Page 23 of The Devil She Knows
Maybe, on second thought, they’d sell the food and give the money to those in need.
“Black watermelon!” Felix called out from several rows over.
“Too heavy! And what did I say about priorities?” Melissa hollered back. “We’re looking for white Alba truffles and red swiftlet nests. They’re lightweight and they fetch a pretty penny.”
Javier popped out from around a shelf up ahead, a tiny jar of what looked like saffron dwarfed in his hands. “How pretty a penny are we talkin’?”
“Fifteen a kilo for the truffles,” Melissa said, sweeping a whole shelf’s worth of Iranian pistachios into her duffel. “Seven for the swiftlet nests.”
Javier whistled and ducked out of sight.
“Fifteen bucks for two pounds of mushrooms?” They’d be better off filling up on kopi luwak, and that was a thought Sam would’ve never imagined she’d have.
Melissa shot her a look she couldn’t begin to parse. “Thousand, Sam.”
The bag in her hands burst, spewing coffee beans everywhere.
Ho-lyshit.
She released her strangling grip on the now half-empty bag and tossed it aside.
Fifteen thousand dollars. Sam looked at the duffel bag ather feet. She could fit alotof mushrooms in that bag, but that begged the question—what were they going to do with them? Sell them, clearly, but where? And to whom? Who was buying thousands of dollars’ worth of—
“Jackpot!” Emma shouted. “I found the swiftlet nests, but I also found—” They dragged their duffel along the floor, stopping beside Melissa and throwing the zippered flap aside. Dozens of gold tins gleamed beneath the glow of the fluorescent light. “This. Almas golden beluga caviar from the Southern Caspian Sea.”
“Oh shit.” Felix let the watermelon he was holding fall to the ground, where it landed with a dull splat. “Do you know what that stuff’s worth?”
Coffee beans crunched beneath Oslo’s boots as he crossed the room, stopping to kneel beside the open duffel for a closer look. “How much?”
“Depends on the packaging,” Emma said, arms crossed and hip cocked, a smug smile tugging at the left corner of their lips. “That tin you’re holding? Made of twenty-four-karat gold.”
Oslo looked up. “How much?” he repeated.
“Almas golden beluga caviar, obtained from an albino Iranian beluga in the southern Caspian Sea. Packaged in pure gold of 995 assay value,” Emma recited, smile growing broader and brighter as they spoke. “Thirty-five thousand dollars per kilo.”
Sam pressed a shaky hand to her stomach and tried to control her breathing.
Thirty-five thousand dollars for scarcely more than two pounds of caviar. Emma had filled the duffel bag to bursting,easily thirty or forty cans straining the nylon, fifty grams apiece. That was atleastfifty grand in fish eggs right there.
Felix stepped over the puddle of sticky watermelon juice forming around the busted fruit and joined his brother. “Well, what are we all standing around for? Let’s fill ’em up and get the hell out of here.”
“Wait.” Melissa held up a hand. “We need to be smart about this.”
Felix groaned. “God love ya, Mel, but if you’re about to tell us to remember our priorities—”
“She’s right,” Oslo said, standing. “Nobody bats an eye when a few swiftlet nests hit the market, but these?” He tapped the side of the can he held with his index finger. “They track this shit.”
Felix frowned. “What do you mean they track it? Like with GPS?”
“No way,” Javier exclaimed. “Each can?”
“Oslo’s right.” Sam shifted uneasily as all eyes fell on her. “Beluga sturgeons are an endangered species. There are all these international rules about harvesting and production that have to be adhered to, including how they’re labeled for sale.” She nodded to the can in Oslo’s hand. “That label has all sorts of information on it, everything from year of harvest to the registration code of the processing plant to the lot identification number of the caviar.”
“Okay, boss.” Javier clapped. “Look at you coming in clutch with the big brain.”
It was less her big brain and more her penchant for bingewatching old episodes ofGood Eatson Food Network, but sure, they could stick with that.
Emma bent down and grabbed a gold tin from the duffel, turning it over in their hands and studying the label affixed to the top. “So what you’re saying is every tin is basically traceable to the fish that went inside it.”
