Page 17 of Nothing More

Shit, maybe it was the whole reason.

“Yeah,” he said, a little sourly, and then refocused. “This I’ve seen a lot. It’s common.”

Raven took another long sip. “Comforting.”

“But with hostages. The finger is for delaying payment, and proof of life. You know she’s been hurt, and you know the bratva will hurt her worse, and so you do what they want. But no one’s been taken from you. Right?”

“Right.” She skated a wary look toward the box, shuddered, and took another sip. “I’ll need to go through the camera footage, look at personnel files to be sure that an employee hasn’t been–”

“No,” Toly said. “No one sends the finger of a seamstress you only met once. This is a personal message.”

“Do you recognize the ring?” Ian asked.

“I – let me see it again.” She swallowed hard, hitched herself up higher on the sofa, and put on a brave face.

Still wearing his gloves, Toly sat forward and laid hands on the box. Looked at her again until she nodded, and opened it back up.

It was the finger itself that interested him the most. There was fresh blood – or at least the look of it – at the jagged point of severance, gleaming wetly in the afternoon sunlight. But it had been painted on after the fact, he could tell, because the flesh was shriveled, blue-gray, and papery in texture. It had the look of a digit that had been dead a long time, been frozen, then thawed out and patted dry. There was no odor – though there would be if they kept it out of refrigeration long.

He didn’t voice any of these thoughts, because Raven’s throat jumped as she swallowed over and over again; he wanted a way to verify his theory before he said it aloud.

When she jerked another nod and turned her face away, he snapped the box shut again.

“I recognize it.” Her voice was so tight, the words spoken through clenched back teeth, that he didn’t register them at first.

“Really?”

“You do?” Ian asked.

She sniffed. “Yes.” She rose – smoothed her dress, because shock, horror, and the nausea plain on her face weren’t enough to override her need to present a perfect picture – and crossed to the desk. She walked around behind it and leaned over the chair. Clicked around on her laptop a moment and then turned it so the screen faced them; obediently, they both stood and went to see the photograph and article she’d pulled up.

There was the same ring, the sapphire and diamonds on a platinum band. It was worth one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars, which caused Toly’s heart to skip a beat, but Ian merely nodded.

“‘The Liliana Sapphire,’” he read from the top of the article. “Reported stolen from the personal collection of Alicia Newsome.”

“It’s a rare piece,” Raven said, “one of William DeWine’s designs from the forties. Platinum wasn’t in style at the time, so it was considered a bit of an oddity. It’s bounced around auction houses and high-end jewelers for decades. Newsome bought it in 2015. She reported it stolen last year.”

“A break-in?” Ian asked.

Raven shook her head. “Nothing else was taken. It was assumed the maid – who disappeared – pocketed it and then fled the country. There was no hope of finding it again.” Her gaze lifted across the room and fell once more on the velvet box. “It’s been found now, I suppose. And maybe the maid has as well.”

~*~

Toly called Maverick, who kept askingwhat?over and over in sheer disbelief. He sounded as baffled as Raven still looked, as she sipped her second G&T. Toly dropped a packet of “biscuits” on the sofa cushion beside her and then called Pongo, as instructed.

Ian went out for a while and returned with Bruce, Cassandra, and Miles in tow, a paper bag of takeout boxes from the café swinging from each hand. They unpacked rice and chicken tikka masala on the coffee table – the jewelry box safely removed to an out-of-the-way side table – and Raven picked up a box and a fork with a huff when Toly looked at her pointedly.

“But what’s the big deal?” Cassandra asked, gaze darting from face to face. When she got mulish like this, she looked remarkably like her sister – with a healthy dash of Walsh, and far less elegance. “I mean, what was in the box?” She snorted. “Was it, like, ‘What’s in the box?!’”

“Your Brad Pitt needs work,” Miles quipped.

No one else said anything, and Cassandra paused, rice tumbling off her fork as her eyes got wide. “Wait.Is it? Is it really–”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about, darling,” Ian said. “We’ll get it sorted post haste.”

She frowned. “I’m not achild, Ian.”

He sent her a chilly, placating grin that left her nose wrinkling.