“Not really,” I told her. “What I’d rather know is what they serve at the buffets.” I was super hungry.

  “If we had an idea of the value of those stones, it could help us figure out where to go from here,” Celeste said thoughtfully. “We can’t just keep the things.”

  “We could take them to the management here at the Kaleidos,” I said. “That’s what anyone would do. Then we could do the tourist thing.” Only problem was: they were two, and I was one, and I knew I was outvoted.

  Celeste picked up her cell, typed in something fast, and studied her phone’s screen for a moment. “Okay, there’s a jewelry store just a few blocks east of here,” she said. “It’s close enough to walk, and it’s open late because, hey, it’s Vegas! Who takes the time to sleep?”

  “Perfect,” Marge chirped. “Just give me a second to check my makeup.” She walked to the mirror and put some pink gloss on her lips, as if we were headed out to somewhere slightly more fun.

  She saw me roll my eyes. “Oh, Charlie, we’re in Vegas! Plus, I might need to look like I’m the kind of woman who’s used to being told that the stones I’ve just brought in are enough to buy a yacht in some exotic place.” She stopped to look at me. “You should wear more makeup, hon. You know what you should do? Smoky eyes and bright red lips! Wouldn’t Alex love that?”

  “What I put on my face isn’t up to any man,” I said in a huff. That went especially for a man who couldn’t be bothered to pick up a stupid phone, but for the moment Alex and his weird ways were not foremost in my mind. “Let’s just get on with this, okay?” I said to the others.

  “Coming, coming, coming.” Marge shoved her lipstick in her purse, and we headed out the door.

  Celeste led us along the strip as we watched for the address on Highland Avenue. My mood lifted right away as I walked through the crowds, although the pain in my ankle was being quite insistent. I was absolutely stunned as I stopped to gaze up at the extravagant hotels. Some of them were massive. Up close, they looked even grander than they had appeared to be through the windows of the bus.

  Celeste took me by the elbow. “Earth to Charlie. We need to keep on moving. We’ll come back and be tourists once we’ve figured out a plan.”

  Reluctantly, I followed, and soon enough we saw some flashing letters that spelled out Jon J. Jewelry. It was coming up just after we crossed at the next light.

  “Let’s step over here for a moment.” Marge nodded toward a wall. “How exactly should we do this?” she asked in a low voice once we’d put some distance between us and the crowds. “It’s not like we can just pull out a whole big bag of diamonds. I imagine that’s the kind of thing that shady people do.”

  We all thought about it.

  After a moment, Celeste had an idea. “Let’s just give them one stone,” she said, “and see how much that’s worth. If one of them is real, I’m betting the same is true for the others that we have. Then we have an indication of what we’re dealing with.”

  “That would work,” Marge said. “I’m sure that happens all the time, ladies coming in with just a single stone.”

  “And if that one’s a dud, I imagine that we’re carrying a whole bag of fakes,” I said. “I have an idea. I’ll say the stone is mine. I’ll say it’s from my loser ex and that I’m here to find out if the bozo is every bit as cheap as I’ve always thought.” Of all the quirky tasks that came with the job, I liked pretending best. We’d taken on all kinds of roles to blend into different crowds or to get our questions answered.

  “Nice work,” Celeste said, impressed.

  I couldn’t help but grin. “I’ve learned from the best.”

  “You just want to get on with your vacation,” Celeste said.

  “I wish nothing more than that,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  Celeste smiled and nodded. “I’ll grab you a stone. Give me cover.”

  Marge and I huddled close to hide our friend as she—oh, so nonchalantly—reached into her purse and handed me a diamond wrapped in a tissue.

  “I wish we had some kind of jewelry case,” she said with a frown. “No one walks around with a diamond stuck down in their purse in a pile of coins and papers. We should have planned a little better. At least I had some tissue. It’s clean, by the way.”

  “Thanks for that,” I said.

  The atmosphere inside the store was dignified and somber, in a vivid contrast to the crowded scene outside. Jewels glistened from inside three polished counters. To our right, an older couple browsed with the help of an employee, who pulled out a necklace to display with the greatest care and gentleness on a square of cloth.

  A man at the front counter flashed us a big smile.

  “Welcome to Jon J.,” he said. “We’re so glad that you came in to see us. How may I help you?”

  I told him the saga of my ex and the diamond that he gave me. “I’m thinking of selling it, but I’m not so sure,” I said. “I was hoping you could tell me how much it’s worth.” Very carefully, I took the stone from my purse.

  The man produced a silky cloth and put the diamond on it, his expression careful and unchanged. I imagined precious jewels did not usually arrive in ripped-up wads of tissue. Still, his face did not reveal any of the disdain or amusement that he might have felt. The three of us watched with anticipation as he put on a pair of gloves, picked up some kind of glass, and peered closely at the stone.

  “Just like in the movies,” Marge said underneath her breath.

  Celeste shot her a look that was meant to silence further comments.

  “Did he just give you a loose stone?” the man looked up to ask. “There was no ring or necklace?”

  “This was not the kind of guy to do anything at all in the normal way,” I said. “He was full of surprises, that one. My husband was…well, special.”

  He turned the stone over several times and continued peering closely at the shiny little jewel. A very subtle change moved across his face. He looked back up and seemed to study me as closely as he had the stone.

  What could that look mean? Was he wondering what kind of woman had inspired a gift so very priceless that he was left in awe? Or was he pitying the girl who’d brought in a bauble from the half-price bin at the dollar store?

  He turned back to the stone and whispered to himself as he held it to the light. I heard “clarity” and “flawless” and “extraordinary”.

  Screaming sweet potato soufflé.

  What if all of them were real? My heart began to pound. There were people out there on the street, I knew, who would shoot us dead for just a single stone.

  He smiled at us and cleared his throat. “I do believe this piece would bring ten thousand, maybe more. This piece is very fine.”

  We froze, too stunned to speak.

  Marge finally found her voice. “Did you just say ten thousand?”

  “Ten thousand dollars?” I asked stupidly.

  “Madam, that would be correct.”

  I looked at Marge, and she, in turn, looked wide-eyed at Celeste. Celeste looked at the man. A full minute must have gone by before anyone could speak.

  Chapter Six

  Freakingtastic flapjacks.

  I thought I would pass out. Had I heard that number right?

  Maybe they had smelling salts. They had to be prepared if they threw out the kinds of numbers that could lay an unsuspecting person flat out on the floor. And was that eye-popping estimate what he would really give us for a single stone? We had a whole bagful! I tried to guess how many of those insanely precious jewels were in Celeste’s purse. I wasn’t good enough with numbers to guess how many zeroes might be in that dollar figure, but I knew it was crazy—on a Lifestyles-of-the-Rich-and-Famous, buy-a-mansion-and-a-yacht-and-quit-your-day-job kind of way.

  If the guy was all pumped up now, what would he think about a whole bag of those babies? He could be the one who needed smelling salts.

  Celeste must have had the same thought about how the number would look, multiplied. She was hugging her purse tightly to her chest as she stared, flabbergasted, at the man. Marge stood beside her in stunned silence, her mouth forming a neat O.

  The expert himself looked a little overwhelmed. He pulled a hankie from his pocket and touched it to his brow. Then he turned to me. “I would say your ex…had exquisite taste.”

  I could only nod.

  The man composed himself enough to smile. “We at Jon J. Jewelry are prepared to make an offer. You’ll be pleased to know that you can walk out of the store today with a check that I am sure will surpass your expectations.”

  I think I almost fainted.

  “I…er…I have to think about it,” I said to the man. “It was a gift, you know—very sentimental.”

  “Well, please keep us in mind when you’d like to sell. At Jon J., the deals are as fair and honest as the jewelry is divine.” His smile was almost as big as the number he’d thrown out. “In addition, I should tell you that some of our best pieces—our most exquisite lines—are being offered at a special price this month. You can use the newfound money for a brand-new piece. Our Dazzle at a Discount Days are going on right now!”

  “Thank you so much, sir.” Celeste put one hand on my back to steer me toward the door. “We’ll keep that in mind for sure.”

  “We do love dazzles!” Marge assured him. “We love discounts too! Dazzles and discounts are two of our favorite things.”

  He trailed us to the door, using words like “special offer”, “just for our favorite customers”, and “for this week only”, but my mind was positively spinning. I couldn’t take it in.

  We walked shell-shocked down the block until I pulled the girls off the sidewalk to the side door of some shop, away from the main entrance. It was as close as one could get to a private place in the heart of Vegas.

  “Did I hear that man correctly?” I asked them quietly.

  “Whatever you do, don’t let me lose this purse between here and the hotel,” Celeste said.

  Just the very thought of that made me feel faint again.

  Marge did a little dance. “Do you know what we are, my friends? We. Are. Crazy. Rich.” Her smile turned to a frown. “Someone’s crazy rich. For just a moment, I forgot it’s not us.”

  “Quiet, Marge,” I hissed. “You might as well scream out, Over here, purse snatchers. We’re the ones you want.”

  Celeste hugged her purse a little closer to her body. “We are no more rich than when we started out this morning, but this mess of ours just got a whole lot bigger.”

  Marge looked a little pouty. “Just think how many shoes—extraordinary shoes—a girl could buy with just a single one of those stones?”

  Celeste watched the droves of people who were passing by not far from where we stood. “Can you imagine how many of those people would knock us to the moon and back if they knew we had the contents of Fort freaking Knox in my stupid purse?”

  I saw Marge eyeing a mannequin draped in silk in a nearby window.

  “Forget it,” I said to her. “These are not our diamonds and we’re not going to sell them to go shopping.”

  Marge pouted.

  I took her arm and led her to the sidewalk, where we continued our way.

  “We need to get back with the…stuff,” I said. “Best we don’t speak of it again until we’re at the hotel. Better yet, we should use a special code word for the…items in the bag.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Marge said. “Very prudent.”

  We each threw out ideas as we moved with the crowd. To anyone in earshot, it must have sounded like the most insane conversation ever held in Vegas.

  “Kittens! I love kittens!”

  “We could try pies instead.”

  “I like shoes more than pies, although I really think I like cell phone chargers best.”

  “I know! Cigarettes!”

  “Do we want cigarettes or peaches?”

  “I vote for margaritas. Margaritas are the best—very, very Vegas.”

  This was already giving me headaches. “Okay, I’ve got it: coffee.” It made perfect sense. No one would be suspicious if we mentioned coffee. People said it all the time.

  “Perfect,” Celeste said.

  Marge frowned. “It’s okay, I guess.”

  Finally, with a code word, I felt free to spill.

  “Can I just say how freaked out I am?” I said. The frustration just oozed out once we’d finally found a way to really talk about the surprise development at the jewelry store. “What do we do with the coffee now? How in the name of all things caffeinated can one tiny little coffee cost that freaking much? And they have to be connected—the girl and the coffee, which is really pretty scary since the coffee is with us.”

  My mind drifted just a little. I wondered what the police had found when they got to the scene.

  “What I want to know is this: how much coffee do we have?” Marge said. “I’d love to have an inkling of just how rich we are—or how rich we would be if the stuff was really ours.”

  Celeste and I stared at Marge.

  “I’m serious!” Marge said. “How many coffees do you think are in that bag…or should we say ‘carafe’?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” Celeste stepped beneath the awning of a shop that seemed to be dark and empty. “I’ll just take a quick peek and make an estimate. You girls stand close so I’m kind of blocked from view.”

  “Um, Celeste?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be best to wait and…count our coffees back at the hotel?” Every passerby seemed to be a threat. I broke out in a sweat at the very thought of what could happen if someone caught a glimmer of the diamonds tucked into her bag.

  “I’ll play it cool,” she told me in a whisper, “and you know me. I’m quick.” With a look of concentration, she felt around inside the purse. “There could be forty of them here, at least. Yes, that’s my best guess. Some are bigger; some are smaller by a bit. They’re oval…square; they’re round—all kinds of different shapes.”

  That meant that like three fools, we were strolling through the crowds with almost half a million dollars’ worth of diamonds in a purse. Once again, I felt light-headed. Any moment I might faint.

  “Isn’t this sad?” I asked with a frown. “Here I am walking with a humongous amount of valuable…coffee, while I’m broke.”

  “I can’t believe we have to turn these in,” Marge said.

  “These would look so good in my collection,” Celeste said.

  “Okay, back to reality,” I said. “We have to think. If we go to the police, they’d want to know where and when we found the coffee, and what we did with the coffee once we found it. I don’t want to get involved in that whole dead-body thing. We get enough of that at work.”

  “You got that right,” Celeste said, “but the thing is that our bag of fun here could be a major key in finding out what happened to that girl. With the address inside and all, it’s kind of a big deal. Somehow and some way, we need to get it to the cops.”

  “Major key,” Marge said, trailing off. “This is such a mess. We’re in a no-win situation. It’s not like we can drop it on the police’s front steps and run.” She paused. “Or can we?”

  “I don’t think we can,” I said. “And whose coffee do we have? What is this all about?”

  “I wonder too,” Celeste said. “We should do some research on loose diamonds, on what happens to the stones before they’re used for jewelry. We should try to figure out exactly who is most likely to possess a bag filled with diamonds.”

  Marge and I just stared.

  “Oops. Sorry. Coffee. I meant a bag that’s filled with coffee. Or a carafe filled with coffee. Sheesh.”

  “I wanted to use the word kittens,” Marge said.

  “That wouldn’t have been easier,” Celeste said and rolled her eyes. “Okay, let’s go over what we know. We know the coffee is loose—loose coffee but not raw. The coffee has been processed. It’s been polished. We could do some Googling on what it is that happens to the coffee at that stage of the game.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Marge said. “Can we do it over dinner? We haven’t eaten since the plane.”

  “I vote for that too,” I said. “Give me food. Right now.” I realized I was starving—and surrounded by buffets that were famously fabulous.

  Marge grinned. “I say we deserve the number-one buffet in the United States. Let’s do Caesar’s Palace!”

  Finally, some relaxation stuff. This was our vacation, after all. Might as well squeeze in some pasta, prime rib, and cream-filled cake with the mayhem and the murder.

  Celeste checked Google Maps. “It won’t be a short walk, but I guess that’s okay. Some exercise would do a lot to calm my nerves. Plus, we’ll get to see the city more. It’s a whole new Vegas after dark with all the lights.”

  A long walk? After dark? With half a million dollars’ worth of diamonds in a purse? That didn’t help my nerves at all. Still, my stomach growled, and I said okay. “Let’s just be careful,” I told them nervously. “Keep an eye on that purse at all times.”

  “Of course we will,” Celeste replied. “That goes without saying.”

  The walk took almost half an hour, and I was mesmerized by the flashing multicolored spectacle that was Vegas after dark. My neck began to hurt from looking up at the tall buildings then glancing quickly down toward Celeste’s side. I kept a constant eye on the world’s most important purse, which stayed safely nestled against my friend’s right hip. Not taking any chances, she kept her arm tightly pressed against her bag.

  My ankle hurt as well. The crowds around us had grown bigger. Everyone seemed happy—on vacation, free. Well, almost everybody. I was feeling kind of lousy until we got close to Caesar’s Palace. Man, the place was huge—all sparkling white and grand. We walked inside to a sea of gold and marble with enormous statues looking down at us. Even the tall ceilings were filled with sumptuous art.

  “I feel right at home,” I joked as I glanced around me at the well-heeled crowd. “I’d put my coffee up against any woman’s in the place.”

  We followed the signs to the buffet, but all we really had to do was look for the crowds of people around the hostess stand.

 

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