Page 70 of The Expat Affair

I scramble up the bed, moving as far away as possible. Barry had quite the collection once upon a time. I know what that gun can do.

“How are there so many guns in this country?”

Lars sighs. “I’m losing patience, Rayna, so I’m going to need you to listen very carefully. I want the necklace. I want the diamonds that were in Xander’s safe. Tell me where you hid them.”

“Nowhere! The last time I saw the necklace, it was in the nightstand drawer, and I didn’t even know he had a safe, not until I dreamed about walking into his study—”

Lightning fast, he whips the covers off my legs and whacks me hard on the shin with the barrel of the gun. I squeal, the pain exploding up my leg. “So you knew the safe was in his study.”

“Yes, but from the detective.” I try to focus on his face and not the gun in his hand, the barrel pointed once again at my head. “Not from Xander. Not because he showed me.”

“What about your roommate?”

“Ingrid?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, Ingrid.”

“What about her?”

“Did you give the diamonds to her to sell? Tell me the truth. It’s the only way you get out of this alive.”

“I didn’t give her anything. Ingrid works in an antique shop. She restores antique mirrors for a living. I don’t understand any of this.”

“Ingrid worked with Xander. She was one of his handlers.”

“Handlers?”

Lars sighs, clearly irritated. “Of diamonds. Keep up. Ingrid sells diamonds on the black market. That’s how they get the stones across borders, by hiding them in the mirrors.”

I push up onto an elbow, my gaze wandering to the open doorway, the light from the living room creeping down the hall. I have no idea what time it is or if she’s even home, but if this is true, if Ingrid worked with Xander to move his diamonds, those trackers Lars claimed not to know about are suddenly making a lot of sense.

“Where is she? I want to talk to her.”

“Ingrid is a little tied up right now.”

Tied up selling stolen diamonds. Does she know that Xander’s diamonds are lab-growns? That they’re worth only a tenth of the real thing? Does Lars? If not, it seems unwise to point this out.

I fall back to the bed and stare up at the window high on the wall, the thoughts gathering around my brain like that crowd of reporters down on the street. Ingrid worked for Xander, which means that first day when Xander swiped right, when Ingrid looked over my shoulder and said if I didn’t want him then she did, she was lying. The morning after his murder when she wondered if the killer might also be a diamond thief, she was lying. All those times Ingrid pretended not to know Xander. She’s been lying to me the whole time.

And then I think of another thing Ingrid said.

That necklace couldn’t have been the only piece Xander had lying around. Did the killer get more?

That was Ingrid feeling me out, trying to figure out how much I knew, how much Isawthat night in his penthouse. When I told her nothing—I knew nothing, I saw nothing—she shrugged it off, acted like she believed me.Money is a big motivator, she said to me that day, when all along, she was motivated by diamonds.

New questions roll in like the rumblings of a thunderstorm. Did Ingrid know what was going to happen that night? That someone would sneak into Xander’s apartment and murder him for his diamonds? Ingrid told me to watch my back—why? Not out of genuine concern. What is my role in all of this?

“I’m... I’m a nobody. I write travel articles for online magazines. Xander was just some guy I met on Tinder.”

As I say the words, I realize they’re not true. Xander swiped first. He initiated contact, something Detective Boomsma questioned me about under the weeping willow at the funeral. He asked if Xander had any reason to seek me out, if our work crossed paths, or if we knew some people in common—which as it turns out, we do.

Ingrid.

Lars is still watching, still pointing the gun at my chest.

“Was it you? Did you kill Xander?”

“Now is not the time for questions, Rayna. Now is the time to tell me the truth. That night at Xander’s penthouse. Did he give you anything? Did he mention any names?” Deep in a pocket, his phone begins to buzz, but he ignores it. His gaze sticks to mine.

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