The Diamond Affair (4 page)

Damn, she was a
mind reader too. Or maybe she knew men well enough to know what he'd been
thinking. He liked the fact it didn't seem to bother her that he found her
enticing. Most women would be offended but she shrugged it off with a laugh.

He also liked
that she had a sense of humor. Reminded him of Matt. He wondered if hers
stemmed to practical jokes as well. The readiness to laugh was about the only
thing Ruby shared with her brother. That and the dark curly hair. Where Matt
was big in every way, Ruby was small and fine. Matt's skin was tanned where his
sister's was pale. And he hadn't exactly taken much notice of Matt's eyes but
he was pretty sure they weren't as blue as Ruby's or he'd have remembered.

"What are
you smiling at?" she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts which
only pushed them up in just the right way.

"Ruby."

"Yeah, that's
my name."

"So did your
parents just like the name or did they know you were going to be a gemologist?"

"Dad was a
gemologist and my parents thought it would be a cute name. Lucky for Matt there
aren't any gems that make good boy names."

"Garnet? Topaz?
Amethyst?"

She laughed out
loud, a full, sultry tone that filled his apartment. "Can you really see
my big brother answering to Amethyst?"

He laughed too as
she disappeared into the bedroom.

***

Ruby listened in
to half a phone conversation and wondered who Jake knew that could give him
information on Beauvoir. Cops? Criminals? Security experts like himself? It wouldn't
surprise her that he found out everything, including the kind of underwear Beauvoir
wore. Jake seemed like a man who could find out anything he wanted.

After the fifth
call, he finally returned the phone to its cradle. "Let's go," he
said.

"You going
to tell me what your contacts said?"

"No." He
grabbed his keys and a black backpack then strode to the front door.

She sighed. "I'm
paying you, remember? That means you keep me in the loop."

He opened the
door for her. She crossed her arms and didn't move. He shrugged and walked
through. "I'll go see Aaron by myself."

Damn him! She
picked up her handbag and raced after him. "Tell me what you found out
about Beauvoir," she said.

"You don't
want to know."

"Don't tell
me what I do and don't want. You don't know me." She thought she heard him
mutter, "Thank God", but couldn't be sure. Even so, it only made her
temper rise more.

He stabbed the
down button for the elevator with his thumb. "I can give you all the gory
details if you like, starting with the off-shore accounts and tax evasion
schemes and ending with the ex-wife he used to keep doped up on cocaine after
she threatened to divorce him and take half his money. She died of an overdose,
by the way. Then there's the mob connections. Heard of the gangland killings? He
probably financed several of them but there's nothing definite to pin on him. That
enough for you?"

Ruby was shocked
as much by Jake's anger as his words, and they were shocking enough. She
suspected Beauvoir of tax evasion and some shady deals but she'd never have
suspected murder. That took him into another realm of bad altogether. But the
real question was why did Jake look like he wanted to punch something ever
since he hung up the phone?

The elevator
doors opened and they stepped in. "What the hell were you associating with
this guy for anyway?" he said as the doors closed. He sounded furious, as
if she should have known better than to go to the lair of a man like Beauvoir.

"I went to
his office once and to his home on one other occasion. I'm hardly a business
associate. Besides, I didn't know everything you just told me.
You
didn't
know everything you just told me until you spoke to your contacts."

She got the
feeling he wanted to say more but they stopped at another floor and two people
got in. The ride down to the basement was slow with several more stops. The
lift became crowded and she got pushed back against Jake, her head bumping his
chest. His heat warmed her, surrounded her, and every part of her body grew
aware of just how close he was. Something deep inside her throbbed.

She shouldn't be
affected by him, didn't want to be. He was totally wrong for her. He was
clouded in mystery and darkness whereas she was an open book and loved to
laugh. She was shallow where Jake Forrester's waters ran deep and turbulent and
should come with a No Swimming sign.

Finally the
elevator opened onto the basement level and the crowd poured out, dispersing to
their luxury cars. She climbed into Jake's SUV in silence and they drove most
of the way to Aaron's place in Prahran in the same manner. She'd already called
her assistant and told him to wait for her before he left for work.

They were early
enough that traffic hadn't got really nasty so it took only fifteen minutes
before they reached the trendy suburb. Aaron lived on the ground floor of a big
old house that had been divided into four apartments. Jake stood to one side as
she knocked. Aaron's door opened and before she could say "hi", a gun
was pressed to her temple.

CHAPTER 4

"Don't move
or I'll shoot her and her friend." It took Ruby a second to realize it was
Fat Frankie and he was speaking to Jake.

Jake held up his
hands and nodded once. So much for her bodyguard. He'd given up at the first
sign of trouble. She wanted to cry at the hopelessness welling inside her. Without
Jake backing her up, who could she turn to?

Frankie's thick
lips curled into a sneer. "Where is the diamond, Mizz Jones?" he
said. "And no tricks this time."

"Where's Aaron?
What have you done to him?" Oh God, if he was dead...

"He's having
a little nap on his kitchen floor." He slung an arm around Ruby's middle
and squeezed, making breathing difficult. The stench of garlic and rotten
breath pierced her nasal passages. "I'll ask you once more. Where. Is. The.
Diamond?"

"I don't
have it." Her words tumbled over themselves in their rush to get out. "Now,"
she licked dry lips, "when you say he's having a nap, do you mean he's
just knocked out?"
Please God, let it not be a euphemism for something more
final.

Fat Frankie
dragged her backwards, his arm almost cutting her in half. She lost her footing
and had to be carried the last few steps to the kitchen. Jake followed them,
his face impassive. Why didn't he do something?

"There?"
Frankie said. "See him?" He swung her round so she could see Aaron
lying on the tiles. There was no blood and she could just make out his chest rising
and falling with each breath.

He lived.

Air returned to
her lungs along with a flood of relief. Tears stung her eyes but she forced
them back down. Now was not the time to get all wimpy. She had to be brave,
strong.

She tried to
signal Jake with her eyes but his own gaze was shuttered. So it was up to her
to get away. Frankie still held her in a bruising grip but her brother had
shown her some self-defense moves. Unfortunately those moves only worked on
guys who didn't have guns. She had no doubt Frankie would use his if he had to.

"Where is
it?" he said again. Impatience threaded his voice and his grip tightened. Out
of the corner of her eye, she was sure she saw Jake move. But he still looked
disinterested, uncaring, so she must have been mistaken.

Her breath came
shallow and shuddering, the only sound in Aaron's apartment. "I don't have
it." Frankie pressed the gun harder into her temple. She shut her eyes. "Please,
don't hurt me. I'm telling the truth." She sobbed and that opened the
floodgates for more tears. This wasn't supposed to happen to her. It was the
stuff of nightmares and Hollywood movies. She was only twenty-seven! She began
to cry.

"Quit your
yowling," Fat Frankie snapped.

She couldn't
stop. All the emotion she'd been bottling up since last night had swollen inside
her. The first sign of a crack and the dam had burst under the pressure.

"Quit crying
or I kill your buddy in the kitchen."

She swallowed the
next sob and chewed on her lip to stop it wobbling. Why the hell wasn't Jake
doing something?

But he just kept
looking down at the ground then up at her again over and over, as if he had
something in his eye.

And then she got
it. He wanted her to duck. How was she supposed to do that with Frankie's meaty
arm round her waist?

"Okay, you
win," she said, trying to claw back some control. "But I don't have
the Florentine on me."

Frankie grunted. "Then
where is it?"

"Somewhere
safe. I'll take you there." She had no idea what she was saying but she
had to say something. If only to get Frankie away from Aaron. Hopefully when
they left, Jake would snap out of his stupor and do his thing.

"No. You
tell me where it is first."

So much for that
plan. "Well, you see, the thing is—"

"It's right
here."

Fat Frankie's
grip loosened at the sound of Jake's voice after his long silence. Jake flipped
something to them and Frankie went to grab it, giving Ruby the opportunity to slip
out of his arm. She bobbed down and scooted out of the way just as Jake lunged
at him in a football tackle. They both smacked into the wall, rattling the
picture frames hanging nearby.

For a big man, Frankie
recovered quickly. He lifted his gun and fired.

Ruby screamed.

Jake stopped in
his tracks but he didn't topple over, didn't bleed all over Aaron's floor. He
wasn't dead. She all but collapsed onto the floor herself in relief. Frankie
had missed.

The big oaf ran
through the door and Jake gave chase. "No, don't!" she shouted after
him. Was he crazy? Maybe he was. He drew out a gun from wherever he'd hidden
it—his waist band? "No!" she shouted again. "There are people
everywhere."

Jake grunted but
didn't fire. Fat Frankie lumbered down the path to the front gate. It was like
watching a slab of jelly move and Jake would have easily caught him except Frankie
turned, aimed.

Jake dove for
cover behind a tree. Frankie kept running, jumped into a red sports car and
sped off.

"You okay?"
Ruby asked as she raced up to Jake.

He stood. "Yeah.
You?" He looked her over, his eyes hard and cold like she'd never seen
them before. His breathing was slow, even, and his body was still, his hands loose
by his sides. "Did he hurt you?"

"No,"
she said, rubbing her ribs. "But what the hell were you doing in there?"
She shoved him square in the chest but he didn't budge. "All that time you
had a gun and you let him threaten me?"

"He wouldn't
have killed you, he wants you alive remember? And I was biding my time until he
lost his concentration. If I'd gone for my gun earlier he might have panicked
and shot you anyway, despite his boss's orders."

She could see the
sense in what he said, but it rankled that she'd had to go through so much fear
only to find out he had the situation covered. "I'm going to check on
Aaron." Her dismissal might have been abrupt, but if she dwelled too much
on the fact that someone could have been killed, the waterworks would start all
over again.

Jake followed her
inside. Ruby's assistant was coming-to and looked up at them, wild-eyed. She
knelt down beside him and started explaining—about the diamond and Beauvoir and
finishing with an explanation of Jake's presence. She sounded calm, composed,
even though she must be shaking inside. She'd just gone through a harrowing
ordeal, the second in less than twenty-four hours. She wasn't the sort of girl
that things like this happened to. She wasn't the sort of girl who
deserved
to have things like this happen to her.

It made his blood
boil to think that someone like Beauvoir had dragged her into his lair using a
lure like the Florentine. The man had no right to turn her life upside down like
this.

But she handled
it better than many men he knew. Matt would be proud.

Aaron got up,
smiled shakily at him and nodded. "Thanks," he said.

"Yeah,"
Ruby said quietly. "Thanks."

Her eyes shone
and her smile wobbled. There was something in the expression on her uplifted
face, something tender and full of emotion. It set alarm bells ringing loudly
in Jake's head.

"So do you
know the whereabouts of the Florentine?" he asked Aaron.

"Jake,"
she snapped, all trace of tenderness gone. Good.

"It's okay, Rube,"
Aaron said. "He's only trying to do his job."

"He just saw
you nearly get killed!" She spoke to Aaron but she didn't take her gaze off
Jake.

"He's not
completely off the hook," Jake said. "That scene could have been
staged."

She shook her
head. "You don't trust anyone, do you?"