Page 74 of A Real Good Bad Thing

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s some of your weirdly delicious honey that I lifted so room service wouldn’t clear it.” The corner of his lips quirked up in a rueful smile. “It was supposed to be a surprise, but you caught me.”

Was he that innocent or that good an actor?

In either case, I’d found nothing in his pockets but that, his wallet and phone, and the paper he’d taken from the office.

“I was anxious to see the diamonds,” I said by way of explanation, fixing on a sweet smile.

“They weren’t in the gallery office. I told you that before.” He huffed in frustration. “If they were ever there, they’ve now been moved.”

A vision of the empty walls of the office caught up with me, and I gasped in realization. “No art. But Kalila said there were several pieces hanging there in her office. She said he spent a lot of time picking the frames,” I said, sounding desperate as I recalled her words. Desperate because I wanted them to be true.

He shook his head. “Not a single frame on the wall. They might have been moved recently. I did find some interesting paperwork, though, about some donations—”

I pressed my finger to his lips. “Hold that thought. I need to make an excuse to Willow so she doesn’t wonder why I never came back from the ladies’ room.” I trailed my finger down his chin, his neck, and the buttons of his shirt. “Be good and wait for me by the souvenir shop.”

He nodded but furrowed his brow. “You’re in a bossy mood today. I kinda like it.”

I pulled him close by tugging on his shirt and gave him a deep, drugging kiss. The kind of kiss that saiddon’t question it, just enjoy. “Hold that thought too.”

Then I stepped back, feeling smug about his slightly dazed look, and returned to the gallery’s rear entrance. Once Jake had left the alley, I doubled back into the main gallery, where Willow’s employees were praising the coconut flan. My heart raced until I returned to the front.

I tapped Willow’s shoulder and motioned for her to come with me to the foyer, where I could see Jake across the street, looking at postcards. “I hate to do this, Willow, but I just got a last-minute call to do a snorkel lesson for some beginners over at Happy Turtle, so I can’t stay,” I said apologetically.

Willow frowned. “Oh no. I was looking forward to showing you the art. Can you come back?”

“I’ll try.” I cast a brief glance toward Jake, thumbing through the trinkets on display street-side.

I returned my attention to Willow, then jerked in surprise when I realized there was something missing from Willow’s wardrobe. I found myself touching my fingers to my own throat and my treasure-chest necklace.

“Willow,” I whispered, pointing to the other woman’s neck. “What happened to your diamond? Is it being resized or something?”

Willow sighed heavily and clasped her hand over her heart. A pendant dangled from her neck, but it wasn’t the blue-tinted gem she’d worn at her house party. There was a substitute rock in its place, a too-bright cubic zirconia. Willow dropped her voice to a barren whisper.“It was stolen.”

My brows shot up in surprise. A knot of tension twisted in my bones. “Are you serious? When? Where?”

“Last night. Right here,” Willow said, pointing to the gallery’s blond wood floor. “During a reception. It was on my neck, then it was gone. I was freshening up my drink, and moments later, Eli noticed it was missing. It must have fallen out of the setting on the necklace, and then someone took it.”

I blinked. I swallowed. My skull echoed. “What time was that?”

“It was around eight.”

Jake had been with me on the boat at that time. He couldn’t have taken Willow’s stone. “We looked everywhere. We canvassed the entire place,” Willow continued. “As you can see, there isn’t a lot of clutter. It’s quite bare. But there was no diamond anywhere. So it can’t have been lost.”

“Do you have any idea who took it?”

“None. But thank God we moved the other diamonds from here a while ago.”

The other diamonds.

Holy moly.I did not expect Willow to hand me confirmation of our suspicions. “Other diamonds? Here?” I pointed to the floor like she might mean anywhere else.

Willow nodded and leaned close, placing her hand on my back and lowering her voice even more. “We used to have a lot here but not anymore. You can’t be too careful. I do hope you’re keeping the stone that Eli gave you safe.”

“Of course,” I said on autopilot as I tried to make sense of this new information while the surprises kept pummeling me. “I should go.”

“Let’s do this another time,” Willow said, rebounding to the upbeat woman I had originally met. I agreed and exited the gallery, nearly stumbling and breathless with confusion.

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