Page 109 of Gem Warfare

When Laura had gone, I explained my theory to Garrett and he took it a heck of a lot better than I thought he would before instructing me to remain in his office while he went to prove if I were right.

By the time he returned more than an hour later, I’d made several calls, thought in great detail about lunch, purchased a dress online, and aced the next level of my current phone game obsession.

“Let’s go,” he said, appearing in the doorway. “I’ll tell you everything on the way.”

“I’m all ears.”

Garrett didn’t talk again until we were turning out of the police lot in a black sedan with a peppermint scent tree hanging from the rearview mirror, not quite masking the lingering stale odor. “You were right about the stolen police uniform you saw our lady thief wearing,” he said. “No one would own up to theirs going missing so I hauled in every officer who went into the evidence locker that day and had the desk sergeant identify them. He has quite the eye for faces. He didn’t recognize one of them. A rookie named Walsh. Yet there was a log-in with her badge, depositing evidence. Walsh confessed to her uniform going missing from her locker. She found it in a trash can around the corner from here the same day so she figured it was some kind of weird hazing she was going to get in trouble for.”

“She must be the female police officer I overheard saying her uniform had disappeared. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Walsh didn’t report it so no one knew there was a uniform floating around, unaccounted for. Cass Temple must have stolen it to use to gain access to the evidence locker. I knew it!” My voice rose with excitement. Then the image of another woman flashed into my head. A uniformed woman I’d seen inside the police station and thought I’d recognized. Had that been her too? Or was my mind playing tricks on me? I wasn’t sure I’d ever know.

“I should have done this when you insisted you saw her exit the station. Man, I screwed up! I saw the sealed box and the sergeant counted out the jewels.”

“We saw what she wanted us to see,” I said. “She must have grabbed tape from somewhere, unsealed the box, and resealed it.”

“Damn,” said Garrett, shaking his head.

“What happens to Officer Walsh now?” I asked.

“An official reprimand and six months of traffic duty. She won’t make a mistake like that again.”

“I feel sorry for her.”

“Don’t. She should have reported it the minute she realized her uniform was gone.”

“What I can’t fathom is how Cass Temple got into the building to even get the uniform. I know I saw her wearing it. I’m sure of it.”

“I checked the cameras. A pregnant lady came in that afternoon. Big, floppy sun hat, tote bag, and begged to use the restroom. No pregnant lady ever came out so I figure she ditched that disguise in the trash and just strolled around until she could access the women’s locker rooms. She probably caught the door as it was closing and picked the lock on lockers until she found a uniform her size. She probably put it on and walked out.”

“Unbelievable.” But even as I said it, I knew it was. I’d talked my way into buildings, and broken into them when necessary. I’d even gone undercover as a plush pony to access areas crucial to my investigation. If I had limits, I wasn’t sure what they were.

“I’ll say. Ballsy.”

I monitored Garrett for a few seconds, wondering if he were impressed but I couldn’t quite tell. “So Cass Temple dresses in the uniform and goes to access the evidence locker but she didn’t want to set off any alerts from accessing that box since its contents were already attracting attention, so she requested access to deposit an item in a different one,” I said, guessing now.

“Yeah, that’s how it went down. The fake Officer Walsh requested to log in a pair of gloves and a crowbar purportedly used in a home robbery. I’ve sent them to be fingerprinted but I already know we won’t find anything. She was on her own for long enough that she located our box, slit open the seal, swapped the rubies, stole the diamonds, and resealed it. I noticed a roll of tape under the shelving unit so you’re probably right about that. As far as anyone knew, no one ever accessed our box.We wouldn’t have known until we attempted to repatriate it to Rachenstein.”

“By then, Cass Temple would be long gone, leaving us looking like fools. It’s her bad luck you’d already called Rachenstein’s reps and made arrangements to show them the jewels.”

“Cass Templeislong gone and wedolook like fools,” pointed out Garrett. “I’m lucky I’m going to get to keep my job over this. Rachenstein’s commendation saved my butt there. Annoying as it was, Gideon Black did us a favor deflating the tires to keep us out of the way. Since I was out of town when the evidence locker was accessed, it’s officially not my fault that the jewels were stolen. Temple really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. If I weren’t so damn pissed at her, I would be impressed!”

“With the tracker you found, and the one Solomon found on my car, I figure Gideon had another plan to get the jewels that involved keeping us out of the way,” I said. “Whatever it was, it tanked, which is why he came after me.”

“Yeah, I guess we’ll never know.”

“At least we have him. Although I’m not sure where MPD falls in the queue to prosecute. Plenty of other states must want their turn.”

“Ah.” Garrett winced.

“Garrett? Wedohave Gideon Black, don’t we?” As I asked, Garrett winced more. I groaned, repressing the urge to scream. What else could possibly go wrong today?!

“I got the call minutes before we had the meeting with Rachenstein. Black escaped the hospital sometime in the early hours of the morning. There’s no telling where he is now, except I’ll bet it’s hundreds of miles away by tonight. If not thousands.”

“He escaped his guards?” I asked, amazed, yet somehow not. Of course he escaped. There was no way Gideon Black was going to wait around to see what his future had in store under the auspices of MPD.

“Guards, handcuffs, and a particularly flappy hospital gown.”

“Unbelievable,” I huffed. That guy was a one-man nightmare, not to mention more slippery than a snake. I’d hazard a guess he probably charmed at least one nurse or doctor in his short stay at Montgomery General. Even if he hadn’t. Picking handcuffs was nothing to a thief like him.

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