Outside she spotted Phil’s black Jeep in the lot and ran to him. He was wearing her favorite soft blue shirt, the one that matched his eyes. His long silver hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Helen wrapped her arms around him. “Um, muscles!” she said, rubbing his back. She inhaled his scent of coffee and sandalwood and kissed him hard.
“I missed you,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
After more kisses she said, “We still have work to do on this case. You need to tip off the feds.”
Helen told him about Mira and the emeralds, then asked, “Who are you going to call? ICE?”
“The agency isn’t called Immigration and Customs Enforcement anymore,” Phil said. “They’ve changed their name to Homeland Security Investigations. I’ll call an HSI agent in Fort Lauderdale. He’ll know if the airport has an HSI special agent on duty. If not, TSA will do the takedown. We need to give him as many details as possible, including where Mira was coming from, how the emeralds were smuggled and a description of her luggage. They’ll love a chance to seize smuggled emeralds.”
“I can even give them the color of her suitcase,” Helen said. “I’m no jewelry expert, but I’d say the cut stones have a retail value of several million. We’d better hurry. Mira and her boyfriend are boarding a three o’clock flight for New York.”
The HSI agent was definitely interested in Phil’s information. Helen heard him reciting the details:
“That’s right. Her name is Mira—short for Vladimira—Fedorova, age twenty-nine, about five foot six, long blond hair, wearing jeans, a white shirt and a pink hoodie. Name sounds Russian, but she’s a U.S. citizen living in Fort Lauderdale. She has a pink rolling suitcase and may also have a large navy duffel. That one’s too big for carry-on. She’s traveling with a dark-haired thirty-something male, first name Kevin. They’re taking the three o’clock flight to LaGuardia. I don’t know if he’s involved. She’s a stewardess on a yacht. That’s how she’s been bringing in the jewels. The captain got suspicious and our agency had an operative aboard. She found the emeralds on a belt in a bag of old evening dresses.”
That’s me, Helen thought. I’m an operative. A successful operative.
Phil repeated the information several times, then hung up. “They’re going after her,” he said. “I hope your hunch is right.”
“It is,” Helen said, with more confidence than she felt. “We should call our favorite TV reporter, Valerie Cannata. We can promise her the story, if she agrees not to use the captain’s name or the ship’s name. Think she’ll go along with it?”
“Hell, yes,” Phil said. “But she can’t do the story unless she can get a camera crew to the airport on short notice. Let’s hope for a slow news day. Coronado Investigations will have to stay out of this story. But we’ll get plenty of publicity when we give her the scoop on the murder of a prominent Fort Lauderdale businessman.”
“You’re that close to a solution?” Helen asked.
“I am,” Phil said. “But I need you.”
Helen kissed him again. “And I need you,” she said. “Could your case wait until tomorrow morning?”
“I think it’s time for some undercover work,” Phil said. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 33
Phil’s phone rang at nine thirty that night. Helen sat up in bed, flipped on the light and found the receiver.
“Helen! It’s Valerie.”
Helen hastily pulled the sheet up over her breasts, as if the investigative reporter could see her naked.
“I wanted to thank you and Phil for the amazing tip,” Valerie said. “The smuggling story runs at ten tonight.”
“The feds caught Mira?” Helen was still groggy.
“Did they ever,” Valerie said. “Carrying a suitcase jammed with emeralds. HSI says they have a street value of five million dollars. The feds always exaggerate, but I think she had at least three million in smuggled stones. We’re the only station with the story. Thank you, thank you, sweetie. Gotta run.”
“Phil, wake up!” Helen said, shaking her sleeping spouse. “Valerie called. The feds caught Mira. Her story runs at ten. We should call the captain so he can watch it.”
“You make the call and I’ll make a snack,” Phil said. “Scrambled eggs okay?”
“You’re going to wait on me?” Helen said. “What luxury.”
Phil gave her a long kiss. “Scrambled eggs aren’t my idea of luxury,” he said. “I’d buy you a yacht if I could.”
“Wouldn’t want it,” Helen said. “The Earl was gorgeous, but there was no privacy. I could hear the guests fighting—and their makeup sex afterward. I knew too much about them.”
Phil slipped on his white robe. A loud meow stopped his march to the kitchen. Thumbs planted himself in Phil’s path. The six-toed cat’s yellow-green eyes glowed in the low light.
“It’s also time for someone else’s dinner,” Helen said. “Come here, big boy, and say hello.”
“I already did,” Phil said. “Several times.”
“I meant the cat,” Helen said.
Thumbs turned his back on Helen and padded after Phil to the tiny kitchen.
“You still aren’t forgiven for abandoning him,” Phil said.
Captain Josiah Swingle wasn’t happy with Helen, either. “I thought we agreed to avoid publicity,” he said.
Helen felt ice forming on her phone. “We made a deal with Valerie,” she said. “If she kept you and the Earl out of this story, we promised her another scoop.”
“I’ll watch tonight to make sure she keeps her word,” Josiah said. “I don’t trust reporters. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning to settle my bill. Seven thirty?”
Helen looked at Phil’s deliciously rumpled sheets. She’d love to sleep in, but Phil had to work at Blossom’s tomorrow and Coronado Investigations couldn’t refuse a customer begging to pay.
“See you then,” she said.
Helen stumbled into the living room, still half asleep. Phil carried two plates heaped with fluffy scrambled eggs to the coffee table. His plate was buried under ketchup and hot sauce.
“White wine?” he asked.
“I must be in server heaven,” Helen said.
They sat side by side on Phil’s black leather couch. “It feels so good to sit here and enjoy my food,” Helen said, “without worrying that I’ll have to scrub heads and serve dinner at three a.m. Now, tell me what’s going on with Blossom and her boyfriend.”
“This will be show-and-tell,” Phil said. “I want to take you to the restaurant where she poisoned Surfer Dude.”
“Can’t wait to eat that food,” Helen said.
“We’ll eat somewhere else,” Phil said. “How about a midnight Mexican dinner?”
“But we’re eating now,” Helen said.
“This is a snack,” Phil said. “We missed lunch. We’ll leave right after we watch Valerie. It’s way up in Palm Beach County. You don’t want to miss the world’s best guacamole.”
Phil switched on channel seventy-seven. Donna, the blond late-night anchor, was as bland as baby food. “And now investigative reporter Valerie Cannata has the scoop on a Fort Lauderdale resident caught smuggling a fortune in jewels,” Donna said.
There was Valerie. Nothing bland about her. Valerie had the eerily youthful look of top TV pros. A red suit hugged her gym-enhanced curves, and crimson lipstick highlighted her full lips. Phil had kissed those lips, Helen thought, then reminded herself that their romance was over long before she knew her husband.
Valerie did her report with the Fort Lauderdale airport as her backdrop. Curious passengers stared as they rolled their suitcases behind the sophisticated reporter.