Page 44 of The Woman with the Wallet

That was fair. If she wanted to, she clearly would have had the skills to do it. And we were already so deep in this together, what were a few more details?

“Part one involved making two contacts inside the building. One, an IT tech.”

“Who could fuck with the cameras to hide the heist.”

“Yep,” I agreed, loving how sharp she was. “The other was someone with access to the diamonds.”

“To grab them.”

“To switch them,” I corrected.

“With what? Zirconia?

“Moissanite,” I corrected. “It’s slightly more expensive but it’s also more convincing. It does fade over time to be less of adupe, but I only needed it to pass a quick glance-over inspection in case schedules ended up differently than we planned.”

“So, the person with access to the real diamonds just brought in the fakes, swapped them out, and brought them to you?”

“That’s about the gist of it, yeah.”

“Why, though? If they were capable of doing it, why not just do it themselves?”

“Obviously, the IT guy couldn’t do it himself. And the other contact couldn’t do it without the IT guy and the fakes. That was where I came in. They got paid in advance with strict instructions not to make any big purchases in case the heat started.”

“And you’re not only out the diamonds, but the advance you paid out to those guys.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. You’re not at risk of, like, losing your apartment, are you?”

“Nah. Things will shake out. If I can’t recover them, I’ll just be busting my ass more than ever this year to try to recoup the loss.”

“Want a Twizzler?” she asked, flicking one toward my face.

“They taste like cherry plastic.”

“They’re strawberry,” she told me, taking it back and nipping a bite off of it. “I’m not judging you and your boring-ass protein bars.”

“They might actually keep me full while stuck here for hours.”

“You underestimate how little I can survive on,” Max said, making my heart sink at the reality behind those words.

It was sometime in the late afternoon, our day full of snacking mindlessly, drinking cold coffee, and shifting around uncomfortably in our seats, that I finally had enough.

“Let’s call it quits for today,” I said, reaching for the gear shift. “Go get some real food. Some rest. Warm up.”

Turning the car on and off and idling for hours had been hell on the gas, making us need to have periods in the bitter cold just to last as long as we had.

Max was trying to be a trooper about it, but she looked pale, her stomach had been grumbling, and even when the heat and butt warmer were on, she was shivering slightly.

“Don’t tolerate the cold as well as I used to,” she said when the vents came on full tilt so she could lift her hands and hold them in front of the hot air.

Christ.

That was a bleak thought.

Luckily, though, she wouldn’t be cold for long.

I’d maybe splurged a bit on the hotel, even though I knew I should probably start being smarter with my money until I located the diamonds.

---