Read Online The Sapphire Heist (A Jewel Novel Book 2) by Lauren Blakely - Free Book Online Page B

car and you were absolutely calling my name.”
    “Fine. Yes, it was epic. But back to Tristan. Could he be after them? Do you think he’s our Mr. Smith?”
    “It’s possible,” he said. “What’s his motivation, though? Usually, there’s a specific one.”
    She snapped her fingers. “Eli said Tristan wanted to do business with him, but he didn’t seem too interested. Maybe Tristan is pissed because Eli turned down a business deal?”
    “Nice work, Sherlock. Let’s make him suspect number one.”
    She nearly jumped in place when another idea slammed into her. “Wait. There wasn’t any art in the gallery office, right?”
    “Correct.”
    “But Penny said Eli was always checking out the frames in the gallery office,” she said, making a rolling gesture with her fingers as the words spilled out of her lips, coming as quickly as the clues added up. “And Isla told me as I was leaving today that they moved the diamonds. And if the walls are bare in her office, but there’s art hanging in the nightclub in oddly shaped frames . . .” She knit her eyebrows, letting him reach the same conclusion.
    “You think they’re in the frames at Sapphire?”
    She nodded, and a wide smile spread across her face. “I think Isla and Eli have some weird obsession with that art and that artist, and it’s because they think they found the perfect hiding place for their jewels. Inside the frames of his art.”
    He quirked up one corner of his lips and shook his head. “I doubt he’d put diamonds in artwork in the hallway.”
    “No, but didn’t you say he had some art on the walls in his office the night you scoped it out? But his manager walked out of the office so you couldn’t check it out?”
    He stroked his chin and nodded approvingly. “I’m beginning to think we need to plan a return visit to Sapphire.”
    “Yes,” she said as she adjusted the straps on her dress. “Perhaps we can get to the bottom of this Sapphire affair.”

    As Steph called her stepdad and finished doing those things women do before dates, Jake wandered along the stone path that edged the hotel property. Time to update his client, and it was best to have this call out of earshot of other guests.
    “This case is getting crazier, Andrew,” he said into the phone, his flip-flops slapping across the cobbled path on the way to the beach. “I’ve got to hand it to the guy. Eli knows how to hide things.”
    Andrew heaved a sigh, but then tried to remain chipper. “But all the evidence points in the right direction. He did turn the stolen money to diamonds via the merchant, and it’s in the Caymans. So we can’t be too far off.”
    Jake laughed and scoffed at the same time at his client’s optimistic attitude. It wasn’t that simple. Good jobs never were. “On the surface, yes. But I honestly don’t know if we’re going to get the diamonds because I don’t know if he still has them,” he said, slowing his pace as he rubbed a hand against the back of his neck.
    Andrew grumbled something that sounded like a string of curse words.
    “Sorry, but it happens,” Jake said.
    “I know, but I want to do everything I can to find the diamonds and return them to the fund. We have the proof, and if we can get them back, we can restore the fund more quickly than if we have to go through lengthy legal battles. I want to do it before we have to go to the SEC and make this more public. I’ve got customers talking about pulling out their money. Others are stressing about what was lost. I need to do everything I can before this gets out and our fund starts to go under.”
    “I hear ya,” Jake said, but he highly doubted Eli would be moved by any sort of confrontation. The man was impervious. “And don’t think for a second that I’m throwing in the towel. Just want you to know the score.” Jake stopped to lean against a palm tree, staring out at the water. “We’ve narrowed it down from art to jewels, and we’ve got a few leads, but now some