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“Can printers really do that? Summon a deadly weapon out of thin air?”
“Guns, ballistic knives, grenades. They’re flooding the market faster than we can stop them. Last month, a newspaper got their hands on a design for a 3D semiautomatic. You could buy the instructions along with the printer and all the materials you needed on the internet and have it shipped to your doorstep here in Holland. Nothing illegal about it until you actually hit Print.”
“That’s quite the loophole you’ve got on your hands there, but I’m still trying to figure out why you’re telling me all this. Unless you think that Xander was the one who shot the guy in the Amstel.”
“The gun we found in Xander’s apartment hadn’t been fired, but it’s just as easy to print ten as it is to print one. The technology extends to other things, as well. Face masks printed from a scan of a photograph, or gloves with someone else’s fingerprints. The last one’s especially handy when the safe works with biometrics.”
“And let me guess: Xander’s opened with a fingerprint, which explains his finger, I guess, though yuck. I’m guessing that’s how they got in the safe.”
“There’s a keypad, too, but you’d have to know the code to bypass the fingerprint. Either way, you’re correct. The thief used Xander’s finger to gain access.”
“And now you’re wondering if maybe I’m the thief. If I took the necklace and whatever diamonds were in his safe.”
“It crossed my mind at first, but then I realized only an idiot would call me up, on a Sunday evening no less, to tell me about the dream she had about a safe she’d cleaned out a couple days before.” He shakes his head, regarding me. “I don’t know you all that well, but you don’t strike me as an idiot.”
“Is that a compliment? Because if so, it could use a little work.”
“You didn’t let me finish. There’s abut. That picture you posted, the one of you and Xander currently circulating online, that was a dumb move.”
“I know. That’s why I took it down.”
“It may be off your page, but it’s too late to stop it from getting plastered all over the internet. Everybody who sees it knows you were in Xander’s bed the morning someone murdered him and took off with his diamonds. He compared you to a Cullinan. He mentioned the stones by name. Do you know how many people are looking for the Cullinans? How much they’re worth?”
“By the look on your face, I’m guessing a lot.”
“The point is, people are going to be wondering if you’re telling the truth about what you heard and saw. If maybe you were watching from under a bed or through the cracked door of a closet and saw something that could identify them. If maybe you were the one who emptied out that safe.”
“You just told me you didn’t think that.”
“No, but the killer will, and he’s a professional. A trained assassin who knows how to dump a body in the Amstel or get in and out of a secured building without being seen.”
I stare through the branches at the bodies bustling around the parking lot, saying tearful goodbyes, dropping into cars while, just beyond, a shallow mist has gathered like steam over the grazing field.
I turn back to the detective watching me with a solemn expression. “Like the man in the baseball cap, who I’m guessing was behind the tracker since he was with me in the tram. And two days ago, someone left a note in my mailbox. A warning note.”
“What did it say?”
“That if they can find me so easily, then so can he. The person who wants the necklace. They told me to watch my back, that I’m not safe.”
“They’re right. You’re not.”
“If you’re trying to scare me, Detective, it’s working.”
“What I’m trying to do is keep you safe.” He pushes to a stand, his big body towering above mine. “Be aware of your surroundings. Trust your gut. Because two people are dead, and I’d really prefer you not be the third.”
Willow
It takes an eternity to get out of the funeral home. The rows empty out one by excruciatingly slow one, a bottleneck of fidgety people jostling for the lobby and the promise of room-temperature wine and sweaty cheese blocks on toothpicks.
I stand behind Thomas in the center aisle, pinned in the swarm of people, and my legs are still wobbly with leftover adrenaline. When the news hit our phones like a string of tiny bombs going down the row, my first thought was of Sem. That he was hurt, or worse. I was scrambling for my cell when I saw the newsflash on Thomas’s screen.
Body of diamond trader linked to House of Prins found in Amstel River.
No name, no further details, but it was enough. My heart settled, the kicks morphing into a painful churning in my gut. A dead Prins trader, another death linked to the House. Whatever is going on here, it can’t be good.
I lean my face into Thomas’s shoulder and whisper, “Did the article say how long he was in there?”
Therebeing the Amstel, the wide waterway that slices through the center of Amsterdam on its way to the River IJ. Big and busy enough that it’s conceivable he landed in the water months ago, that his death was a boating accident, that he drowned. Prins isone of the largest diamond houses in the city. Lots of traders work with them. Maybe this death means nothing.