Tinsel In A Tangle

He walked over and sat in the lizard’s chair. His knees hit the underside of the desk. He sat low in the chair and steepled his fingers like he’d seen Leonard do so many times.

“Okay, if I were Leonard hiding the necklace, where would I put it?”

He looked down at the bottom drawer which was really a steel-walled safe. “If it were there, I’d have it nearby all the time. I could open the drawer and look at it any time I wanted. But I don’t really like the diamond. I just like the fact that I won. That I have it and my cousin doesn’t. The beauty of the stone is lost on me. Plus I’m pissed that the sale I planned fell through after the debacle at the museum.”

It wouldn’t be in the desk safe.

“But I would want to see it sometimes. And because it’s so hard for me to bend down over my potbelly, I probably wouldn’t put it in the floor safe. Every time I need something out of there, I’d have to get someone to do it for me. And while I would love to have Jake do my bidding, and have to see the diamond and know he lost, he doesn’t work for me anymore.”

Not in the floor safe.

Which left behind the painting of Gretchen Staffordshire.

Jake stood and crossed to the painting. It had been done when she was still relatively young, before she’d lost both of her children and had to take on two youngsters. There was a sparkle in her eyes that hadn’t been there as she aged. She was probably in her late forties in the painting. Her hair had already turned silver, because Gretchen Staffordshire’s hair wouldn’t dare turn grey. She was wearing the diamond attached to the tiara. Staring at the painting, he couldn’t help but see Ana in twenty years. God, he hoped what he was about to do would bring that same sparkle to her eyes.

Jake reached for the latch on the frame and pulled it open like a door. He’d retrieved things from the floor safe and the desk safe more times than he could count over the years, but this was Leonard’s private safe.

Still, Leonard was a creature of habit and Jake didn’t think it’d take too much out of him to open the safe. Jake would have suggested something much more secure if he’d actually cared about Leonard. Something with changing passwords and multiple levels of security, like the one he had at his own place, or his former place.

But with Leonard, he often went with the KISS method—keep it simple and stupid.

It was a four-digit code and from the smudges on the keypad, Jake knew one of the digits repeated. This should be a piece of cake. 5-2-1.

Gretchen Staffordshire’s birthday had been December 15. Could it really be that simple?

Jake entered the code 1-2-1-5. The door safe whirred and clicked open.

“Thank you for being predictable,” Jake muttered.

The safe door swung open and there was a small purple velvet bag sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty safe. He reached in and opened the bag.

Even though he was prepared for what he was going to see, the beauty of the necklace, of the stone, took his breath away. He was just about to close the safe when he noticed one other thing in there. A small white envelope. If it was important to Leonard, Jake wanted to know what it was. He pocketed the envelope along with the necklace. He closed the safe and put the painting back into position.

“Always nice to see you, Gretchen,” he said.

This time when he ran down the stairs, he stepped where the motion sensor lights would see him. He wanted the lights to be blazing when Leonard got home. He slipped out of the house undetected. He walked to the nearest cross street, where the opera had just gotten out, and got lost in a sea of New Yorkers.

* * *

Four weeks.

It had been four weeks since she’d left New York behind. Island life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Sure, every day was as beautiful as the one before. It was hard to complain when every day was eighty degrees and sunny. The evenings brought cooler temperatures with refreshing breezes. It’d be perfect if she had someone to share it with. As it was, Jake’s socks and suit jacket were all she had to keep her company. She’d had to wash the socks, and the jacket barely held any last trace of his scent.

The few hours she’d spent with Jake in the museum had been some of the best in her life. She’d never considered herself a sexual person, though tabloids would disagree. With Jake, she’d learned so much about herself. His words, his forbidden touch, had awakened things she’d never known existed. Unfortunately, her vibrator was a poor substitute for Jake’s raw power, and to say she was unfulfilled was an understatement.

The first few days after she left, Ana had scoured the internet for any news of Jake. She’d been horrified to see pictures of him in handcuffs being led out of the museum. How she managed to avoid being photographed while leaving, she’d never know. She hadn’t even seen any paparazzi and usually she was very attuned to them.

After those pictures, there had been nothing.

No news on Jake.

No news on the diamond except for a brief blurb to say that Leonard had decided not to sell the necklace, nor would it be returned to the museum. So where in the hell was it? She’d done as Mr. Hoffman had asked and sent a postcard telling him how much she was enjoying herself. It was a lie. So many times over the past few weeks she’d wanted to call him, but she hadn’t. She was supposed to trust him. Trust Jake.

So she was sitting in paradise, staring out over the crystal blue water. Alone.

As far as she was concerned the whole clusterfuck proved what a terrible criminal she was. She’d planned to end up on this island alone. But she’d never thought it would be this lonely.

The island was small. She loved her small bungalow, set back on a private beach. There were four other bungalows on the property. The one on the far side of the island was inhabited by a couple who worked at the main house. The others were currently empty.