Page 62 of Gem Warfare

“No. Well, yes, he definitely has, but probably not this one. My dead guy is related to him and it looks like they might both be criminals.”

Lily and Ruby exchanged looks and Lily shrugged.

“Ben Rafferty,” I said to clue her in, waiting for realization to dawn on Lily’s face.

“That rat!” she spat. “He’s back in town?”

“No, but it looks like my cold case dead guy might be his dad.”

“Shut! Up!” squealed Lily.

“Okay,” I said, and rested my forehead on the bar. Lily tapped on my head and I lifted it expectantly.

“Do not shut up,” she said. “Is this the guy with all the jewels that we nearly got drowned for yesterday?”

“Jewels?” asked Ruby, looking between us. “Drowned?”

“Long story,” I said.

“I’ll tell Ruby later. You better fill us in,” said Lily. She slid a tall glass across to me, a wedge of lemon over the rim, followed quickly by a small bowl of peanuts and a larger bowl of chips. “You have to earn your keep if you want that on the house.”

I repeated what Garrett and I had discovered, leaving out the part where he had to hold my hair back before catching me. “So you see,” I said as I finished, “With the Blacks’ aliases making it tough to research them, my best lead is the jewels. I think they’re stolen and Garrett is looking into it but there haven’t been any leads so far. There’s no way someone isn’t missing a huge ruby!”

“Did you hear about the Queen’s Ruby?” asked Ruby. She reached into the dishwasher under the bar for the next set of glasses to polish. “Now that was an audacious theft!”

“No. Did it happen here?”

“No, it was in New York. I remember because my dad was working in New York at the time and only coming home on weekends and he said there was a lot of fuss about it. Apparently, it was the big centerpiece of an exhibition at the New York Museum of History and poof! They showed it off at a big, fancy party on opening night, then the next day it was gone! Like magic. No one saw a thing. Every time I went anywhere, all the kids at school called me The Disappearing Ruby for two weeks,” she added with a laugh. “You must have heard about it. It was big news.”

“What happened?” asked Lily. “It couldn’t have simply disappeared!”

“I think there was a break-in overnight or maybe someone hid in the museum after hours? Or maybe it was stolen during the party? I don’t remember. All I know is everyone at the party claimed they never saw a thing.”

“Was it ever found?” I asked.

Ruby shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t think so, but this was twenty something years ago so I really don’t remember. You mentioning a ruby made it pop into my head.”

I sat up a little straighter. “Twenty years ago?”

“Thereabouts. Not just the Queen’s Ruby but a whole bunch of jewelry too. It was like something out ofOcean’s 11. Well, I imagine it was anyway.”

“What kind of jewelry?” I asked, reaching for my phone.

Ruby pursed her lips. “Necklaces, earrings, rings, I guess. I’m trying to remember the name of the exhibition. My dad bought my mom a replica necklace from the gift shop and I was really into being a princess at the time, so he got me a little paste ruby tiara. So cute. I think it was called something like…”

“Treasures of Rachenstein,” I said, reading from the screen, which had returned several results following my quick search for the Queen’s Ruby.

“Yeah, that’s it!” Ruby said. “Did you find a picture?”

I scrolled my forefinger down the screen, skimming the article about the incomprehensible theft, the baffled statement from the museum, the determination of the police chief to apprehend the culprit, the discreet refusal to comment from Rachenstein, and then there was a picture.

The ruby rested on a velvet cushion, so large and dazzling that I just knew it was the one unearthed from its decades of concealment only days before.

Chapter Fourteen

“Ruby, you just blew my case wide open.”

Ruby beamed. “You’re welcome! I think?” She frowned, apparently uncertain if I were serious.

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