Page 97 of Gem Warfare

“That’s a good thing since you work together… and are related.” Amybeth grimaced.

“We don’t work together either,” said Garrett.

“You two are very confusing. I have to go now. I have a hairappointment.” Amybeth stepped back. “Tell that no good Kelvin to stop calling me. It’s annoying.”

“Wait. How did you meet him?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Kelvin Huff!”

She sighed and rolled her eyes but surprised me by staying and saying, “I volunteer with a correspondence service for prisoners who don’t have long to serve on their sentences. It’s supposed to help them develop friendly relationships to prepare for their life outside. Kelvin sent me a letter. We wrote back and forth a few months and I visited him a couple times at his last facility. He got transferred closer to here and wanted me to visit him again. I said no but he started laying it on thick.”

“Laying what on?” Garrett asked.

“Romance?” I clarified and she nodded.

“Yeah. I was being friendly and he was like ‘You’re the most beautiful woman I ever saw’ and ‘I’m the luckiest man ever to meet someone like you’ and all this talk about how he was going to sweep me off my feet and treat me like a princess.”

“That sounds awful,” said Garrett.

“Don’t mock me,” she snipped, giving Garrett a filthy look. “Women know when it’s being put on insincerely. At first, the compliments were nice, you know, but then there were way too many. I was happy to put him in touch with some services that could help him out but then he told me he put my address down with his parole officer as his residence! He said we could make a go of things and that he would be ashamed of taking me to a hostel because he just wanted to cook for me in our own kitchen.Our! I mean,please. He thought I was just going to let him move in with me, sleep in my bed, and financially support him fully, just because he threw a few nice words my way.” She snorted.

“Totally get it,” I said.

“And when I said no, then he really wouldn’t let up. Hestarted pleading, saying I was his only hope of making it on the outside,” she said in a mock whine, “and he couldn’t make it without me, and it would just tear him up not to make a go of things with a good woman. That he’d never loved anyone like this.”

“Playing on your heart strings,” I said.

“With the strings of a tiny, invisible violin,” Amybeth said, nodding. “It was like he was using every line he ever heard and when he realized none of them were working, then he just tried bombarding me instead. No thank you. I told him I do not want to support a man.”

“What did he say to that?”

She rolled her eyes. “He had a big pie-in-the-sky idea that it wouldn’t be long, just a month or two. He’d get a basic job and pay his way, and then he knew someone who owed him and as soon as he collected, he’d buy me anything I wanted! He said I could quit my job and we could go on the road and be free spirits. There was no way I was falling for his scheme.”

“Who did he say owed him?” asked Garrett.

“Some old friend of his. Apparently, he owed him big time.” She spread her hands wide.

“Did he mention how he was going to collect it? Or where?” I asked.

“Some cockamamie story about a safe deposit box and he knew where the key was. I asked him and said your friend just left you a fortune in it, did he? And he said, yeah, and had the biggest shit-eating grin you ever saw. You know what I thought? Hmm?” She looked from Garrett to me.

“No?” I said.

She laughed scathingly. “I thought it was a pile of crap. I told him to stop calling me and I don’t believe in one-day paydays. You either have money now or you don’t. Anything else, without a solid plan, is just a story you made up for yourself and I’m notfalling for another man who makes up stories.”

“Sensible,” I said.

“Or maybe I’ll get a cat,” she said. “Either way, I don’t want anything to do with that loser and tell him to stop calling me. I’ve already told his parole officer that he’s not moving in with me and I amnothis girlfriend!” She stepped back and slammed the door shut.

“Well,” said Garrett, taking a breath. He raised his eyebrows.

“I kind of like her,” I said. We turned and headed for the stairs.

“Jury’s out on her like-ability but her information tallies with everything else we guessed. I have no idea why he thought he was going to get the jewels from a safe deposit box. I haven’t found any indication there was one under Charlie Black’s name or any other alias.”

“I’ll bet that’s what Charlie Black told him to get him off his back. It makes sense that he would pretend the jewels were elsewhere. Otherwise, why didn’t Kelvin just steal them from his pocket there and then? Black probably told Huff that the key was hidden somewhere, maybe even back in New York, and that everyone needed to lie low for a while until the heat died down on the heist. But Huff got antsy and wanted his cut now.” I raised my hand, pointing a finger between Garrett’s eyes. “He’s waving the gun around and it goes off. Now he’s got a dead body on his hands and he still needs to track down the make-believe key so he does what Black originally suggests. He lies low, intending to come back.”

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