Chapter 1

 

More than fifty carats of diamonds, twenty-eight of emeralds—the stones sparkled with a brilliance Penelope Fitzpatrick had forgotten. She held the necklace with both hands, once again taken with its beauty. Strands of platinum formed a winding ribbon studded with diamonds, the ribbon looping into five simple bows with an oval-cut emerald at the knot of each. When worn, two of the bows touched collarbones, while the other three tracked enticingly downward toward cleavage. Before Penelope, her mother had occasionally worn the necklace—the masterpiece design flattered any woman who put it on.

“Safe and sound,” said the private investigator.

“Yes.” She finally raised her eyes to look at the man. It was the first time she’d noticed touches of gray in his hair. “Thank you. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am.” Dick Stone accepted the check she handed him, beamed a most sincere smile and turned to leave.

Penelope walked him to her carved front door and watched him cross the flagstone veranda to his late-model sedan. Even for Scottsdale, her spacious, mountainside home was a showpiece with its tiled roundabout and winding drive. She watched the car begin its descent to the valley below.

Already, the April day had begun to warm into the eighties. How lucky she’d been to find this special property, perched on the side of Camelback Mountain, with sweeping views of the city and yet far above the fray of freeway traffic, noise and heat generated by the millions of people below in the Valley of the Sun. And how extremely lucky that the advance for her last three books had afforded her this luxury. She stepped back into the cool foyer with its travertine floors and the thick walls which protected her insular little world.

She picked up the necklace and ran her fingers along the ribbon of diamonds, coming to the clasp and unclipping it with more difficulty than she remembered. The arthritis was minor, only an unwanted reminder of her age. And, really—wasn’t seventy the new forty? She refastened the clasp behind her neck, stepping in front of the mirror above her hall table.

Spreading the collar of her green silk blouse, she made a couple of minor adjustments and smiled at her own reflection. An image of her father’s face came to her, stern and commanding. He had admonished her to take great care with the few remaining pieces from her grandfather, one of several jewelers to the last tsar of Russia. She sighed. How close she had come to losing this, the most elegant of all.