On the Avenue (15 page)

“Hey!” he said, giving her a smile.

Madison smelled the beer on his breath and fought the urge to shove him away. “Hey,” she replied, dropping her voice so that it sounded guttural.

The guy was marginally cute but had nice muscular arms. He ground his crotch against her thigh and smirked. “I've never danced with a dude,” he screamed over the music. “It feels totally weird, but kinda hot.”

“I gotta be careful,” Madison told him in the deep manly voice. “My boyfriend's here.” She ground against him one final time, then slipped away. She spotted Park and Lex beneath the Exit sign and ran toward them. “Ugh. This is so rank.”

Park shrugged.

Lex, who was still thumping her feet to the music, said, “I can't
wait
for college.”

Madison and Park grabbed her by the arm and together they rushed down another two staircases. Outside, they discreetly glanced up the street and saw that the police cars were still parked in front of Zahara Bell's town house.

“Meet at the corner of Ninth and Fifth,” Lex said quickly.

They dashed in opposite directions to avoid the possibility of being spotted together. Madison made it to the designated spot first, breathless and panting. Two minutes later, she spotted Park coming up Fifth and waved at her.

“What now?” Madison asked, raising her arm to hail a cab. “Do we go to the Pierre and hustle Jeremy Bleu into giving us back the diamond?”

Park shook her head. “We can't risk it. We've had enough close calls as it is.”

“Do you think the cops have already gotten to Jeremy?” Madison sounded sympathetic. She knew Park was taking Jeremy Bleu's obvious guilt hard.

“Who knows? At this point,
I
don't even know what to think. I just wish I could speak to Jeremy face to face for a few minutes.” Park looked away, visibly upset. “It still doesn't make sense to me—how he could be guilty. But I guess if you've lost millions and you're in trouble, stealing the Avenue diamond makes sense.”

It was four a.m. The crowds were still thick, the traffic busy. Nightclubs were just beginning to unload the first round of partiers, and the second round was making its way east and west through Greenwich Village.

Suddenly, Lex came tearing up the avenue at breakneck speed. She looked like a marathon runner nearing the finish line. The scarf was flapping behind her neck, and strands of blond hair tumbled down past her shoulders. Her energy was so unchecked, she nearly crashed into Park. “Look!” she said, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a folded copy of the
Post
and held it out.

“How did you get this?” Madison asked, her eyes wide.

“There was a delivery truck on Sixth, so I lifted a copy and ran like hell.” Lex bent over slightly, trying to catch her breath.

“I don't think I want to see it,” Park said. “Thank you very much.”

Madison unfolded the newspaper, a knot tightening in her stomach. In that moment, she didn't care about the tilting baseball cap on her head or the streetlight shining down on her. No disguise would be able to shield her, Park, or Lex from the imminent media storm.

They were front-page news.

The legend of the Avenue diamond had intrigued Park her entire life. She had first set eyes on it at the tender age of six, while accompanying her father on a Fifth Avenue shopping spree. Hand in hand, they had bought up a storm at Bergdorf 's and Bendel's, then crossed the street to study the windows at Tiffany. And there, encased in glass, was the most stunning object she had ever seen. The enormous diamond was as thick as a crystal showpiece, the strands of light surrounding it as bright as the moon in an
Aspen sky. It was a kind of celestial radiance, and Park was sure she had glimpsed a view of heaven. Looking up at her father, she had asked the questions befitting a young celebutante:
Why didn't Mom buy it? How many carats is it? May I please have it?
She had left the sidewalk empty-handed but utterly transformed.

Even now, years later, Park equated the diamond with the divine. Precious gems were the work of angels. Gold was a gift of the saints. But the Avenue diamond was God's way of saying,
Yes, my daughters, I have style.
There wasn't a sane person on earth who would disagree with her. The diamond evoked awe and wonder, mystery and romance. Much more than just a rare rock, it was a one-of-a-kind gemological masterpiece steeped in legend and lore.

And Park was determined to recover it.

Outside the windows of her bedroom, it was dawn. Officially Saturday morning. The sun was just beginning to rise. Buildings gleamed against the pink backdrop of the sky and traffic sounded on the streets. Park was sitting at the L-shaped mahogany desk that occupied a small corner of her big bedroom. She hadn't slept since getting back home. She had lain awake for a couple of hours, her mind buzzing with fear and anger and worry. Now she pushed aside the day's newspapers and flipped open her laptop. She clicked through her private files slowly; most were several pages long, comprising her
years of research on gemology. She had separate folders for emeralds, sapphires, rubies, pearls—both white and black—and, of course, diamonds. She also had the names of the private jewelers and overseas dealers she'd purchased rocks from in the past, along with their corresponding dollar amounts. Last year alone, she had dropped $60,000 for three pairs of ruby earrings, $110,000 for a 7-carat emerald ring, and $1.6 million for a 15-carat diamond bracelet. The pieces were exquisite, but she had chosen them for more than just their beauty. A smart collector didn't just buy; she
invested.
Park never spent her allowance without ensuring a profit for herself in the future, and one day, her vast jewelry collection would be worth far more than she had paid for it.

She located her personal file on the Avenue diamond and clicked it open. It was nearly twenty pages long and contained all the information a girl passionate about jewelry could ever hope to find. She began perusing the paragraphs. She knew many of the facts by heart, but it was the legend of the Avenue diamond that intrigued her. Park had a hunch that whoever had stolen it was in for a shocking—and potentially violent—surprise. You didn't just grab an incredible piece of jewelry and bounce. There were severe consequences for disrupting the energy of midtown Manhattan shoppers.

A whopping 110 carats, the Avenue diamond was
valued at $21 million and owned by Tiffany. It was not for sale. It was not on regular display in a store front window. It was released for public viewing only twice a year: in late April, to coincide with the spring spending frenzy that affected every serious shopper, and the day after Thanksgiving, to mark the official start of the holiday season. Long lines thronged Tiffany at both times, with hundreds of tourists pressing up against the windows to experience the sparkle of the magical stone's light. The diamond was a Manhattan fixture, but it had toured the world a decade ago, wowing the citizens of every continent and drawing admiring stares from the kings and queens of Europe and the Middle East. And whether prince or pauper, people always asked the same questions: Was the legend true? Did the diamond really possess otherworldly powers? Could it heal or harm depending on the situation?

Yes, it can,
Park thought, the questions reverberating through her own mind. She and Madison and Lex were living proof of that. Had their mother not worn the Avenue diamond that night so many years ago, they probably wouldn't even have been born. Or—worse—they could have been born to a pop star and given trashy names like Broadway, Columbus, and Amsterdam. Park shivered just thinking about it.

No, she couldn't wait for the police to track down the diamond. It meant too much to her family.

She scrolled down to page ten, finding exactly what she was looking for. It was the section of her research she had collected directly from Long Phat, PhD, an internationally renowned gemologist with offices in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Johannesburg. Park had met Dr. Phat two years ago on one of his rare trips to the United States. He'd been impressed by her jewelry collection and, following a sizeable donation to his scientific institute, had agreed to a brunch date at the St. Regis. Park had interrogated Phat for nearly two hours and in that short expanse of time learned his personal beliefs about the Avenue diamond. The legend and lore—replete with their supernatural overtones—were real. The diamond, he told her, was as old and wise as the earth itself. He had seen its unearthly power create and destroy. It was a stone to be cherished, admired … and feared.

The 110-carat diamond had been discovered nearly fifty years ago in the wilds of the Amazon jungle. Bitsy Bellingham Bard, an American socialite on safari with her explorer husband, Gaston Parpedieu, had stumbled down an embankment during a violent rainstorm. When Bitsy landed facedown in a puddle of mud, she felt several bones in her body snap like twigs. She couldn't move. She couldn't see her husband in the lashing leaves and fronds. Pain wracked her body and she struggled for breath. Certain she was dying, Bitsy saw a pinprick of light emanating
from a nearby rock bed and felt an instant sense of peace. The light undulated; it shimmered and shook. Then the earth shook too, a jolt that raised the ground and ripped a crack through the sodden floor of the forest. The quake was fast but powerful, and the sudden seismic shift created a small opening in the rock bed. Bitsy dragged herself toward the cave, following the same brilliant stream of light. But it wasn't an angel taking her to the Saks in the sky. It was a stunning stone formation catching its first hint of the sun. Weak and broken, Bitsy touched it and felt a comforting heat surge through her body. She stood up. She wiped the muck from her boots. Her broken bones were healed, her pain gone. For two days, she and Gaston hacked away at the rock wall until the diamond came loose.

Bitsy, a worldly and cultured woman, had friends everywhere—even in the Amazon. As the story went, she took the diamond to a tribal shaman, who held it in his hands and saw a vision in the glimmering rays. It was a vision of Fifth Avenue. It was a vision of shoppers and stores and stunning opulence. He told Bitsy the diamond had been revealed to her by the gods in trust and honor. She was not to squander or sell it. She was not to destroy it. The shaman chanted an incantation over the diamond, did some sort of two-step dance, and handed it back to Bitsy and Gaston. They chartered a private plane back to New
York, and Bitsy soon unveiled the diamond to the world. She christened it the Avenue diamond because she said it would forever protect and preserve the eminent expanse of Fifth—from Central Park right down to Washington Square. Shoppers would always feel at home, and the world's greatest retailers would flourish and expand. The diamond, Bitsy told countless interviewers, had incredible powers; it was to be guarded at all costs from loss or damage, lest its wrath take hold. If the diamond ever
was
stolen, Bitsy promised that it would find its way home within forty-eight hours, leaving the thief “broken and burned.”

The world got its first glimpse of the diamond's mysterious pull shortly after Bitsy died. Her greedy nephews, Amos and Arnold, inherited the diamond but quickly sold it to an Arabian prince, pocketing major bucks. That very week, Amos slipped on his toupee, cracked his head open like an egg, and died instantly. Arnold, a notorious drunk, downed a martini in one gulp and choked on the accompanying olive garnish. A few years later, the Arabian prince sold the diamond to Tiffany for an undisclosed amount, citing numerous odd health problems, including impotence and huge diamond-shaped hemorrhoids.

Since then, Tiffany had proven a good home for the Avenue diamond, though Park couldn't understand why the store agreed to loan it out to celebrities,
royalty, and other important people these days. Venturina Baci should have been the
only
exception. But Julia Roberts had worn the diamond one year to the Oscars, and it had also graced the necks of Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Lopez. Had Zahara Bell been killed for the diamond? Park wondered. Was it an act of robbery? What unsuspecting, nonsuperstitious person
wouldn't
want to get his or her hands on the Avenue diamond?

In Park's file were several JPEGs of the ravishing rock. Long ago, it had been delicately attached to a thick gold chain—only suitable, Park thought, for long thin necks of the celebutante variety. Now she studied the pictures, which showed the diamond from various angles. The four
C
s that comprised a di-amond's worth—color, clarity, carat, and cut—were supremely evident here. The Avenue's color was the best color possible: none. An absence of color was a rarity in diamonds and signified the highest quality. This allowed light to be reflected and dispersed as a rainbow, enchanting even the most astute eyes.

The Avenue's cut was a “round brilliant” one, the most popular cut for a diamond because it ensured optical beauty without damaging the stone's natural atomic framework. When cut to exact and mathematically proven proportions, a diamond's symmetry produced unerring beauty and luster. The Avenue was no exception; light entering it from any direction
was reflected through the top, allowing flashes of vibrant color.

In terms of clarity, which measured the surface and internal characteristics of a diamond, the Avenue was perfect. There were no blemishes or inclusions, nor were there any polish lines or marks that clouded its radiance. Many years ago, the Avenue had received the highest clarity grading possible—an F, which stood for
flawless.

Just reading the notes made Park's heart beat a little faster. She was getting antsy in the chair, her panic levels rising. What if the psycho who had killed Zahara Bell was on his way out of the country by now? He could sell the Avenue diamond on the black market for a whopping amount of cash. That would mean the end of an era for jewelry admirers like her. It would leave a
huge
void on Fifth Avenue, and in the elegant fabric of this magnificent city she called home.

She stood up. She shook the tension from her body. She glanced out the window at the brightening sky and imagined what the day would bring. More reporters and cameras. More questions. Lex's stolen dress. The three of them stumbling on a body. A missing legendary diamond. And the fact that someone—a stranger—had gained access to their home with the sole intention of framing them and tarnishing the Hamilton name. Would anyone believe that she and Madison and Lex were innocent? How would the
general—and generally adoring—public react to the scandal? And did Detective Mullen, with his suspicious comments and terrible clothes, believe them?