Today, she would approach him. Ask to speak. Ask for forgiveness.
She was prepared, overprepared, but it was the only way she had the courage to try. Today everything would change. He’d either turn her away or take her back. There would be no in between. He wasn’t the type to stay friends.
Ignoring the lingering pain in her forearm, she packed her things and crawled down the slick roof. The wound was healing, but she’d have the long, thin scar forever.
The window on the tenth floor was still cracked, and she slipped inside, taking a moment to make sure nothing had been disturbed. It wasn’t just a stroke of luck construction had started on the building closest to the Tower of London. She’d bought the building and commissioned the renovation. Through a shell company, of course. She wasn’t about to let anything else get in her way. And she saw a profit down the road as well. She’d been able to observe unmolested for days.
She said a small prayer as she changed clothes, stashed her black camo that blended so perfectly with the nighttime rooftops, and became the young researcher from the University of Edinburgh again, jeans, trainers, jumper, and mac, hair in a ponytail, the false brown irises restored to their natural, startling blue, the odd genetic anomaly that should have led her to a career in modeling instead of the life she’d led. She wouldn’t change her old life for the world, but she’d bid it farewell back in Gagny.
She pulled the satellite phone from her bag, scrambled the signal, and placed a call to a mobile number she knew by heart.
His voice was deep, clogged with sleep. She’d woken him. She couldn’t blame him for sleeping late. He deserved rest after all they’d been through. And his life was undergoing a sea change as well.
“Drummond here.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, then ended the call before he had a chance to react.
Time to go.
With a smile, she gathered her bag, walked to the elevator, and disappeared.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Koh-i-Noor—say it aloud, pause for a moment. Do you feel the fleeting warmth of light bathing your face? Or perhaps the pull of something you don’t understand, but you know it’s in the deepest part of you, the part that recognizes magic?
Imagine, this incredible stone was once 793 carats—the size of a man’s fist, the prized possession of the god Krishna. Now imagine betrayal and a curse passed down through the ages that promises death, chaos, and destruction to any man who tries to keep the Koh-i-Noor close.
The stuff of legends, you say, but in truth the Koh-i-Noor did indeed pass from bloody hand to bloody hand, and always devastation followed in its wake. A long ago Sultan had the Koh-i-Noor cut from 793 carats to a mere 186. It came to Queen Victoria in 1850 and it was she who wanted to shine it up. The once massive Koh-i-Noor of 793 carats ended up 105, and that is its size today.
The Final Cut is based on fact. What I have created is the personal Lanighan family legend passed down from father to son for generations:
When Krishna’s stone is unbroken again, the hand which holds it becomes whole.
Wash the Mountain of Light in woman’s blood, so we will know rebirth and rejoice.
I hope you enjoyed The Final Cut, written with love and great excitement and a touch of magic.
Say “Koh-i-Noor,” and just imagine.
—Catherine Coulter
and J. T. Ellison
HISTORY OF THE
KOH-I-NOOR DIAMOND
Legends claim the Koh-i-Noor diamond belonged to the great god Krishna until a treacherous servant stole it from him while he slept, and thus the curse was born.
He who owns this diamond will own the world, but will also know all its misfortunes. Only God or a woman can wear it with impunity.