Twenty

Can you at least send me the first few chapters of the book?” Natalie asked over the phone as Den, Kate, and I set up Den’s laptop and a printer.

“Justine never would have sent them to you until she was further into the book,” I told her. “You’re asking me to do something she would not have liked.”

“Right,” Natalie said and paused. “But I need pages to show the publisher that you’re working on it. It’s extenuating circumstances.”

Justine hated the practice of sending the first few chapters along while the book was still in progress. So many times things changed. And then she’d have too many versions, which became confusing for her. But Natalie was right. The situation was odd. Justine had written the first half of the book. I’d yet to go over it. But delivering the first couple chapters couldn’t hurt. It would get Natalie off my case for a while.

“Okay, since I’ve just gotten my laptop back, I can send you the first few chapters,” I said, glad Justine had emailed me her latest version of the manuscript. “Justine wrote them, of course, and I’ve yet to fact-check or proofread them.”

“Oh, that’s fine. I just need to see words on the page.”

Den sat at the kitchen table, with Kate on one side of him and me on the other. “I don’t understand the techno speak and all that,” he said, “but here’s the gist. The cybercrimes unit loves having the computer, because before, they’d just copied all the files onto a jump drive. But until they got their hands on the computer, they didn’t see the other stuff.”

“Other stuff ? What do you mean?”

“Well, they say nothing is ever deleted. I guess it’s not, and Justine had a lot of trashed files. Most of it was trash; you know, spam emails. But the unit was able to recover some very interesting emails she’d deleted.” His lean fingers clicked over his keyboard. “I’m going to print these out to make notes on actual paper. I’m hoping you’ll recognize some of these folks and we can find something. I don’t know … a pattern. Maybe you can help make sense of all this.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

As the printer spit out the paper, Kate cleared her throat. “Can I get you coffee? Water?”

“I’d love some coffee,” he said. “Thank you.” His attention turned back to me, his chin angled up. “We need to talk about that ring.”

“Ring? Jean Harlow’s sapphire ring?”

He nodded. “It seems like a lot of the emails are about a valuable star sapphire ring.”

Adrenaline zoomed up my spine. “Like I told you at Charley’s, that ring was lost years ago. Most people assume she was buried with it.”

“Evidently it’s resurfaced, and your boss did know something about it.”

“What?” My heart thrummed. So Chad Walters was correct? “No way,” I said out loud. “Justine would have told me. We discussed the ring. We talked to someone who knew her jeweler. We interviewed a sapphire specialist who said it really wasn’t worth anything as far as gems go.”

Den shrugged. The printer spit out emails. He stood and sorted through the papers. “Sometimes people surprise you. Maybe she learned more than what you think and she never got a chance to tell you.”

Kate walked back into the room with a cup of coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”

“No thanks, Kate,” he said.

“So this Chad Walters might be on to something?”

“I don’t know,” Den said. “Let’s not rule it out. There are several lines of inquiry here. The ring is just one of them. I looked into Chad Walters,” he went on. “Let’s just say he’s not a person you want to mess with.” He handed me a file.

I read through it while he splayed papers out on the table.

“Rape charges? Murder charges?” I gasped as I read over the information. My heart thudded as I considered my grandmother. A man like that wouldn’t think twice about killing someone.

“Yeah, he got out of those, barely. Hired a kick-ass expensive lawyer both times,” Den said. “But look at these newspaper clippings.”

There was an article about the underground Hollywood collector group called Hollywood Cartel Collections. Chad Walters’ name popped up in the story as a source, not as a member. Another passage mentioned Chad and his art collection—most of which was illegal. He’d been busted twice for owning illegal antiquities.

“Jesus,” I said.

“Yeah,” Den said. “No wonder he said money’s no object. He’s like something out of a movie. I didn’t know guys like this actually exist.”

I set the file down and looked at the papers on the table.

“I’ve taken the liberty of choosing the emails I found most relevant. If you want to examine them later to see if anything else jumps out at you, that’s fine. But to start, check these out.”

I hovered over the papers and picked up the first one. My hands slightly trembled.

“J.

If such a ring were to exist, the bidding would open at 1.7 million.

So, my offer of 2 million is more than generous.

C.W.”

Chad Walters.

He’d been telling the truth. He had been in contact with her.

“Dear C.W.

I told you once before that I don’t know anything about the whereabouts of the ring.

J.”

“Okay,” I said. “Walters contacted her, and she claimed she knew nothing about it.” My stomach settled. Thinking of Justine keeping such a huge secret from me rankled me.

Then:

“J.

My sources say you have the ring. They are never wrong.

C.W.”

“C.W.

Screw your sources. You are wasting my time. Bugger off.

J.”

I smiled. Justine.

“J.

Make no mistake, Justine, I’m not going anywhere. And will do anything for that ring.

C.W.”

“Sounds like him, “ I muttered. “He’s a serious collector.”

“Here’s more,” Den said, handing me a few other emails from Hollywood collectors. Some of them I recognized. Some were more threatening than others.

Gregory Horvath, a member of Hollywood Cartel Collections, that mysterious group of Hollywood types seeking authentic memorabilia, was a bit threatening in his notes as well. He too assumed Justine possessed the ring. Why?

“He’s one of the people who was on my list, remember?” I said to Den.

He nodded. “But he has a solid alibi. His mother passed away and he was at her funeral.”

I crossed Horvath off my list of possible killers.

“So all of these people believed she had the ring?” I said.

“And where there’s smoke there’s fire,” Den said.

I took him in. The tilting of his chin, the crooked pursing of his lips, the knowing look in his eyes. “You think she hid the ring somewhere.”

Kate harrumphed. “I’d not put it past her, Charlotte.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I was trying to tamp down the feeling of betrayal. “Justine told me everything. I’m the only person she trusted to clean her house. I’m her assistant. Um. Was.”

I mentally sorted through the weirdness of the circumstances of Justine’s death and all that had happened afterward. All the people contacting me. But only one had approached me about the ring, even though several collectors had connected with Justine.

“If she had the ring and didn’t tell you, she may have been trying to protect you,” Den said.

A cool breeze brushed across my skin. I shivered. A soft and powdery scent tickled my nose. Was it a real whiff, or a memory?

Was it Cotillion, or just a smell reminding me of it? Was Kate wearing something similar? Was Den?

“I’m not sure I accept any of it,” Kate popped off. “If I had a jewel like that, one the love of my life gave me, I’d be buried in it.”

“But she didn’t have any say about her burial,” I found myself saying. “That would have been left to her mother.”

Mulling over the horrible last days of Harlow’s life, I recalled she was swollen to at least twice her size. If she’d had the ring on her finger when she was sick, it would have had to come off at some point. Otherwise it would have dug into her finger. So maybe she wasn’t buried in it. Perhaps either her mom or someone at the hospital took the ring.

Pure conjecture.

“There’s no way of knowing if she’s buried with it unless we have her body exhumed,” I said.

Den guffawed. “You wouldn’t believe the paperwork. Two states. And Hollywood? Jesus. What a field day. Exhumation is the last resort. Trust me.”

I sat down on a kitchen chair. Still chilled. Could it be Justine knew something about this ring? That she was killed because of it?

“I don’t know where Justine was the last few weeks of her life,” I said, more to myself than to Den or Kate. “It was obvious she hadn’t been living in her apartment for a while. Was she hiding? She wasn’t easily frightened. I can’t imagine her hiding from someone. But then again, she really wasn’t herself. She was more on edge.” I drew in a breath. “But I knew Justine. Maybe better than anybody else. She wasn’t interested in money—not so much that she’d be running for her life. She was well off. Old money. She had quite enough. If she did have the ring and was keeping it a secret, there was good reason for it. And it had nothing to do with money. So these collectors were barking up the wrong tree.”

A look of respect came over Den’s face. Or newfound admiration. He liked the way I thought, which was a whole new experience for me. Most men didn’t appreciate it when I used my mind.

“Okay,” he said. “But listen. The ring and all that goes with it is just one possibility.”

“What? What else can there be?”

“That’s what I’m hoping you can help me with.”

He handed me more printed-out emails. My hands trembled as the papers slid into them.

“More?” My voice was a throaty whisper.