Page 30 of Diamond In The Rough

“Uh…” He hesitates over which question to answer first. “Today, she’s at Colby’s Antiques, sir. Your new desk was collected this morning. I’ve had it placed in storage until you decide what you’d like to do with it. I didn’t think it prudent to have them ship it directly to the house.”

“Thank you. But now that the exchange has been made, go ahead and bring it here. I want it in my space.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And last night?”

“Last night, Ms. Hale left Biano’s with her friends. All three went to her apartment in the East Village.”

“And how was she behaving?” I set down my spray bottle and turn from my work, bringing my free hand up to run it through my slightly too-long hair. “Did she drop her scared act the moment I was gone?”

“Actually…” He audibly swallows. “No, sir. She seemed pretty shaken. Her guy friend, Roscoe, held her as the group walked the few blocks to her apartment. The pair seemed kind of… close.”

“Romantically?” I hate that my stomach tightens and churns in response. That my pulse quickens. “She and Roscoe are lovers?”

“I mean… maybe. I didn’t follow them into her apartment, but he didn’t let her go for the duration of the walk home. And when she wept, it was his chest she wept against.”

My heart comes to a painful stop. “She cried?”

“Little bit, yeah. She was holding on to her anger until you drove away, sir. Then she broke. Nosy folks were out taking pictures and shit, so her friends swept her up and led her home.”

“Fuck.” I fist my hair and glance up at the ceiling.

Is it possible she’s just a woman… just an innocent, bystanding, beautiful woman, who has unintentionally tripped my trigger and landed herself in trouble she never sought?

That option doesn’t seem likely to me. I have thirty-three years of experience of picking shady fuckers out of a crowd and making damn sure they stay away from my family. But then comes Tiia fucking Hale, getting in my way and setting off alarms that have never been wrong before.

“What has she got at her shop that I might wanna buy?” I ask gruffly.

Silence hangs for a beat before, “Sir?”

“I’m gonna go into Colby’s myself. Get a little closer. But I don’t know what I want from their inventory, and I don’t wanna drop a hundred grand on a twenty-dollar pen. She seems spiteful enough to make such a sale.”

“Well… uh… there was a chest there, sir, that caught my attention.”

“Like a blanket chest?”

“Basically. It belonged to a Mongol warrior. Soon after invading Syria and returning home to his family, he gifted this chest to the woman he believed would be his forever wife. It was a gesture of love and peace after devastation.”

“Believed to be his forever wife? She betrayed him?”

How fitting.

He snickers. “No. She was his beloved, sir. But the following year, this warrior went off to conquer Aleppo Damascus. He left his bride pregnant and healthy, and the fetus, approximately seven months in gestation. But while he was gone, the woman died giving birth. Their son lived, however. In fact, some articles say the child slept in this chest.”

“Oh…” I lean back against a span of the steel counter that crosses all three thousand square feet of my haven—a haven settled deep in the yard I once considered hell. “Well, that’s depressing as fuck. Jesus.”

“Depressing or not, the story is powerful. The chest comes with the creator’s seal, and documentation all the way through its existence, beginning with the love letter this Mongol soldier wrote to his beloved. The child grew to become a soldier, too, and he gifted the chest to his wife. Many generations, stretching directly from the original warrior, have owned and reared babies in that thing. Now, Jakeline Colby has possession of it.”

“What price is she asking?”

Like Felix tends to, Harrison lights a cigarette on his end of the call and drags a lungful down his throat. “Only seventy thousand.”

“Only? That’s not small money.”

“Generally, I would agree. But in this context, I think the chest probably belongs in a museum. It seems Ms. Colby isn’t aware of the treasure she holds, because she could ask significantly more.” He exhales again. “And she could get it. Easily. I bought a desk yesterday with someone else’s money, boss. If I had fluid cash like some others I know, I’d buy the chest in a fuckin’ heartbeat. Ms. Colby is a shrewd businesswoman, and prickly when you get too near. But she underprices her wares. I’m not sure I have the goodness in my heart to tell her so, but I would advise a better man not to share such information with others until he’s already acquired the treasures he wants from her shop.”

“Greedy.” I lower my hand and set it on the edge of the counter. “Alright. Anything else I need to know about my chest?”

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