The Cherbourg Jewels (9 page)

This whole situation was spinning out of control faster than he’d expected.  The day had begun optimistically, with no indication that his exhibition would be completely derailed within a matter of hours. 
First Ella, then the robbery, now an attempt on our lives…what have I stirred up? 

Ella shuffled closer to him and jostled his elbow gently.  “Wake up,” she said.

“What?”  He shook his head to clear the rest of the cobwebs.  “What did you say?”

“I asked you who Peter is,” she said softly.  Up close, he could see the smattering of freckles beneath her eyes.  She looked tired but stable—still in better control of herself than he was. 

Get it together
, he thought. 
You have a job to do.
  “He’s the Cherbourg family’s private physician
. 
He lives on the grounds in one of the guest houses.”

Ella raised an eyebrow.  “Are Cherbourgs in the habit of coming home shot up?”

Despite his fatigue, he couldn’t hold back a small smile.  “Contrary to what we experienced tonight, violence is pretty rare in this family,” he explained.  “My grandfather was ill for many years.  My father hired Peter to take care of him.  When my grandfather finally passed away, we’d grown so dependent on him that he stayed with us as a permanent employee.” 

He thought of the times Peter had come up to the mansion to treat his childhood illnesses, prescribe new sleeping pills or anti-depressants for his mother, and lecture his father on the number of whiskeys he drank before dinner.  When his father had died of a heart attack at the young age of 43, Peter had been there to hold his mother’s hand and dry her tears.  “He’s trustworthy
.  J
ust like Frau Müller.”

Ella nodded.  “Sébastien, I can’t stay here.  I need fresh clothes.  I need to go home.”

“We’ll talk about it once Peter has checked you out.”  Instantly, he knew he didn’t want her to go.  He had to keep an eye on her, but it was becoming more than that.  He realized he
didn’t want her to be the thief.  Even if it meant he had to go to the police for help in tracking down the stolen jewels. 

Before Ella could protest, a pair of footsteps clicked in the hallway leading to the kitchen.  He saw the white shock of hair belonging to Dr. Peter O’Malley.  O’Malley was in his early sixties, an Irish immigrant who began as a family practitioner before becoming attached to the Cherbourgs exclusively.  O’Malley had been hired before Sébastien was even born.  The man was as familiar to him as his own father, as steady a presence as Frau Müller. 

“Peter,” he said, coming forward to shake the older man’s hand.

O’Malley smiled.  “Gertrude tells me you’ve been in a bit of a scuffle.  I suppose it’s useless asking you to keep regular business hours?”

Sébastien nodded.  “Peter, we’re in the middle of something here.  There was a robbery in the vault a few hours ago.  Ms. Wilcox and I have been following a lead.  I wouldn’t have dragged you out of bed for myself, but I’d like you to make sure she’s all right.”
 

The doctor acquiesced, turning to Ella.  “Miss Wilcox, is it?”

“Ella,” she said, holding out her hand to shake his.

“Ella,” he agreed.  He stepped closer to her and held her hands up into the light.  “These are sharp incisions.  Glass?”

“Yes,” Sébastien said.  “She had a fall, too, hard on her right side.”

“Let’s go have a look,” O’Malley said.  He clasped Ella’s hand and hefted his black doctor’s bag.  “Come with me into the study.  I’ll set up shop there.” 

Ella threw him a worried glance and he nodded at her, reassuring her she’d be safe with Peter.  “I’ll be right here,” he said.  “Go with Peter.” 

When the two of them had left, Sébastien pulled his phone from his pocket, wondering if Jake had been able to dig anything up on Ella’s background.  He navigated to his email inbox and saw a zip file waiting for him.  He downloaded it and opened it, discovering his PI was as good as his word.  The file contained a handful of PDFs and an overview from Jake.  He selected the overview and opened it up.

Sébastien,

Found what you were looking for.  Ella Jean Wilcox, 26, is the daughter of Frederick and Mara Wilcox, both of San Francisco.  The mother died in 1989; death certificate attached as
PDF file.  Frederick was a jewelry restorer.  Looks like he worked with some high-class people back in the day.  His shop address was the same as their home address—seems he worked out of a shed in the backyard, if you can believe it.  In 1993, there was a break-in.  The police report, also attached, notes that Frederick and Ella interrupted two armed men as they cleared out the workshop.  The men shot Frederick and escaped with millions of dollars of loose stones.  The poor kid saw it all and watched her father bleed to death in her arms. 

Seems she told the cops what she saw, but nothing came of it.  The state put her into the custody of an aunt and uncle and the cops never recovered any of the jewelry and never found the perps.  Here’s where it gets even more interesting, though.  The kid never gave up.  There are four or five additional police reports attached that list her as a complainant, accusing various jewel collectors of having her father’s stones.  Apparently that’s her MO—she gets access to the collections while appraising them and scopes them out for stones she knows belonged to her father.  She’s got photographs of her father’s designs that she carries with her, comparing them to everything she sees.  So far, none of these accusations have panned out.  Seems like the cops indulge her because they feel sorry for her.  My source on the inside says they’re rooting for her, but so far, she hasn’t brought them anything solid enough to act on. 

Only one of her tip-offs resulted in an arrest.  She fingered a local jewel thief, Joey D’Angelo, who’d been following her from client to client, robbing them after she completed their appraisals.  D’Angelo cut a deal with the prosecutor, gave up his boss and his fence, and got away with a slap on the wrist—five years in Lompoc.  He’s still there, with three years left on his sentence.

Pretty sure I don’t have to tell you what she wants with you, buddy.  Watch out for this one.  If she’s seen your collection, be ready to defend yourself against an accusation of theft.  She’s like clockwork, this one. 

--Jake

P.S.  Had to spring for three dozen Krispy Kremes and box seats for the Giants’ season opener to get this.  Sounds like bonus material to me, buddy.

Sébastien closed the window without opening any of the attached documents.  It wasn’t necessary.  It was obvious what Ella was after. 

She didn’t care about him at all.  She’d just wanted access to his collection.  He remembered watching her from the window of his office as she stood on ground level outside his building.  He’d seen her shuffle through a stack of photographs.  They must have been the pictures Jake referenced—the ones of her father’s stolen gems. 

She’d been refreshing her memory, already on the hunt.  All that self-righteous indignation about being the best at her job had been a front to make sure he hired her.  All she’d wanted was access to the vault so she could search for some sort of proof that his parents or grandparents had purchased stolen goods.

A surge of anger flared up within him.  He’d never felt like such an idiot.  She’d used him, clear and simple. 

Sébastien picked up the porcelain bowl of lemons on the kitchen island and hurled it to the floor, reveling in the sound it made as it shattered against the tile floor.  It had all been a lie from beginning to end.  Her willingness to work through the night, her urging him to call the cops…lies, all of it.  If he had called the cops, the first thing she would have done was accuse him of owning stolen property. 

And then he remembered the kiss.  The strange electricity that flowed between them when they touched.  How could she fake something like that?  Was it possible?  If so, she was better than any actress in Hollywood.  But even if the attraction between them was real, she’d lied to him from the moment she met him.  Just like Amanda, just like all the others who saw him as a name and not a person, she couldn’t be trusted.   Not now and not ever.

The realization pierced him like a needle, injecting his veins with poison. 

I was a fool
, he thought. 
But Cherbourgs always win in the end.  And I know just how I’ll win this round.
 

He decided not to confront her right away.  He would keep her as close as possible and try to trap her, force her to admit she had an ulterior motive in working for him.  He wasn’t positive that she’d stolen the jewels, so they still had a culprit to find.  It was vaguely possible that she had wormed her way into the vault intending to accuse him of possessing stolen property, but the thief had destroyed her opportunity by taking the very evidence she needed.  If
that were true, they both had a very good reason for finding those missing jewels.  The real showdown would occur when they found them—and only one of them could get what they wanted. 

Dr. Peter O’Malley grasped her right arm and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around it.  His warm fingers were surprisingly gentle as he took her blood pressure and her temperature, then swabbed and cleaned the numerous small cuts on her hands. 

He hadn’t engaged in small talk like most family doctors and Ella was grateful.  She wasn’t sure what she could say about what had happened or how she could characterize her connection with Sébastien.  Far better, she thought, to say nothing at all. 

While he worked, Dr. O’Malley hummed a lullaby that sounded vaguely familiar to her.  It was comforting—the lilt and mournful tune reminded her of something she’d heard before and she wished she could remember where.  “That’s a beautiful song,” she said.

The doctor smiled, his blue eyes twinkling.  “Oh, that?  An old Irish lullaby my mother taught me.”

Ella felt a quick pang of longing tear at her.  “I wish I had more of a connection to my heritage,” she said.  “I lost my father when I was a little girl, so he didn’t have time to teach me where we came from.” 

O’Malley shook his head wryly.  “I don’t think you’ve any Irish in you, more’s the pity.”

“I don’t think so, either,” she said, smiling. 

Instead of placing several small adhesive bandages on her cut hands, he gently wrapped them both in gauze after he’d cleaned them.  “Those cuts will breathe better this way,” he said, securing the adhesive tape.  “I’ll give you an extra roll so you can change the gauze later.”

“I’m fine, really,” she said. 

“What about the fall you took?  Sébastien said you might be injured.”

She waved away the idea.  “He’s exaggerating.  It’s nothing.”

“Did you know,” he said, standing back and folding his fingers beneath his chin, “we doctors make most of our money on people like you?  You ignore the small things like aches and twinges, believing them to be nothing.  Then, once you realize they’re not so small, they’ve blossomed into big things that cost a lot of money to fix.”

Ella blinked, nonplussed.  “You know, I never thought of it that way.”

O’Malley winked at her.  “I didn’t go to medical school for nothing, young lady.  Now tell me about that fall.”

Being careful to avoid any mention of the exact circumstances, Ella described how she’d fallen onto a concrete floor and landed on her right hip and shoulder. 

Dr. O’Malley probed the tender spots with a gentle hand and asked her to do a few simple range-of-motion exercises.  When she passed with flying colors, he gave her a clean bill of health.  “You’ll be bruised, but nothing more,” he said.  “A few aspirin for any aches or pains and you’ll be fine.” 

He folded up his stethoscope and put it back into his little black bag.  “Now, if you don’t mind my asking, Miss Wilcox, what were you and Sébastien really doing?”

Ella bit her lip. 
What do I tell him?
she wondered.  She felt terrible about lying to this kind old man, but she also didn’t want to tell him anything that he could later repeat to the police.  She was going to be in enough trouble if the cops couldn’t find another suspect in the robbery.  She didn’t need to add breaking and entering or hit and run to the list of charges she could face. 

Ella looked into the doctor’s face, trying to choose the wisest course of action.  His worn skin appeared chapped by cold and wind, speckled with his salt-and-pepper stubble.  Smile lines traced their way around his lips and eyes.  Beneath the lines, his eyes were warm and kind. 

Still
, she thought,
how do I know I can trust him?

Finally, she decided that in his case, honesty was probably the best policy.  “I don’t know if Sébastien would want me to say anything, and it’s probably better that you don’t know what we did.  You know, in case the cops ask you any questions.”
 

O’Malley smiled and patted her wrist.  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.  I’m just an old man, after all.”

Instantly, she felt guilty.  “Please don’t take it the wrong way,” she said.  “I’m very grateful that you’ve patched me up, but some things you just have to do on your own.”