A Woman’s Eye

DEATH AND DIAMONDS by Susan Dunlap

One of the fastest rising stars of mystery fiction, SUSAN DUNLAP has created three memorable detectives-Berkeley-based Jill Smith, in novels like Diamond in the Buff; PI Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, who works out of San Diego in books like Rogue Wave; and the only meter reader sleuth in history, Vejay Haskell, in the wonderfully named (and wonderful) The Last Annual Slugfest. Ms. Dunlap makes her home in Albany, California.

“The thing I like most about being a private investigator is the thrill of the game. I trained in gymnastics as a kid. I love cases with lots of action. But, alas, you can’t always have what you love,” Kiernan O’Shaughnessy glanced down at her thickly bandaged foot and the crutches propped beside it.

“Kicked a little too much ass, huh?” The man in the seat beside her at the Southwest Airlines gate grinned. There was an impish quality to him. Average height, sleekly muscled, with the too-dark tan of one who doesn’t worry about the future. He was over forty but the lines around his bright green eyes and mouth suggested quick scowls, sudden bursts of laughter, rather than the folds of age setting in. Amid the San Diegans in shorts and T-shirts proclaiming the Zoo, Tijuana, and the Chargers, he seemed almost formal in his chinos and sports jacket and the forest green polo shirt. He crossed, then recrossed his long legs and glanced impatiently at the purser standing guard at the end of the ramp.

The gate 10 waiting area was jammed with tanned families ready to fly from sunny San Diego to sunnier Phoenix. The rumble of conversations was broken by children’s shrill whines and exasperated parents barking their names in warning.

“We are now boarding all passengers for Southwest Airlines flight twelve forty-four to Oakland, through gate nine,”

A mob of the Oakland-bound crowded closer to their gate, clutching their blue plastic boarding passes.

Beside Kiernan the man sighed. But there was a twinkle in his eyes. “Lucky them. I hate waiting around like this. It’s not something I’m good at. One of the reasons I like flying Southwest is their open seating. If you move fast you can get whatever seat you want.”

“Which seat is your favorite?”

“One-B or one-C. So I can get off fast. If they ever let us on.”

The Phoenix-bound flight was half an hour late. With each announcement of a Southwest departure to some other destination, the level of grumbling in the Phoenix-bound area had grown till the air seemed thick with frustration, and at the same time old and overused, as if it had held just enough oxygen for the scheduled waiting period, and now, half an hour later, served only to dry out noses and to make throats raspy and tempers short.

The loudspeaker announced the Albuquerque flight was ready for boarding. A woman in a rhinestone-encrusted denim jacket raced past them toward the Albuquerque gate. Rhinestones. Hardly diamonds, but close enough to bring the picture of Melissa Jessup to Kiernan’s mind. When she’d last seen her, Melissa Jessup had been dead six months, beaten and stabbed, her corpse left outside to decompose. Gone were her mother’s diamonds, the diamonds her mother had left her as security. Melissa hadn’t been able to bring herself to sell them, even to finance her escape from a life turned fearful and the man who preferred them to her. It all proved, as Kiernan reminded herself each time the memory of Melissa invaded her thoughts, that diamonds are not a girl’s best friend, that Mother (or at least a mother who says “don’t sell them”) does not know best, and that a woman should never get involved with a man she works with. Melissa Jessup had done all those things. Her lover had followed her, killed her, taken her mother’s diamonds, and left not one piece of evidence. Melissa’s brother had hired Kiernan, hoping that with her background in forensic pathology she would find some clue in the autopsy report, or that once she could view Melissa’s body she would spot something the local medical examiner had missed. She hadn’t. The key that would nail Melissa’s killer was not in her corpse, but with the diamonds. Finding those diamonds and the killer with them had turned into the most frustrating case of Kiernan’s career.

She pushed the picture of Melissa Jessup out of her mind. This was no time for anger or any of the emotions that the thought of Melissa’s death brought up. The issue now was getting this suitcase into the right hands in Phoenix. Turning back to the man beside her, she said “The job I’m on right now is baby-sitting this suitcase from San Diego to Phoenix. This trip is not going to be ‘a kick.’”

“Couldn’t you have waited till you were off the crutches?” he said, looking down at her bandaged right foot.

“Crime doesn’t wait.” She smiled, focusing her full attention on the conversation now. “Besides, courier work is perfect for a hobbled lady, don’t you think, Mr.-uh?”

He glanced down at the plain black suitcase, then back at her. “Detecting all the time, huh?” There was a definite twinkle in his eyes as he laughed. “Well, this one’s easy. Getting my name is not going to prove whether you’re any good as a detective. I’m Jeff Siebert. And you are?”

“Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, But I can’t let that challenge pass. Anyone can get a name. A professional investigator can do better than that. For a start, I surmise you’re single.”

He laughed, the delighted laugh of the little boy who’s just beaten his parent in rummy. “No wedding ring, no white line on my finger to show I’ve taken the ring off. Right?”

Admittedly, that was one factor. But you’re wearing a red eit Since it’s nowhere near Christmas, I assume the combination of red belt and green turtleneck is not intentional. You’re color-blind.”

“Well yeah,” he said buttoning his jacket over the offending belt. But they don’t ask you to tell red from green before they’ll give you a marriage license. So?”

“If you were married, your wife might not check you over before you left each morning, but chances are she would organize your accessories so you could get dressed by yourself, and not have strange women like me commenting on your belt.”

“This is the final call for boarding Southwest Airlines flight twelve forty-four to Oakland at gate nine,”

Kiernan glanced enviously at the last three Oakland-bound passengers as they passed through gate 9. If the Phoenix flight were not so late, she would be in the air now and that much closer to getting the suitcase in the right hands. Turning back to Siebert, she said, “By the same token, I’d guess you have been married or involved with a woman about my size, A blonde.”

He sat back down in his seat, and for the first time was still

“Got your attention, huh?” Kiernan laughed. “I really shouldn’t show off like that. It unnerves some people. Others, like you, it just quiets down. Actually, this was pretty easy. You’ve got a tiny spot of lavender eyeshadow on the edge of your lapel. I had a boyfriend your height and he ended up sending a number of jackets to the cleaners. But no one but me would think to look at the edge of your lapel, and you could have that jacket for years and not notice that.”

“But why did you say a blonde?”

“Blondes tend to wear violet eyeshadow.”

He smiled, clearly relieved.

“Flight seventeen sixty-seven departing gate ten with service to Phoenix will begin boarding in just a few minutes. We thank you for your patience.”

He groaned, “We’ll see how few those minutes are.” Across from them a woman with an elephantine carry-on bag pulled it closer to her. Siebert turned to Kiernan, and giving her that intimate grin she was beginning to think of as his look, Siebert said, “You seem to be having a good time being a detective.”

The picture of Melissa Jessup popped up in her mind. Melissa Jessup had let herself be attracted to a thief. She’d ignored her suspicions about him until it was too late to sell her mother’s jewels and she could only grab what was at hand and run.

Pulling her suitcase closer, Kiernan said, “Investigating can be a lot of fun if you like strange hours and the thrill of having everything hang on one maneuver. I’ll tell you the truth-it appeals to the adolescent in me, particularly if I can pretend to be something or someone else. It’s fun to see if I can pull that off.”

“How do I know you’re not someone else?”

“I could show you ID, but, of course, that wouldn’t prove anything.” She laughed. “You’ll just have to trust me, as I am you. After all, you did choose to sit down next to me.”

“Well, that’s because you were the best-looking woman here sitting by herself.”

“Or at least the one nearest the hallway where you came in. And this is the only spot around where you have room to pace. You look to be a serious pacer.” She laughed again. “But I like your explanation better.”

Shrieking, a small girl in yellow raced in front of the seats. Whooping gleefully, a slightly larger male version sprinted by, He lunged for his sister, caught his foot on Kiernan’s crutch and sent it toppling back as he lurched forward, and crashed into a man at the end of the check-in line, His sister skidded to a stop. “Serves you right, Jason. Mom, look what Jason did!”

Siebert bent over and righted Kiernan’s crutch. “Travel can be dangerous, huh?”

“Damn crutches! It’s like they’ve got urges all their own,” she said. “Like one of them sees an attractive crutch across the room and all of a sudden it’s gone. They virtually seduce underage boys.”

He laughed, his green eyes twinkling impishly. “They’ll come home to you. There’s not a crutch in the room that holds a crutch to you.”

She hesitated a moment before saying, “My crutches and I thank you.” This was, she thought, the kind of chatter that had been wonderfully seductive when she was nineteen. And Jeff Siebert was the restless, impulsive type of man who had personified freedom then. But nearly twenty years of mistakes-her own and more deadly ones like Melissa Jessup’s-had shown her the inevitable end of such flirtations.

Siebert stood up and rested a foot against the edge of the table. “So what else is fun about investigating?”

She shifted the suitcase between her feet, “Well, trying to figure out people, like I was doing with you, A lot is common sense, like assuming that you are probably not a patient driver. Perhaps you’ve passed in a no-passing zone, or even have gotten a speeding ticket.”

He nodded, abruptly.

“On the other hand,” she went on, “sometimes I know facts beforehand, and then I can fake a Sherlock Holmes and produce anything-but-elementary deductions. The danger with that is getting cocky and blurting out conclusions before you’ve been given evidence for them.”

“Has that happened to you?”

She laughed and looked meaningfully down at her foot. “But I wouldn’t want my client to come to that conclusion. We had a long discussion about whether a woman on crutches could handle his delivery.”

“Client?” he said, shouting over the announcement of the Yuma flight at the next gate. In a normal voice, he added, “In your courier work, you mean? What’s in that bag of your client’s that so very valuable?”

She moved her feet till they were touching the sides of the suitcase. He leaned in closer. He was definitely the type of man destined to be trouble, she thought, but that little-boy grin, that conspiratorial tone, were seductive, particularly in a place like this where any diversion was a boon. She wasn’t surprised he had been attracted to her; clearly, he was a man who liked small women. She glanced around, pleased that no one else had been drawn to this spot. The nearest travelers were a young couple seated six feet away and too involved in each other to waste time listening to strangers’ conversation. “I didn’t pack the bag. I’m just delivering it.”

He bent down with his ear near the side of the suitcase. “Well, at least it’s not ticking.” Sitting up, he said, “But seriously, isn’t that a little dangerous? Women carrying bags for strangers, that’s how terrorists have gotten bombs on planes.”

“No!” she snapped. “I’m not carrying it for a lover with an M-1. I’m a bonded courier.”

The casual observer might not have noticed Siebert’s shoulders tensing, slightly, briefly, in anger at her rebuff. Silently, he looked down at her suitcase. “How much does courier work pay?”

“Not a whole lot, particularly compared to the value of what I have to carry. But then there’s not much work involved. The chances of theft are minuscule. And I do get to travel Last fall I drove a package up north. That was a good deal since I had to go up there anyway to check motel registrations in a case I’m working on. It took me a week to do the motels, and then I came up empty,” An entire week to discover that Melissa’s killer had not stopped at a motel or hotel between San Diego and Eureka. “The whole thing would have been a bust if it hadn’t been for the courier work.”

He glanced down at the suitcase. She suspected he would have been appalled to know how visible was his covetous look. Finally he said, “What was in that package, the one you delivered?”

She glanced over at the young couple. No danger from them. Still Kiernan lowered her voice. “Diamonds. Untraceable. That’s really the only reason to go to the expense of hiring a courier.”

“Untraceable, huh?” he said, grinning. “Didn’t you even consider taking off over the border with them?”

“Maybe,” she said slowly, “if I had known they were worth enough to set me up for the rest of my actuarial allotment, I might have.”

“We will begin preboarding Southwest Airlines flight seventeen sixty-seven with service to Phoenix momentarily. Please keep your seats until preboarding has been completed.”

She pushed herself up and positioned the crutches under her arms. It was a moment before he jerked his gaze away from the suitcase and stood, his foot tapping impatiently on the carpet. All around them families were hoisting luggage and positioning toddlers for the charge to the gate. He sighed loudly. “I hope you’re good with your elbows.”

She laughed and settled back on the arm of the seat.

His gaze went back to the suitcase. He said, “I thought couriers were handcuffed to their packages.”

“You’ve been watching too much TV.” She lowered her voice. “Handcuffs play havoc with the metal detector, The last thing you want in this business is buzzers going off and guards racing in from all directions. I go for the low-key approach. Always keep the suitcase in sight. Always be within lunging range.”

He took a playful swipe at it. “What would happen if, say, that bag were to get stolen?”

“Stolen!” She pulled the suitcase closer to her. “Well, for starters, I wouldn’t get a repeat job. If the goods were insured, that might be the end of it. But if it were something untraceable”-she glanced at the suitcase-“it could be a lot worse.” With a grin that matched his own, she said, “You’re not a thief, are you?”

He shrugged. “Do I look like a thief?”

“You look like the most attractive man here.” She paused long enough to catch his eye. “Of course, looks can be deceiving.” She didn’t say it, but she could picture him pocketing a necklace carelessly left in a jewelry box during a big party, or a Seiko watch from under a poolside towel. She didn’t imagine him planning a heist, but just taking what came his way.

Returning her smile, he said, “When you transport something that can’t be traced, don’t they even provide you a backup?”

“No! I’m a professional. I don’t need backup.”

“But with your foot like that?”

“I’m good with the crutches. And besides, the crutches provide camouflage. Who’d think a woman on crutches carrying a battered suitcase had anything worth half a mi-Watch out! The little girl and her brother are loose again.” She pulled her crutches closer as the duo raced through the aisle in front of them.

“We are ready to begin boarding Southwest Airlines flight number seventeen sixty-seven to Phoenix. Any passengers traveling with small children or those needing a little extra time may begin boarding now.”

The passengers applauded. It was amazing, she thought, how much sarcasm could be carried by a nonverbal sound.

She leaned down for the suitcase. “Preboarding, That’s me.”

“Are you going to be able to handle the crutches and the suitcase?” he asked.

“You’re really fascinated with this bag, aren’t you?”

“Guilty.” He grinned, “Should I dare to offer to carry it? I’d stay within lunging range.”

She hesitated.

In the aisle a woman in cerise shorts, carrying twin bags, herded twin toddlers toward the gate. Ahead of her an elderly man leaned precariously on a cane. The family with the boy and girl were still assembling luggage.

He said, “You’d be doing me a big favor letting me preboard with you. I like to cadge a seat in the first row on the aisle.”

“The seat for the guy who can’t wait?”

“Right, But I got here so late that I’m in the last boarding group. I’m never going to snag one-B or one-C. So help me out, I promise,” he said, grinning, “I won’t steal.”

“Well… I wouldn’t want my employer to see this. I assured him I wouldn’t need any help. But…” She shrugged.

“No time to waver now. There’s already a mob of preboarders ahead of us.” He picked up the bag. “Some heavy diamonds.”

“Good camouflage, don’t you think? Of course, not everything’s diamonds.”

“Just something untraceable?”

She gave him a half wink. “It may not be untraceable. It may not even be valuable.”

“And you may be just a regular mail carrier,” he said, starting toward the gate.

She swung after him. The crutches were no problem, and the thickly taped right ankle looked worse than it was. Still, it made things much smoother to have Siebert carrying the suitcase. If the opportunity arose, he might be tempted to steal it, but not in a crowded gate at the airport with guards and airline personnel around. He moved slowly, staying right in front of her, running interference. As they neared the gate, a blond man carrying a jumpy toddler hurried in front of them. The gate phone buzzed. The airline rep picked it up and nodded at it. To the blond man and the elderly couple who had settled in behind him, Kiernan, and Siebert, he said, “Sorry, folks. The cleaning crew’s a little slow. It’ll just be a minute.”

Siebert’s face scrunched in anger. “What’s ‘cleaning crew’ a euphemism for? A tire fell off and they’re looking for it? They’ve spotted a crack in the engine block and they’re trying to figure out if they can avoid telling us?”

Kiernan laughed. “I’ll bet people don’t travel with you twice.”

He laughed. “I just hate being at someone else’s mercy. But since we’re going to be standing here awhile, why don’t you do what you love more than diamonds, Investigator: tell me what you’ve deduced about me.”

“Like reading your palm?” The crutches poked into her armpits; she shifted them back, putting more weight on her bandaged foot. Slowly she surveyed his lanky body, his thin agile hands, con man’s hands, hands that were never quite still, always past ready, coming out of set “Okay. You’re traveling from San Diego to Phoenix on the Friday evening flight, so chances are you were here on business. But you don’t have on cowboy boots, or a Stetson. You’re tan, but it’s not that dry tan you get in the desert. In fact, you could pass for a San Diegan. I would have guessed that you travel for a living, but you’re too impatient for that, and if you’d taken this flight once or twice before you wouldn’t be surprised that it’s late. You’d have a report to read, or a newspaper. No, you do something where you don’t take orders, and you don’t put up with much.” She grinned. “How’s that?”

“That’s pretty elementary, Sherlock,” he said with only a slight edge to his voice. He tapped his fingers against his leg. But all in all he looked only a little warier than any other person in the waiting area would as his secrets were unveiled.

“Southwest Airlines flight number seventeen sixty-seven with service to Phoenix is now ready for preboarding.”

“Okay, folks,” the gate attendant called. “Sorry for the delay.”

The man with the jittery toddler thrust his boarding pass at the gate attendant and strode down the ramp. The child screamed. The elderly couple moved haltingly, hoisting and readjusting their open sacks with each step. A family squeezed in in front of them, causing the old man to stop dead and move his bag to the other shoulder. Siebert shifted from foot to foot.

Stretching up to whisper in his ear, Kiernan said, “It would look bad if you shoved the old people out of your way.”

“How bad?” he muttered, grinning, then handed his boarding pass to the attendant.

As she surrendered hers, she said to Siebert, “Go ahead, hurry. I’ll meet you in one-C and D.”

“Thanks.” He patted her shoulder.

She watched him stride down the empty ramp. His tan jacket had caught on one hip as he balanced her suitcase and his own. But he neither slowed his pace nor made an attempt to free the jacket; clutching tight to her suitcase, he hurried around the elderly couple, moving with the strong stride of a hiker. By the time she got down the ramp the elderly couple and a family with two toddlers and an infant that sucked loudly on a pacifier crowded behind Siebert.

Kiernan watched irritably as the stewardess eyed first Siebert, then her big suitcase. The head stewardess has the final word on carry-on luggage, she knew, With all the hassle that was involved with this business anyway, she didn’t want to add a confrontation with the stewardess. She dropped the crutches and banged backward into the wall, flailing for purchase as she slipped down to the floor. The stewardess caught her before she hit bottom. “Are you okay?”

“Embarrassed,” Kiernan said, truthfully. She hated to look clumsy, even if it was an act, even if it allowed Siebert and her suitcase to get on the plane unquestioned. “I’m having an awful time getting used to these things.”

“You sure you’re okay? Let me help you up.” The stewardess said. “I’ll have to keep your crutches in the hanging luggage compartment up front while we’re in flight. But you go ahead now; I’ll come and get them from you.”

“That’s okay. I’ll leave them there and just sit in one of the front seats,” she said, taking the crutches and swinging herself on board the plane. From the luggage compartment it took only one long step on her left foot to get to row 1. She swung around Siebert, who was hoisting his own suitcase into the overhead bin beside hers, and dropped into seat 1-D, by the window. The elderly couple was settling into seats 1-A and 1-B. In another minute Southwest would call the first thirty passengers, and the herd would stampede down the ramp, stuffing approved carry-ons in overhead compartments and grabbing the thirty most prized seats.

“That was a smooth move with the stewardess,” Siebert said, as he settled into his coveted aisle seat.

“That suitcase is just about the limit of what they’ll let you carry on. I’ve had a few hassles. I could see this one coming. And I suspected that you”-she patted his arm-“were not the patient person to deal with that type of problem. You moved around her pretty smartly yourself. I’d say that merits a drink from my client.”

He smiled and rested a hand on hers. “Maybe,” he said, leaning closer, “we could have it in Phoenix.”

For the first time she had a viscerally queasy feeling about him. Freeing her hand from his, she gave a mock salute. “Maybe so.” She looked past him at the elderly couple.

Siebert’s gaze followed hers. He grinned as he said, “Do you think they’re thieves? After your loot? Little old sprinters?”

“Probably not. But it pays to be alert.” She forced a laugh. “I’m afraid constant suspicion is a side effect of my job.”

The first wave of passengers hurried past. Already the air in the plane had the sere feel and slightly rancid smell of having been dragged through the Altera too many times. By tacit consent they watched the passengers hurry on board, pause, survey their options, and rush on. Kiernan thought fondly of that drink in Phoenix. She would be sitting at a small table, looking out a tinted window; the trip would be over, the case delivered into the proper hands; and she would feel the tension that knotted her back releasing with each swallow of scotch. Or so she hoped. The whole frustrating case depended on this delivery. There was no fallback position. If she screwed up, Melissa Jessup’s murderer disappeared.

That tension was what normally made the game fun. But this case was no longer a game. This time she had allowed herself to go beyond her regular rules, to call her former colleagues from the days when she had been a forensic pathologist, looking for some new test that would prove culpability. She had hoped the lab in San Diego could find something. They hadn’t. The fact was that the diamonds were the only “something” that would trap the killer, Melissa’s lover, who valued them much more than her, a man who might not have bothered going after her had it not been for them. Affairs might be brief, but diamonds, after all, are forever. They would lead her to the murderer’s safe house, and the evidence that would tie him to Melissa. If she was careful.

She shoved the tongue of the seat belt into the latch and braced her feet as the plane taxied toward the runway. Siebert was tapping his finger on the armrest. The engines whirred, the plane shifted forward momentarily, then flung them back against their seats as it raced down the short runway.

The FASTEN SEAT BELT sign went off. The old man across the aisle pushed himself up and edged toward the front bathroom. Siebert’s belt was already unbuckled. Muttering, “Be right back,” he jumped up and stood hunched under the overhead bin while the old man cleared the aisle. Then Siebert headed full-out toward the back of the plane. Kiernan slid over and watched him as he strode down the aisle, steps firmer, steadier than she’d have expected of a man racing to the bathroom in a swaying airplane. She could easily imagine him hiking in the redwood forest with someone like her, a small, slight woman. The blond woman with the violet eyeshadow. She in jeans and one of those soft Patagonia jackets Kiernan had spotted in the L.L. Bean catalog, violet with blue trim. He in jeans, turtleneck, a forest green down jacket on his rangy body. Forest green would pick up the color of his eyes and accent his dark, curly hair. In her picture, his hair was tinted with the first flecks of autumn snow and the ground still soft like the spongy airplane carpeting beneath his feet.

When he got back he made no mention of his hurried trip. He’d barely settled down when the stewardess leaned over him and said, “Would you care for something to drink?”

Kiernan put a hand on his arm. “This one’s on my client.”

“For that client who insisted you carry his package while you’re still on crutches? I’m sorry it can’t be Lafite-Rothschild. Gin and tonic will have to do.” He grinned at the stewardess. Kiernan could picture him in a bar, flashing that grin at a tall redhead, or maybe another small blonde. She could imagine him with the sweat of a San Diego summer still on his brow, his skin brown from too many days at an ocean beach that is too great a temptation for those who grab their pleasures.

“Scotch and water,” Kiernan ordered. To him, she said, “I notice that while I’m the investigator, it’s you who are asking all the questions. So what about you, what do you do for a living?”

“I quit my job in San Diego and I’m moving back to Phoenix. So I’m not taking the first Friday night flight to get back home, I’m taking it to get to my new home. I had good times in San Diego: the beach, the sailing, Balboa Park. When I came there a couple years ago I thought I’d stay forever. But the draw of the desert is too great. I miss the red rock of Sedona, the pines of the Mogollon Rim, and the high desert outside Tucson.” He laughed. “Too much soft California life.”

It was easy to picture him outside of Show Low on the Mogollon Rim with the pine trees all around him, some chopped for firewood, the ax lying on a stump, a shovel in his hand. Or in a cabin near Sedona lifting a hatch in the floorboards.

The stewardess brought the drinks and the little bags of peanuts, giving Jeff Siebert the kind of smile Kiernan knew would have driven her crazy had she been Siebert’s girlfriend. How often had that type of thing happened? Had his charm brought that reaction so automatically that for him it had seemed merely the way women behave? Had complaints from a girlfriend seemed at first unreasonable, then melodramatic, then infuriating? He was an impatient man, quick to anger. Had liquor made it quicker, as the rhyme said? And the prospect of unsplit profit salved his conscience?

He poured the little bottle of gin over the ice and added tonic. “Cheers.”

She touched glasses, then drank. “Are you going to be in Phoenix long?”

“Probably not. I’ve come into a little money and I figure I’ll just travel around, sort of like you do. Find someplace I like.”

“So we’ll just have time for our drink in town then?”

He rested his hand back on hers. “Well, now I may have reason to come back in a while. Or to San Diego. I just need to cut loose for a while.”

She forced herself to remain still, not to cringe at his touch. Cut loose-what an apt term for him to use. She pictured his sun-browned hand wrapped around the hilt of a chef’s knife, working it up and down, up and down, cutting across pink flesh till it no longer looked like flesh, till the flesh mixed with the blood and the organ tissue, till the knife cut down to the bone and the metal point stuck in the breastbone. She pictured Melissa Jessup’s blond hair pink from the blood.

She didn’t have to picture her body lying out in the woods outside Eureka in northern California. She had seen photos of it. She didn’t have to imagine what the cracked ribs and broken clavicle and the sternum marked from the knife point looked like now. Jeff Siebert had seen that too, and had denied what Melissa’s brother and the Eureka sheriff all knew-knew in their hearts but could not prove-that Melissa had not gone to Eureka camping by herself as he’d insisted, but had only stopped overnight at the campground she and Jeff had been to the previous summer because she had no money and hadn’t been able to bring herself to sell the diamonds her mother had left her. Instead of a rest on the way to freedom, she’d found Siebert there.

Now Siebert was flying to Phoenix to vanish. He’d pick up Melissa’s diamonds wherever he’d stashed them, and he’d be gone.

“What about your client?” he asked. “Will he be meeting you at the airport?”

“No. No one will meet me. I’ll just deliver my goods to the van, collect my money, and be free. What about you?”

“No, No one’s waiting for me either. At least I’ll be able to give you a hand with that bag. There’s no ramp to the terminal in Phoenix. You have to climb down to the tarmac there. Getting down those metal steps with a suitcase and two crutches would be a real balancing act.”

All she had to do was get it into the right hands. She shook her head. “Thanks. But I’ll have to lug it through the airport just in case. My client didn’t handcuff the suitcase to me, but he does expect I’ll keep hold of it.”

He grinned. “Like you said, you’ll be in lunging range all the time.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I appreciate your offer, Jeff; the bag weighs a ton. But I’m afraid it’s got to be in my hand.”

Those green eyes of his that had twinkled with laughter narrowed, and his lips pressed together. “Okay,” he said slowly. Then his face relaxed almost back to that seductively impish smile that once might have charmed her, as it had Melissa Jessup. “I want you to know that I’ll still find you attractive even if the bag yanks your shoulder out of its socket.” He gave her hand a pat, then shifted in his seat so his upper arm rested next to hers.

The stewardess collected the glasses. The plane jolted and began its descent. Kiernan braced her feet. Through his jacket, she felt the heat of his arm, the arm that had dug that chef’s knife into Melissa Jessup’s body. She breathed slowly and did not move.

To Kiernan he said, “There’s a great bar right here in Sky Harbor Airport, the Sky Lounge. Shall we have our drink there?”

She nodded, her mouth suddenly too dry for speech.

The plane bumped down, and in a moment the aisles were jammed with passengers ignoring the stewardess’s entreaty to stay in their seats. Siebert stood up and pulled his bag out of the overhead compartment and then lifted hers onto his empty seat. “I’ll get your crutches,” he said, as the elderly man across the aisle pushed his way out in front of him. Siebert shook his head. Picking up both suitcases, he maneuvered around the man and around the corner to the luggage compartment.

Siebert had taken her suitcase. You don’t need to take both suitcases to pick up the crutches. Kiernan stared after him, her shoulders tensing, her hands clutching the armrests. Her throat was so constricted she could barely breathe. For an instant she shared the terror that must have paralyzed Melissa Jessup just before he stabbed her.

“Jeff!” she called after him, a trace of panic evident in her voice. He didn’t answer her. Instead, she heard a great thump, then him muttering and the stewardess’s voice placating.

The airplane door opened. The elderly man moved out into the aisle in front of Kiernan, motioning his wife to go ahead of him, then they moved slowly toward the door.

Kiernan yanked the bandage off her foot, stepped into the aisle. “Excuse me,” she said to the couple. Pushing by them as Siebert had so wanted to do, she rounded the corner to the exit.

The stewardess was lifting up a garment bag. Four more bags lay on the floor. So that was the thump she’d heard. A crutch was beside them.

She half heard the stewardess’s entreaties to wait, her mutterings about the clumsy man. She looked out the door down onto the tarmac.

Jeffrey Siebert and the suitcase were gone. In those few seconds he had raced down the metal steps and was disappearing into the terminal. By the time she could make it to the Sky Lounge he would be halfway to Show Low, or Sedona.

Now she felt a different type of panic. This wasn’t in the plan. She couldn’t lose Siebert. She jumped over the bags, grabbed one crutch, hurried outside to the top of the stairs, and thrust the crutch across the hand rails behind her to make a seat. As the crutch slid down the railings, she kept her knees bent high into her chest to keep from landing and bucking forward onto her head. Instead the momentum propelled her on her feet, as it had in gymnastics. In those routines, she’d had to fight the momentum; now she went with it and ran, full-out.

She ran through the corridor toward the main building, pushing past businessmen, between parents carrying children. Siebert would be running ahead. But no one would stop him, not in an airport. People run through airports all the time. Beside the metal detectors she saw a man in a tan jacket. Not him. By the luggage pickup another look-alike. She didn’t spot him till he was racing out the door to the parking lot.

Siebert ran across the roadway. A van screeched to a halt. Before Kiernan could cross through the traffic, a hotel bus eased in front of her. She skirted behind it. She could sense a man following her now. But there was no time to deal with that. Siebert was halfway down the lane of cars. Bent low, she ran down the next lane, the hot dusty desert air drying her throat.

By the time she came abreast of Siebert, he was in a light blue Chevy pickup backing out of the parking slot. He hit the gas, and, wheels squealing, drove off.

She reached toward the truck with both arms. Siebert didn’t stop. She stood watching as Jeffrey Siebert drove off into the sunset.

There was no one behind her as she sauntered into the terminal to the Sky Lounge. She ordered the two drinks Siebert had suggested, and when they came, she tapped “her” glass on “his” and took a drink for Melissa Jessup. Then she swallowed the rest of the drink in two gulps.

By this time Jeff Siebert would be on the freeway. He’d be fighting to stay close to the speed limit, balancing his thief’s wariness of the highway patrol against his gnawing urge to force the lock on the suitcase. Jeffrey Siebert was an impatient man, a man who had nevertheless made himself wait nearly a year before leaving California. His stash of self-control would be virtually empty. But he would wait awhile before daring to stop. Then he’d jam a knife between the top and bottom of the suitcase, pry and twist it till the case fell open. He would find diamonds. More diamonds. Diamonds to take along while he picked up Melissa Jessup’s from the spot where he’d hidden them.

She wished Melissa Jessup could see him when he compared the two collections and realized the new ones he’d stolen were fakes. She wished she herself could see his face when he realized that a woman on crutches had made it out of the plane in time to follow him to point out the blue pickup truck.

Kiernan picked up “Jeff’s” glass and drank more slowly. How sweet it would be if Melissa could see that grin of his fade as the surveillance team surrounded him, drawn by the beepers concealed in those fake diamonds. He’d be clutching the evidence that would send him to jail. Just for life, not forever. As Melissa could have told him, only death and diamonds are forever.