Diamonds and Blood (Chameleon Assassin Book 5) Read online

  Wil took a left at a main road, and we crossed another bridge. I checked the locator map on the dashboard and discovered we had left the islands for the mainland north of the city. He took a couple of more turns, then pulled over and parked in front of a food market. The buildings in the neighborhood looked well-kept, and the lycans who wore clothes were well-dressed.

  “Why don’t I go see if the ladies are in,” I said, morphing into a fetching young lycan lass. “You stay here with your doors locked, and your pistol off safety, and try to keep the local welcoming committee from stealing the wheels.”

  “That’s a rather bigoted thing to say.”

  I gave him a toothy grin. “I’ll apologize when I get back and you tell me you weren’t harassed.”

  The address was a one-story duplex a block off the main street where Wil parked by the market. It had a lawn that had recently been mowed, and the house had been painted within the past decade. For a lycan community, it was practically upper class. The iron bars on the windows and doors of every building on the block told me that my prejudice was shared by the inhabitants of the neighborhood. I had noticed the same decorations on the market. When a group of people—whether they suck blood or grow too much hair—is systematically excluded from earning a decent living by those in charge of society, they still tend to insist on eating. Breaking a few laws versus starving is rarely a difficult choice.

  In addition to the iron bars, both sides of the duplex were covered by a fairly sophisticated security system, including closed-circuit television and an intercom. I pushed the button.

  “What do you want?” the intercom spat out.

  “I’m looking for Leslie Desroches.”

  “Why?”

  I turned to the TV camera and opened my hand. “I’d like to commission a piece of jewelry.”

  The diamonds—three three-quarter carat grade E brilliant-cut stones—had come from the bag Wil opened at Morgan’s apartment. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, and the temptation to palm fifty thousand credits worth of diamonds with six men standing there watching me was just too great, so I took a few. It wasn’t as though they would be missed.

  A full minute of silence followed, then, “Who are you? How did you get this address?” I finally identified the voice as female.

  “I’m Libby. I was a friend of Joe Morgan,” I lied. “Pau Ricard told me where to find you.”

  More silence, then the door on the other duplex opened. I whirled toward it, pistol in my hand.

  “Put the gun away,” a different female voice said.

  “And get shot or robbed? I don’t think so. You want me to trust you, show yourself.”

  A very pretty half-lycan woman holding a pistol stepped out onto the porch. “I’m Leslie Desroches,” she said. Her hair and fur were a light brown, and her face was close to that of a normal human. Dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans, she could have almost passed as normal human if she tried hard enough.

  I lowered my pistol and tucked it back into my bag, then held out the diamonds again. “I’d like you to make something for me.”

  She nodded and lowered her own gun. “Come inside.”

  I immediately saw there was a door connecting the two sides of the duplex. The side I entered was a studio, filled with equipment for making jewelry. I assumed the other side was where the sisters lived. The gold, silver, and precious stones sitting around were reason enough for the security system and her pistol. When she closed the front door, I saw a double-barreled shotgun standing behind the door.

  But the thing that drew my eyes, and my body, was a small sculpture, maybe a foot tall, sitting on a table. A silver nude winged woman with long hair flowing out behind her leaned forward as though taking off, one foot touching a black slab that formed the base. Her eyes were star rubies, and she held a yellow diamond in one extended hand, as though making an offering. It was exquisite, beautiful, and powerful. I lusted after it the way I lusted after Wil.

  “Is it for sale?” I asked, my voice almost a whisper.

  She gave me a curious look. “Probably. It’s the prototype. I planned on casting a dozen about half that size, and they’ll be a lot cheaper.”

  I took a deep breath. “How much?”

  “For the smaller ones? Probably around fifty thousand.”

  “No, for this one.”

  It was her turn to take a deep breath. “Uh, the diamond alone—”

  “Is probably fifty thousand,” I said, cutting her off. I tore my eyes away from the statue in order to meet hers.

  “Two hundred fifty thousand,” she said.

  I nodded and turned my gaze back to the statue. “What’s the base?”

  “Black granite.” It had tiny flecks of pyrite in it, like stars.

  “I’ll take it.”

  She sucked air through her teeth and whipped her pistol back up to point at me. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m investigating the death of Joseph Morgan,” I said. “Pau Ricard said that you had dinner with him the night before he died.”

  I’m not very good at reading lycan expressions, but Leslie looked far more human than a full lycan. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t shoot me.

  “What were you discussing?” I asked.

  Leslie licked her lips with a tongue that was a lot longer than mine. She motioned slightly toward the statue. “This. I made it because, well, because I wanted to. Joe gave me some leniency in requisitioning materials as long as I accounted for them. It gives me the freedom to experiment. And if he sees some commercial value, then he orders more. Doing the smaller copies was his idea.”

  “And he gave you the diamond for her palm,” I guessed. “He wanted the original.”

  She nodded.

  “Did he give you any indication that he was concerned? That anyone was upset with him, or had threatened him?”

  Leslie shook her head. “He was just Joe, the way he always was. The only thing was, he asked me to come to his place after dinner. It’s been a couple of years since he did that.”

  “You used to be lovers.”

  “Yes. A long time ago, when I was young and naïve. But every so often, he would ask me out again, but it would only last one night.”

  “And why do you think he took you to dinner this time?”

  “I sent him a picture of the statue.”

  I took a deep breath. “If you promise not to shoot me, I would like to get a credit card out of my bag to pay you for the statue.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

  “Oh, hell yes. I’d mortgage my soul for that piece.”

  “You’re going to sell it?”

  “No, I’m going to put it in a display case in my living room, so I can sit around and drool at it on a regular basis.”

  She lowered her pistol, and I pulled out the card. I keyed a quarter of a million credits and handed it to her. She pressed it to her phone, and her eyes got even wider. The pistol fell to her side.

  “It’s not completely finished,” she said. “I still need to finish polishing the base. And I have a display case I bought for it.” She led me across the room to a large bell jar. “I’ll throw that in, of course. Can you come back for it the day after tomorrow?”

  “Sure, that will work. Now that Morgan’s gone, will you still make jewelry for his company?”

  Leslie shrugged. “I don’t know. I always dealt directly with Joe. I guess I need to find out who to talk to there.”

  I handed her my business card. “I have contacts at several museums and galleries, also with some jewelry connoisseurs. If I can help, let me know.”

  As I walked out of her house, I realized that I was still wearing the lycan persona. I had given her my real card, though. That could get interesting.

  Chapter 9

  Chamber operatives in Quebec City found Michael Morgan’s apartment. The neighbor said Michael was in Europe. Since Sonia had seen the news while in Europe, we figured that Michael was either ignoring the news,
or he was so far off the grid that electricity hadn’t been invented where he was.

  “Any evidence he’s religious or into meditation or drugs?” I asked. Wil and I were eating breakfast in the sitting room of Nellie’s suite.

  “Nope,” Wil said. “Why?”

  “He could be in a monastery or an ashram, or something like that.”

  “Or in bed with the love of his life,” Nellie said as she came into the sitting room wrapping a towel around her wet hair. She sat down at the table with us and poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “If it was me,” she said, “I might stay away until all the craziness died down just to spare my sanity.”

  “But, unless he knows about Sonia,” Wil said, “he stands to inherit billions.”

  “Not everyone wants that,” Nellie said. “From what Libby told me from her research, Michael Morgan walked away from it all when their father died. What makes you think he’s changed his mind?”

  “Or, he could be lying low until Joseph’s killer is found,” I said. “Since we don’t know why he was killed, Michael could be painting a target on himself if he shows up.”

  Wil nodded. “Makes as much sense as anything does about this crazy case. Let’s go talk to Savatier again. With what that hooker told you, we might be able to get a little more information from him.”

  So, we headed off to Savatier’s office. Nellie tagged along, not to interview Morgan’s friend, but to go out to lunch with us afterward. We left her in the car with her tablet while Wil and I went inside.

  Showing up unannounced made it difficult for someone to avoid us, but also created problems when the person we were looking for was in a meeting.

  “Monsieur Savatier,” Wil said in Quebecois once we finally got into his office, “we have some more questions. On the night Monsieur Morgan was killed, you gave us the impression that the two of you were out fairly late. But you left the Safari Club about seven-thirty. We also understand that Morgan received a call and left your place around ten.”

  Savatier looked a little confused, then said, “That sounds about right.”

  “Morgan received a phone call, then left in a hurry?”

  The confusion changed to distinct discomfort as Savatier realized we had found the hookers. “Uh, yes?”

  “Do you know who the call was from?”

  “No, he didn’t say.”

  “Come now,” Wil said, “you were all fairly intimately engaged, and he just stopped to take a phone call at that time of night? You didn’t overhear anything? Monsieur, please do not stretch our credulity any further. We know you couldn’t have killed him, but your reluctance to be honest with us could be interpreted as covering something up.”

  Savatier looked out the window for a minute, then with a sigh said, “Joe looked at his phone and cursed. Then he answered it and said, ‘What in the hell do you want?’ Then he got up and moved to the other side of the room. I couldn’t hear much, but I did hear him say, ‘I’ll be damned if I’ll pay you anything.’ A couple of minutes later, he said, ‘Meet me at my place in half an hour.’ Then he hung up and said he had to go.”

  “And that was it? No explanation?”

  “I asked if it was business, and he said no, it was youthful stupidity that should have been corrected a long time ago.”

  “How did you interpret that? You’ve been friends for more than two decades.”

  “The only thing I could think of was Sonia. Joseph had a short marriage, but that’s been over for more than twenty years.”

  “I see,” Wil said. “Did you ever meet this Sonia?”

  “No, I never did. Joe said it was a drunken mistake, but he got it annulled, or maybe he had to get a divorce. In any case, he said he paid her to go away.”

  “It sounds as though he didn’t carry through,” I said. “If he didn’t correct it a long time ago, maybe he was still married.”

  Savatier shook his head. “Oh, come now. He’s been engaged three times since then. He couldn’t do that if he was still married.”

  “Or he used it to get what he wanted from those women, never planning to carry through,” I said. “Do you know a woman named Leslie Desroches? Or maybe Eileen?”

  He sort of jumped, startled at one or both of the names. “Uh, yes. I believe one of them was an employee of his. I don’t really remember which one.”

  The way I framed the question, I could have been asking about one woman who went by two different names. He knew they were two different women, which meant he was lying. I found myself regretting that I hadn’t met Eileen.

  After we left Savatier, we recovered Nellie and the car, and went to lunch at a local chain restaurant overlooking the river. When we walked in, both Wil and Nellie shot me a glance, and I could tell they were wondering why I chose the place. I couldn’t really tell them I was researching a commission for a murder.

  The menu didn’t have a word about the food’s quality or safety, which was usually a signal that I was better off not asking. It was relatively cheap, and I had plenty of time to use my tablet to research Morgan’s three aborted engagements while we waited for our food.

  “The first one was to the daughter of a jewelry store owner in Toronto,” I told my companions as we ate. The food was depressingly average. “Her daddy was getting ready to retire and gave Morgan very good terms to buy out his three stores. When the deal was finalized, Morgan cancelled the engagement on the grounds that she was cheating on him. Guess who the guy was she supposedly banged?”

  Nellie laughed. “With a setup line like that? It wouldn’t happen to be Jacques Savatier, would it?”

  “You’re so smart,” I said with a smile.

  “One more possible suspect,” Wil said. “What about the other two?”

  “A nightclub owner paid Morgan to leave his daughter alone and go away. She was only sixteen. And then there was the owner of a lapidary shop in Sierra Leone, a French woman. Somehow, he got her to sign the business over to him before the wedding. I couldn’t find any record of money paid to her, but I also can’t find any record of her bitching about it. She died the following year. I’m betting that lapidary shop is the one producing the off-the-record diamonds he had in his safe.”

  Wil dropped us back at the Queen Elizabeth, and Nellie took a nap to prepare for her performance that evening.

  Following a hunch, I logged on to my computer in Toronto and set up a number of searches on Eileen Desroches. Her bank info and travel history came back almost immediately. Her trips to Sierra Leone corresponded exactly with twenty-thousand credit deposits to her account. The trips had been going on for years. Other large deposits showed up occasionally as well. I called the number Ricard had given us for her.

  “This is Eileen. How may I help you?” The voice was smoky and sensual, not at all like Leslie’s quiet but brisk voice, though both had the same near-lisp. In full lycans, the ability to enunciate correctly was even more compromised.

  I deepened my voice and said, “Pau gave me your number. Are you free tonight?”

  “I might be. What do you have in mind?”

  “Meet me at Le Sommet. Dinner, dancing, and perhaps something later.”

  “I assume Pau told you that I charge my time at two hundred an hour?”

  “Oh, yes, but he said you’re worth it.”

  She chuckled. “He’s always thought so. Eight o’clock?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Send me a picture,” she said.

  I sent her a picture of Wil.

  “I look forward to it,” she purred, and then hung up.

  From our table at the edge of the mezzanine, we watched Nellie take the stage for her first set at eight o’clock. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eileen walk in the front door as the band played their intro. She stopped inside the club and watched the stage, as did everyone else in the place. Nellie strutted out on the stage singing the first line of “You’re no Good.” When she finished, she launched immediately into “Cheating Blues.”


  After the second song finished, the audience was on their feet, clapping and cheering.

  “Over there,” I told Wil, directing his attention to Eileen, who was looking around trying to spot Wil. She looked enough like Leslie that I felt confident in my identifications. Half-lycan, with reddish-brown hair, younger and even prettier than Leslie. There were few mutants in the club, so she stood out, at least to me.

  Eileen was dressed in a yellow low-cut, long-sleeved blouse and red harem pants, her hair framing her face and hanging loose over her shoulders. Unless one looked closely, her lycan heritage wasn’t immediately apparent.

  “How do you want to play this?” Wil asked.

  I had been asking myself that question. I wasn’t entirely sure why I wanted to talk to her, or how she might be involved.

  “We’ll need to pay her for an hour of her time,” I said with a smile. “We got her here under false pretenses, so that’s only fair. I’ll go down there and send her up here to you. I’ll follow her to keep her from bolting once she figures out you’re only going to pay her two hundred credits for a single hour.”

  “How much?” His voice sounded a little shrill. I would have thought a corporate executive at his level would know how much a high-class call girl charged.

  “Hell, that’s a discounted rate. My mom’s girls are far more expensive.” I grinned and winked at him, then made my way down the stairs. Approaching her, I pointed to Wil and asked, “Are you looking for that man up there?”

  Eileen looked up and smiled. I saw her eyes dilate slightly. Then she looked back to me. “Who are you?”

  “A friend.”

  She nodded and started across the bar to the stairs. I waited until she was ten feet away before I followed. Mezzanine seats were more expensive, so a bouncer stopped her at the bottom and asked for her pass.

  I caught up and showed him mine. “She’s with me,” I said, taking her arm and pulling her past him. I let go of her at the top of the stairs and watched as she walked over to Wil’s table and sat down.