Ravenous (27 page)
Authors: V.K. Forrest
Chapter 27
L
iam found Mai and Kaleigh back in the shop. Someone had pulled down the blinds, but he could hear the wind. It tugged at the awning, making a flapping, groaning sound.
iam found Mai and Kaleigh back in the shop. Someone had pulled down the blinds, but he could hear the wind. It tugged at the awning, making a flapping, groaning sound.
“You think you ought to hit the road?” he asked Kaleigh, depositing the dog on the floor.
Kaleigh and Mai both sat on the floor, the lamps around them, sorting through jewelry. Several small cardboard boxes were stacked nearby.
“Called my mom, told her the storm was really picking up and I didn’t want to walk home,” Kaleigh answered.
“She didn’t offer to come get you?”
“And risk wrecking her new Volvo? No way. I’ll just sleep in Mr. Ricci’s bed.” She slipped a silver filigree ring on her finger. “Mai said I could stay.”
“That right?” He pulled off his jacket and tossed it over the counter.
Mai hadn’t said a word. He looked at her until she looked at him. “You okay?” he asked.
“As okay as I can be, considering the fact that someone cut my father’s finger off and gave it to me in a box.”
Her face was pale, but she was hanging in there. She was strong, stronger than even she realized.
“He did it to make sure we understood that he meant business.”
“Obviously.” She pushed aside a pile of earrings and leaned back against the counter. “Where can the diamonds be, Liam?”
“What if he hid them a long time ago?” Kaleigh got up on her knees and opened a cardboard box. Prince wandered over and stuck his nose in it and sniffed.
“We’ve probably got enough jewelry out,” Liam said, leaning on the counter, watching Kaleigh. “It’s all got to be sorted, recorded.”
“That’s boring. I like seeing what you have in these boxes. It’s like buried treasure.”
Liam looked back at Mai. “How old were you when your uncle went to jail?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nine.”
“We have to think outside the box. If you were Donato and you knew you were going to jail, possibly for a long time, where would you hide them, where they’d be safe? Can you think of any contact you had with him just before he went to jail? Did you and your dad go to visit him? Did he come to see your dad?”
“Wow. Look at this!” Tearing away tissue paper, Kaleigh held up a silver and gilded bronze jewelry box. She looked at Mai. “Maybe your uncle gave your dad the diamonds and your dad didn’t even know it.”
Liam looked at Kaleigh. “That’s good thinking.” He squatted on the floor in front of Mai. “Think, Mai. Did anything new appear in your house around that time? 1987, 1988, 1989? Before your uncle went to jail?”
Mai pressed her hands to both sides of her head as if thinking hurt. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want my dad to die. I don’t care what he did. He’s a good man. I swear he’s a good man.”
Prince trotted over and sat down next to Mai, looking up at her with his big brown eyes. Half-laughing, half-crying, she stroked the little dog’s head.
“He’s not going to die, Mai. We’re going to figure this out.”
“And then what?” She looked up at him, tears filling her eyes. “All those things my father wrote down, a lot of it had to do with crimes the Weasel committed or ordered committed. Find the diamonds, don’t find the diamonds. We’re both dead. If I was him, I wouldn’t let us live.”
Liam stood up and walked away, clenching his fists in frustration. She was right. This whole mission, it had been fucked since day one. Donato, Corrato, and Mai had probably been fucked since the day the Weasel got out of jail. Who was he kidding, to think he could save any of them? The day he had gone to Donato’s funeral, he’d been on some kind of power trip. He felt guilty about all those kids he hadn’t saved from the Gaudet brothers and somehow, in this idiot mind of his, he had thought that if he could protect Mai and the old man, he could somehow be absolved of his guilt. But there would be no absolution. There never was. Best thing he could do right now is put Mai and the dog out on the sidewalk and toss her the keys to her van. At least then the mafia wouldn’t be roaming Clare Point.
But if there was no absolution, why did he do the things he did, roaming the earth, seeking evil, destroying it? If there was no hope, why did the Kahills, why did dear Kaleigh rise each morning, hoping that maybe today would be the day that God would determine them absolved of their sins? It was hope that made Liam, and Kaleigh and Fia and all of them, fight the good fight.
Which meant there was still hope that he could save Corrato and this beautiful woman sitting on the floor of his shop. It meant he had to try.
He grabbed Mai’s hands. “Think,” he said. She was cold and he rubbed her hands between his.
“You said you didn’t see your uncle that often,” Kaleigh said, sitting cross-legged, the old jewelry box on her lap. “So it must have been a big deal when you did. Maybe you just met for dinner, or—”
“Oh, my God,” Mai whispered. She was staring at Kaleigh. “Oh, my God. I might know where they are.” She shook her head, almost seeming dazed. “But Uncle Donato wouldn’t have . . .” Fresh tears filled her dark eyes again. “He wouldn’t have risked my life, would he? I was just a kid.”
“Where are they?” Liam asked, looking into her eyes.
“It’s probably crazy.”
“Anything could help,” he insisted, squeezing her hands. “You never know.”
Mai took her hands from Liam’s and reached over to take the jewelry box out of Kaleigh’s lap. “He gave me a jewelry box for my seventh birthday. It’s a beautiful, black lacquered box. It was Chinese, of course, not Vietnamese, but I loved it anyway. He gave me the box and a pair of tiny diamond stud earrings. I lost the earrings years ago.” She met Liam’s gaze again. “But I still have the box,” she whispered.
“Of course. Always hide things in plain view,” he said. “It’s at the house?”
“They knocked it off my dresser. Remember? My jewelry was strewn all over my bedroom. They looked in the box. There’s no diamonds in the jewelry box. I would have found them years ago.”
The moment she said it, Liam remembered the lacquered black box. He had put it on her dresser after nearly stepping on it. “What year did he give it to you?”
“1987.” She hugged the silver and bronze box to her chest. “I was seven in 1987.”
Liam offered his hand to help Mai to her feet. “Kaleigh, grab the dog. We’re going for a drive.”
Liam, Kaleigh, Mai, and the Prince of Dogs stood in Mai’s bedroom, staring at the jewelry box on her dresser. Their clothes glistened with melting snow.
“I’ve opened and closed that thing a million times,” Mai insisted. “There’s no way there can be diamonds in that box.”
“Let me see it.”
Mai seemed unable to move.
“You want me to get it?” Kaleigh asked her gently.
Mai shook her head. “No. I’ll do it. I was just thinking that if those diamonds aren’t there, my dad—”
“They’re there, Mai.” Liam said it with such certainty that even he believed it.
Kaleigh and Liam watched as Mai crossed the short distance to the dresser and picked up the box. She dumped the contents on top and turned to offer the jewelry box to Liam.
Liam grabbed it, set it on the dresser, and pulled a lamp closer so he could get a better look. Outside, he could hear the wind roaring and told himself that that was what made him nervous.
The storm outside was what was making his pulse beat too fast. The box was perhaps ten inches long, six wide, and six tall. It was some sort of wood painted in black lacquer, with leaves and butterflies painted in pinks and oranges and reds. The top opened to reveal a red velvet tray with a place for rings on one side, and on the other side, a tray for additional small pieces. He pulled out the tray, felt beneath the lining, and set it aside. He ran his fingers along the inside of the box.
Mai peered over his shoulder. “See what I mean? There’s no place to hide diamonds.”
Kaleigh, leaning over his other shoulder, reached out and closed her thumb and forefinger around the edge of one wall of the box. “It’s just one piece. No hollow wall. What about the bottom?”
Liam placed the box back on the dresser and squatted so that he was eye level with it. Prince approached again, as if he needed to examine the box more closely, too.
Liam ran his finger along the front. On the bottom, there were two drawers. Each had a knob, but the outlines of the drawers were merely carved into the wood and painted over; they were obviously fake drawers, an illusion created for decorative reasons. There was no break in the wood.
“Fake drawers,” Mai explained. “This one handle comes off all the time.” She reached out, pulled it, and it popped off. “I just superglue it back on.” She shoved it back in again.
Liam flipped the box upside down, then right side up. Still studying it, he reached under the pant leg of his jeans and took a knife from its holster. It wasn’t his ceremonial knife; he wasn’t permitted to carry that except when he was sent out to do the High Council’s bidding. But it was a good knife and he kept it well-sharpened.
“Guns. Knives. You’re a scary guy,” Mai said, only half-kidding.
Kaleigh frowned, shaking her head. “He’s really not all that scary; he just wants us to think so,” she said in a pseudo-whisper behind his back.
Liam drew the knife along the indentation of the drawers, cutting through the paint. “Come on,” he murmured. “There’s got to be a drawer here.” He dug deeper with the tip of the knife.
Mai looked at Kaleigh. “I don’t think there’s a drawer,” she said, sounding defeated again.
“There’s got to be a drawer,” Liam insisted. He had truly believed the diamonds would be here. He had thought he would find them and save the day. Save the girl. But there was no fake drawer. No diamonds.
“Break the damned thing!” Mai cried angrily. Reaching past Liam, she grabbed the box from his hand and slammed it as hard as she could on the hardwood floor.
At the sound of the shattering box, Prince yipped and sprinted for the door.
The thin wood splintered, leaving nothing but a pile of red velvet and black lacquer. “See? No diamonds,” Mai said, tears running down her cheeks.
Kaleigh stood beside Mai, staring at the mess at their feet. She was wearing a pink knit hat with a pom-pom on top that moved with her. Slowly, she squatted and picked up one of the drawer pulls. “How big are these diamonds?”
“Not big. Around a carat each.” Liam started to sheath his knife.
“Gimme that thing.” Kaleigh opened and closed her hand. When Liam didn’t respond at once, she flashed him a look that surprised him. It was one of authority. Authority he dared not challenge.
“Be careful,” he warned. “You could—”
Kaleigh put the drawer pull on the dresser and, holding the flat side of the blade, hit it hard with the handle of the knife. The wood shattered and diamonds shot across the dresser.
“Oh, God! Oh, God!” Mai screamed, shaking her hands, then covering her face. “It’s the diamonds!” She spun in a circle. “I can’t believe it’s really the diamonds.”
As astounded as Mai, Liam picked up the other drawer pull from the ruined box on the floor and handed it to Kaleigh.
“You want to do it?” the teen asked, offering the knife to Liam.
“No. I think you deserve the satisfaction.”
Kaleigh broke open the other drawer pull and Mai threw herself into Liam’s arms. “Please tell me you can make this work. Please tell me you can save my father. Please, Liam. I don’t care about the other stuff.” She gazed into his eyes, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “You know what I mean. I don’t care.”
Meanwhile, Kaleigh scooped up the diamonds, dropping them into the velvet tray they had left on top of the dresser.
Liam pulled Mai close to him, his heart pounding. “I can do this, Mai.” He was so overcome by emotion that he could barely speak. He told himself it wasn’t real, this ache he felt for the human in his arms, but it was real, all right. Painfully real.
“Now what do we do?” Kaleigh asked cheerfully, checking behind the lamp for wayward diamonds.
“First things first. We’re taking you home. Then I’ll contact the Weasel.”
“Taking me home?” Kaleigh picked up the tray of diamonds. “I’m not going home.”
Liam stared at the jewels; there was barely more than a thimbleful. It was hard to believe they were worth so much money, let alone human lives.
“You’re going home.” Liam walked into Mai’s bathroom and came out with a medicine bottle from an old antibiotic prescription. “You’re going home and then I’m making a phone call to Brooklyn.”
“You have a number?” Mai asked.
“He called me. The Weasel.” He took the lid off the bottle, took the tray of diamonds, and began to carefully dump them into the bottle.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to be upset.” He screwed the lid on tightly and added the bottle to the pocket already holding Corrato’s finger. “Let’s go,” he barked, suddenly anxious to get this over with. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he got rid of the damn diamonds, until Corrato was safe. “Kaleigh, get the dog.” He walked out of the bedroom, flipping the light switch off as he stepped into the hall.
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