Death by Diamond by Jenny Andersen

Author:Jenny Andersen [Andersen, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jenny Andersen
Published: 2021-05-11T22:00:00+00:00

14

The next day, Emma woke with a driving need to get to the bottom of the failed diamond theft. If one of Zhahd’s boyfriends had come up with the idea, Emma wanted to know who he was. Heaven only knew how many lovers her sister had, but now that Emma knew of two of them, she had a place to start. She’d go into the office early to justify taking off an hour to talk to Kai Fordyce and his assistant, Joe.

“Yo, Emma,” Kai said when she walked in the door of his studio just before lunchtime. “Wazzup? You lose any more diamonds lately?”

“Haha. That’s so very funny, Kai. No. I wanted to ask you a few questions about that, though.”

“Sure. I’ve got half an hour between clients here, so it’s good timing. Have a seat.” He went to a refrigerator in one corner of the room. “Want something to drink?”

She shook her head. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

“So ask away.” He pulled up a chair next to her and sat, radiating attentive innocence.

“For starters, now that you’ve had a chance to think about it, how do you think that almost-theft was staged?”

“Emmy, baby, what makes you think I’ve spent any of my valuable time thinking about that? Maybe if whoever did it had been successful, sure. But I don’t spend time on losers.”

And here she’d thought he was nice. She forced a small, insincere smile. “Even though it wasn’t a success, I’m interested in where you got all the glass fakes. Do you have a supplier for stuff like that? Or did Reg get them for you?”

“Nah. There’s a bunch of places that can round up whatever a photographer needs for a shoot. No big deal. I just called one of them and voila.” He snapped his fingers. “I just rented them for a couple of days.”

“I suppose Joe returned them. Where is Joe, by the way?”

Kai scowled. “Joe. Touchy question. I fired him.”

“Why?” For sleeping with Zhahd?

“He’s was just getting too weird.”

“What does that mean?”

Kai shrugged. “Talking back. Not following orders. Caught him with a client’s purse. He said he was moving it out of the way, but… Well, I think he needed some money. He might have started stealing from me, and I can’t have people working here if I can’t trust them. A lotta expensive equipment, you know.”

“Why would he need money? I’m sure you paid him well enough.”

“Yeah, I did. But you never know what kind of debts a man runs up.”

Like gambling markers? Emma caught a brief flash of something in his expression. Worry? Guilt? “And what kind of debts do you run up that no one knows about?”

“None,” Kai snapped.

That quickly suppressed expression gave her a place to push. “Is your studio really as successful as it seems?”

He stood and paced across the room. “I need to get ready for my next client.”

Her question had clearly hit a nerve, but she could tell she wasn’t going to get anything more from him. “Thanks for making time to talk to me, Kai.

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