Page 10 of The Diamond Thief
5
Jacob
My first indication that something might be amiss is when I roll over for a morning round with Jade and discover she isn’t there. Her side of the bed is cool, so she hasn’t lain beside me for a while.
I sit up and listen. The apartment is silent. No telltale water running, or footsteps, or the small sounds of someone freshening up.
I stand up and glance around for my clothes, then remember they are out on the balcony. I grab a pair of workout shorts from a drawer and head into the bathroom.
It’s chilly and silent. I touch the basin of the sink. Dry. I check the toilet seat, both parts up. Unless she put it back where I left it, that particular trick of mine to know when a woman has been wandering around remains unchanged.
I pad through the apartment on silent feet. I’m not sure why my senses are on alert, but they are. Something about her was too perfect. Too good a match.
Our whiskey glasses remain on the edge of the bar. I check the balcony. My clothes are piled as they were the night before. Hers are gone.
I walk back through the living room. Nothing seems amiss. Sylvester’s girls are not usually the type to give up another bonus. His standard contract allows an extra payment for a breakfast round of sex.
I pause, listening. All is quiet. The apartments on this floor are well insulated. It’s rare that sound leaks into my home from another. Only the occasional bump from above ever reminds me that I live between other humans.
An unexpected glare of glass catches my eye. Something is out of place. I walk to the wall.
It’s a case that holds the tiara. The door is open.
The tiara is gone.
Anger floods through me. That thieving bitch.
I close the glass door, the gentle beep assuring me the alarm system worked as expected.
But she defeated it.
In my own home.
One of Sylvester’s girls. I’ve trusted him to provide me top-notch women.
My rage builds.
It’s not the loss. I can handle that. The Scandinavian piece was not my favorite tiara, but it was lovely, and I felt it worked perfectly in my living room. Jade must have decided from the moment she looked at it that she was going to steal it.
But she had to be good. The tiara appeared to be in a simple glass case. But it wasn’t. The case is protected with motion sensing devices. She should have triggered an alarm.
She knows her way around security. My blood chills as I realize I bedded a woman who works in my trade.
Either that or she was a distraction for someone who knew that I would be busy elsewhere as they entered my apartment and took the crown.
That seems unlikely, though. My front door is well fortified. You can’t come in with a key or a code or any other method without setting off an alarm in my master suite.
The balcony is also protected. It would take a death wish to attempt to climb from any of the others to jump to mine.
Even so I do not leave that to chance. No matter how distracted I might get, every door and window to this apartment automatically locks and the alarm resets once the sensors determine that no one is outside.
It’s not possible for me to forget. It works on its own.
No, the thief was already inside my apartment when the tiara was stolen.
Jade.
If that’s her name. I highly doubt it.
