But the others were far too small to have been picked up by a dog’s mouth, however delicate. They glittered against the fabric, cut and graded and polished — the precious stones I’d seen scattered outside Santiago Rojas’s jewellery store.
Hope tensed, her eyes darted wildly. They even flicked to where Lemon lay stretched out on a blanket with her favourite chew toy next to her. The yellow Lab had lurched from her side onto her belly when I made my entrance, letting out a couple of loud sneezes as she was woken from sleep. She lifted her head, recognised me and flopped back down again with a loud grumbling sigh.
Hope’s flight reflex folded in on itself and collapsed, taking her composure with it. For a moment I thought she might cry.
I stood there frozen with one hand still on the doorknob until I heard footsteps and voices approaching. I stepped inside quickly and closed the door.
“What’s going on, Hope?” I asked, keeping my voice calm and quiet. I’d seen how Lemon leapt to her handler’s defence when it was clear the girl was being threatened and I had no desire to be on the receiving end of those teeth.
Hope bounced off the bed, tangling her bare feet in the blankets and stumbling straight into my arms in her haste.
“Please,” she said, staring up at me. “Please, Charlie, don’t tell anyone!”
“Hope…” My voice trailed away helplessly. I shook my head, said tiredly, “Just tell me what the hell is going on, will you?”
That seemed to get to her more than harsh words would have done. She wrenched herself away and slumped down on the edge of the bed with her head bowed. Lemon rolled partly onto her back and gazed up at her with two legs waving and her tongue hanging out. Hope rubbed the side of the dog’s belly with one foot.
“You picked these up on the street, didn’t you?” I went on when she didn’t speak. Let Joe Marcus go without me if he damn well pleased. As far as I was concerned this took precedence. Still, I didn’t have all night. “Hope?”
“Yes,” she said, lifting her head and showing me more than a hint of defiance. “They’re just lying there, for fuck’s sake. Anybody could help themselves. You think they’ll be any left by the time that jeweller gets clearance to go back?”
“That doesn’t mean they’re yours to take,” I said neutrally.
“Why not?” she cried. “I’ve seen everyone take things, even the cops. Even the birds!” She let her head drop again so her next words emerged as a mumble: “S’not like I was gonna keep them.”
I opened my mouth to make a “yeah, right” kind of comment, but then I remembered again the way she’d put the woman’s wallet back after she’d lifted it from Commander Peck and I stopped myself from coming out with anything too cynical.
“Who knows about this?” I asked instead.
“Nobody!” she assured me. If she kept bobbing her head up and down like this she was going to put her neck out. “Nobody else knows about it, and nobody else is doing it. It’s just me, all right?”
I took in her mulish expression and realised there was no point arguing with her. Not right now. I checked my watch. “Look, Hope, I’m going back to see the jewellery store owner—”
“Oh, please don’t tell him! I’ll put them all back, I swear!”
I let my breath out. “I wasn’t going to tell him,” I said. “I simply meant I haven’t time to talk about this now, but we are going to talk about it — later, when I get back, yes?”
Another mumble, less distinct this time. I took it for a yes anyway.
“Good,” I said. I reached for the door handle again, paused as a final thought struck me. “Did Kyle Stephens know you were helping yourself to bits and pieces?”
Hope didn’t answer that one, but from the sudden flare of loathing and fear that crossed her face, I didn’t need her to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I was, I realised as Joe Marcus and I headed back towards the hospital with Riley in the Bell, getting far too used to travelling everywhere by helicopter. Being grounded was going to seem very restrictive after all this.
What I needed was to get out on a fast bike on an open road and blow the cobwebs out of my head. I still hadn’t replaced my Buell Firebolt after it was written-off by a bunch of kidnappers. Sean’s own bike remained under a cover in the parking garage below our building. I thought longingly of the Honda FireBlade I’d left behind in the UK, sitting equally dormant in the back of my parents’ garage. Maybe I’d get over there this year and take it out for a blast — if the tyres weren’t flat-spotted with standing and the fuel left in the tank hadn’t gone off.
Or maybe not.
Unable to side-track myself any longer, I dragged my mind back to Hope Tyler. I knew I was putting off examining what I’d seen and heard, and what it might mean. Hope was a confirmed thief, no two ways about it. She was too quick with her fingers to be anything else and it would seem that she’d trained Lemon to aid and abet. I wondered what the RSPCA or PETA would have to say about that.
Still, if Hope had been helping herself from other disaster sites, would that really be enough to cause the rumours Mrs Hamilton had heard all the way back in New York? Hope struck me as a collector of pretty things rather than a serious player, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t tried to offload some of her booty in search of yet more pretty things. Wouldn’t take much carelessness there for her activities to come to light.
Kyle Stephens had known what was going on — that much was clear from her reaction. When had he found out, and what had he been intending to do about it? I got the impression from Mrs Hamilton that what she really wanted was not confirmation or denial of the thefts, but for the problem to be simply made to go away. She had asked Stephens to take care of it for her.
Instead he’d got himself killed.
I was still tumbling those thoughts over and round when Riley set the Bell down on the pad outside the hospital and the engines spun down.
“I never trust a woman when she goes quiet,” Joe Marcus said as we hopped down onto the baked concrete. “What’s on your mind, Charlie?”
“Life, death, the universe and everything,” I said, keeping my tone light. “Any clues?”
“Given some thought to all of it over the years.”
“And?”
He shook his head. “Never did come to any conclusions worth a damn.”
We found Santiago Rojas looking both better and worse.
Better because he was out of his hospital bed and sitting in a low chair by the window. Worse because the bruising had blossomed across his face, turning his skin every colour of pain. He shifted awkwardly when we entered, making as if to rise. Marcus waved him back into his seat.
I introduced them. Rojas clasped Marcus’s hand warmly, his eyes becoming moist. “So, you are one of the people responsible for getting me out of there alive,” he said, his voice husky. “For that, sir, I am forever in your debt.”
“It’s kinda the whole point of what we do,” Joe Marcus said without any hint of embarrassment. I guessed he’d received a lot of similar thanks in his time.
“I would like to give you something,” Rojas went on. “A small gift, from my store. Something of value—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Marcus said quickly, and I couldn’t help wondering what he might have said if I hadn’t been with him. “If you feel you’d like to make a contribution to one of the disaster relief funds, well that would be more than enough.”
“Ah, of course,” Rojas said quickly, not wanting to cause offence. His eyes went from one of us to the other expectantly.
“We wondered if you’d had any more recollections of what happened — just before the earthquake?” I said.