,” I admitted, but did what they wanted, retreated into my room.
I even caught a little catnap as I waited. Because I knew that neither of the girls could cook. So once they were both dressed and finished with their respective tasks, they would head out to get something to eat.
But the apartment door slammed sometime that afternoon, and I was off my bed in a second, rushing to get my shoes back on, grab my wallet, and stash the other one somewhere safe. There was no way I was going to be walking around with a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of diamonds. I knew too well how easily something like that could be stolen.
The solitary diamond in my wallet made the whole thing feel like it weighed a thousand pounds as I made my way back out onto the street, head ducked down against the freezing breeze that seemed to get trapped down between the high-rises.
I could, of course, take the diamond to a reputable store, claim it had fallen out of a setting or something, and ask to have it appraised.
But if there was any chance that these diamonds were stolen—and, let’s face it, what else could they be?—then I didn’t want any alarms going up. Cops put calls out to shops about shit like diamond heists. It was why stolen jewelry was often hard to hock.
So I went ahead and walked past no fewer than three stores on the up-and-up, making my way, instead, toward an unmarked door down the alley between a dry cleaner and a shady-looking deli.
“Keep your panties on,” a voice called from inside, making my lips curve up as the slide of locks sounded from the inside. “Or, you know, take ‘em off,” Lil said, her gaze moving down me in one quick sweep.
Lil was five-and-a-half feet of casual sex appeal, with her wavy brown hair around a sharp, cat-like face with big green eyes and generous lips that were quick to offer a flirtatious smirk. She had a figure to die for—great tits, round hips, a narrow waist, and arms on the slightly muscular side.
She was dressed, as she almost always was, in a white ribbed tank top and a pair of jeans marred with various permanent stains and tears. On her feet was one of the many pairs of Converse she owned. In just about every shade known to mankind. And some she’d altered herself when she couldn’t find what she wanted.
I had no idea—since I’d never asked—if Lil was like Megs and Nicole, who batted for both teams, or if it was just impossible for her to turn off her charm, regardless of who she was talking to.
“Aren’t you freezing in that?” I asked as I took a step forward when Lil stepped to the side of the door, silently inviting me in.
“Think I’m probably warmer than you are. What is that jacket made of, tissue paper?”
As soon as I was inside, Lil closed the doors and slid all the locks. Which might have felt ominous if I hadn’t known this woman for years and understood the reason for her paranoia.
Namely, the tables full of loose precious gemstones and diamonds, as well as racks full of jewelry she just hadn’t gotten around to taking apart yet.
See, Lil was who professional thieves went to when they went and did something stupid, like steal a one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry that was easily identifiable. And, therefore, impossible to sell as it was.
She took apart jewelry, broke down the parts, and placed them into new settings. The end product was nothing like the original, so the thief could sell it.
I’d met Lil in my days on the street. She hadn’t been unhoused like Megs and me and countless others. But she’d been a scrappy street kid, nonetheless. With shitty parents at home, she was better off hustling and eking a life out for herself. So that was what she did. Until she realized she had an uncanny ability to both make jewelry, but also spot genuine gems from a fucking mile away.
“What brings you down here?” she asked, walking over toward the side of the room where she had one of those coffee machines that ran in the thousands set up. “Coffee?”
I would never turn down a cup from one of those things.
“Whatever you’re having.”
“Raspberry vanilla latte coming up,” she said, then shot me one of those smirks of hers. “Joking. God, you should see your face. Remind me to invite you to my next poker game,” she said as she stuck a pod in the machine and the rich scent of creamy coffee filled the room.
Lil made bank, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at her office-slash-apartment.
It was a small, dark space, save for the center filled with tables and bright, stark, blue-tinted overhead lights.
To the left was her kitchen. That was used mostly as a place to store condiments and leftover takeaway. To the right, there was her bedroom with its lush king-sized bed, tables, and an impressively large TV mounted to the wall.
There were two doors toward the back. One, I figured, was the bathroom. The other had to be some sort of storage since there was no wardrobe or dresser to be seen.
Lil brought me my coffee, then cradled her own in both her hands as she watched me for a second. “What does bring you here? Acting all nervous? Business or… personal?” she asked, green eyes twinkling.
“Lil, trust me, I wish I was interested in girls. Would make life so much easier.”
“Ain’t that the damn truth. So, business, then?”
“I, ah, stumbled upon something today.”
“And by ‘stumbled upon,’ do you mean lifted something from someone’s pocket?”
That was the thing about knowing people for so many years. You knew everyone’s secrets.
“Yeah,” I admitted, putting my coffee down on her desk, reaching for my wallet, unzipping the coin purse, then reaching inside to pinch the little diamond. “Is this real?” I asked, dropping it into her palm.
“First blush says yes,” she said, but she was already moving behind her counter, sticking her hand under a lighted magnifying glass.
“I did the fog test. And scratched my window with it. But I wanted an expert to tell me.”
Sitting, Lil dropped the diamond onto a little diamond scale, then sat back in her chair and nodded at me.
“That’s real, alright. Someone just had one of these in their wallet?”
“No,” I admitted, sucking in a steadying breath as I reached for my cell phone, unlocked it, scrolled to the most recent image I took of them all on the pillowcase, and turned the phone toward her. “Someone had all of these loose in their wallet.”
“Holy fucking shit , Max,” Lil said, eyes going wide.
“The one I brought here was the smallest of all of them,” I admitted. “What would that one be worth?”
Lil glanced again at the scale. “A grand, maybe. But what you have there, depending on the clarity of them, obviously, that’s an easy…”
“Quarter million?” I asked.
“More. Most likely more.”
“Half?”
“Half to seven-fifty.”
“Lil… how would someone come across that many loose diamonds?”
She glanced up at me, exhaling hard.
“There’s only one way,” she said, keeping unnerving eye contact. “They stole them.” She pinched the image in on my phone, looking at it for a long time before her head tipped up. Something in her gaze sent a shiver down my spine. “Not to be dramatic, babe,” she started. “But you’re in danger.”