The Sapphire Affair (Jewel #1)

“Potentially.”


The man placed his hands together, as if in prayer. “Ah, excellent. So this is for a lovely woman in your life you want to make your wife?”

Jake laughed and shook his head, ready to nix that notion. He wouldn’t even go there in a cover-up. He leaned on another answer—one that could be true. “I don’t see that happening anywhere in the near future. Or even the far future. But my little sister is graduating college soon, so I thought I might get her a little something. What’s a good graduation gift?”

The bearded man walked behind the counter, unlocked a glass case, and gestured to several diamonds that could be set into a bracelet or earrings. “Surely, a lovely pair of simple diamond earrings would be a wonderful gift for your sister as she embarks on her first job after college. They say classy and elegant, and what employer wouldn’t want that?”

Jake rested his elbows against the counter, taking in the sea of sparkling gems that shimmered like brilliant reflections. “So many to choose from. What do other customers get?”

The man reached into the case for a handful of small diamonds, and he sprinkled the gems on a swath of black velvet. “These are very popular. And the price is incredibly reasonable.”

Jake nodded, as if considering his purchase. He screwed up the corner of his lips. “Business is good these days?” he asked casually as he studied one of the gems. “I keep hearing all about diamonds in the Caymans.”

The man nodded vigorously and gestured to the door. More customers were starting to stream in. “Business has never been better. Sometimes it’s so good I can’t even handle it. I am a lucky man to work here. The only thing that would make me luckier would be if I can beat my brother at darts someday.”

Jake cracked up, thinking of his dart coach from last night. “Is that so?”

The man nodded. “Oh yes. He plays a mean game of darts.”

“As a matter of fact, I got some pointers last night from a lovely lady. It’s all about the angle,” Jake said, then raised his arm and mimed tossing a dart.

The man nodded approvingly. “I shall try that next time.”

Jake flashed him a smile, then snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered something. “Say. Do you happen to have any of those diamonds with a sort of bluish tint to them? A very faint blue glow?”

The man shook his head. “Ah, sorry to say I do not. Those are quite special. One of my colleagues down the street at International Diamonds has some from time to time. A few months ago, he handled a small batch of them for a new customer, who brought them in from the United States. International Diamonds is where you want to go for a stone like that. He might even have one or two left over from that batch.”

Ding, ding, ding!

“Excellent,” Jake said, reining in a grin and extending a hand to shake. “I appreciate that. And I’ll be back to pick one up for my sister soon. What’s your name?”

“Wilder.”

“Nice to meet you, Wilder.”

The man bowed once more, then headed over to his new customers as Jake took off.




As Jake walked away from the shop, he grabbed his phone and called up that e-mail from his case file—the one Andrew’s IT guy had resurrected from the deleted folder.

Jake scrubbed a hand across his chin as he studied it once more. The note referenced an amount. The sender discussed safe transport. But there was no mention of paintings or art, specifically.

The luxury good itself had gone unnamed. Andrew had suspected art given Eli’s affinity for it, as well as his fiancée’s business venture.

Perhaps the e-mail was about art. But maybe it was actually about something else. After all, how many $5,000 paintings did you have to move to equal $10 million? A fuck ton, that was how many. And paintings took up a helluva lot more space on a plane than gems did. Especially when they required safe transport.

Jake’s instincts were telling him something. To pay attention to the little details, too—the name of Eli’s nightclub, the bling on the woman, the tint of the diamonds, and the timing of the jewel trade.

Was Eli ferrying something else entirely from the United States to the Caymans?

He called Andrew and ran the new possibility past him.

“My team is still working on deciphering those other documents to see if we can get any more intel, but I’m looking at the e-mail now to Constantine,” Andrew said in a focused tone. “And if that’s what he took to the Caymans, they’d be the rightful property of the Eli Fund.”

“Let’s get ’em back, then.”

“Let’s do it.”

Jake located International Diamonds, a sprawling shop that occupied a huge street corner. The sign said OPEN TOMORROW.

Looked like he was free to rendezvous with the mermaid for now.





CHAPTER NINE