Page 73 of Pulled By the Tail
A cough at the door interrupted them. Georgia had a tablet cradled against her chest. “Have you called the police?”
“No police,” Talen and Quil said simultaneously.
“They could post a bulletin and stop her from leaving the planet.”
“No,” Quil said, slouching in a chair. “She is my mate with full access to our shared bank accounts and family heirlooms. The police will only consider this a nuisance and not theft.”
Georgia shook her head. “Fine. A single human female isn’t too difficult to track. A shuttle left Drac two hours ago for the province's capital. She was on it. Any clue where she would be headed?”
“To spend money,” Quil grumbled. Then his body snapped to attention. “I know where she would go. If I find her, I may be able to recover some of our funds. She would sell the music box, so you should look in pawn shops,” he told Talen.
If she transferred the funds to an anonymous credit account instead of spending every cent, they weren’t ruined. Talen cared less about their possible ruin than the recovery of the jeweled music box. An item like that would be difficult to fence, even knowing its history. Few pawn shops could offer anything close to the music box’s true value. Feeling out collectors would be better, but Fiona needed credit fast. She might be desperate enough to accept a pittance.
“Agreed,” Talen said.
Chapter 17
Georgia
The first thing Georgia noticed was the rare peek of winter sun glimmering on the river. The second thing was bridges, so many bridges. The provincial capital was a rusting industrial town seated at the merger of two large rivers.
They drove past shuttered factories and closed mills.
“What happened?” Economic depression could happen anywhere, which made it a ridiculous question in her mind, but the whole section of the city had such an air of abandonment to it that she had to know the culprit.
“It’s the labor shortage. It’s easier to ship raw material off-planet than process,” Talen answered.
“But that makes everything more expensive in the long run.” Listen to her, like she was an expert on economics. Georgia rolled her eyes at her own damn self.
“Yes, and modern factories use robotics. They’re more efficient than those old heaps.”
“And we’re here in the shadows of these old heaps why?”
He grinned at her turn of phrase. “Because this is exactly the type of neighborhood you could hock a priceless work of art and avoid too many questions.”
“What if she sold it to a collector, like you said?”
“Then the sale was arranged ahead of time. We’d have no chance.”
“Right.” The music box would go into a private collection, never to be seen again. “What makes the music box so special? Besides the obvious gems.”
“Ever heard of the jeweler Adoration? No? Adoration was a goldsmith, jeweler, and designer on Talmar. Very famous. Created intricate pieces, each one a masterpiece,” he said.
“And the music box was made by Adoration? Seriously? You kept it in a glass display case.”
“It was locked.”
“Which was circumvented by smashing the glass,” she retorted. He kept a priceless artifact out on a shelf like a trinket. Honestly.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me I should have locked it away? A security deposit box, perhaps?”
“Yes! Since you say it’s a unique, one-of-a-kind piece of art, then yes.”
The car pulled off the road and came to a stop in a parking lot. A squat building, covered in faded and peeling paint, had a light flickering in a window. Georgia recognized the characters meaning “open.”
He turned off the engine and turned to face her. “My father commissioned it for my mother. It was meant to be seen and heard. If I locked it away, then it’d be like locking them away.” The meaning was clear in the tone of his voice. He loved that gilded music box, not for its monetary value or famous maker, but for pure sentimentality.
“You’re such a marshmallow,” she said.
