But they had serious issues to contend with tonight, and no one was wasting time on idle chitchat. The first job on their agenda was finding a new hiding place for the emerald and the black harlequin opal. Before the robbery, they’d considered the safe under the historical mission next door to be both symbolic and as secure as any place could be, but obviously they’d been wrong.
Justin fetched a ladder from the back storage room. The others collected a toolbox and the quarter-inch drill and a broom. The job didn’t have to take five minutes, but Justin figured with four men there, it would likely take a good hour.
It took a full hour and a half.
“I’ll do the drilling,” Ben started out by volunteering.
“I can do it.” Matthew stepped forward. “I’m used to doing every type of chore on a ranch. This is nothing.”
Dakota hunched fists on his hips. “Yeah, well, I think we got a good chance of running into trouble. Drilling a hole in the paneling is easy enough, but behind that is straight adobe brick. If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up with a hole the size of a crater.”
If Justin had been in any mood to laugh that night, his friends would have easily induced his sense of humor. All the guys were so literally fearless. Men who’d step up, without hesitation, without expecting thanks or reward, to save a child or an innocent. Each of them had literally pledged to do exactly that as Texas Cattleman’s Club members-and had.
But hell. Get a bunch of guys near a construction project and naturally the four-letter words flew…along with arguments over the right way to do things.
Justin would normally have contributed his useless two cents. Tonight, though, when the small hole had finally been drilled-and the swearing settled down-he climbed the ladder in the front entrance hall. The Club sign- Leadership, Justice and Peace-was lying on its side on the ground. And all of them suddenly turned quiet.
Each took one last look at the black harlequin opal and the emerald, before the two stones were wrapped in white velvet inside a film canister. The drill had made a hole big enough to put the film canister inside, so after that, there was nothing left to do but rehang the sign.
“It couldn’t be more perfect,” Matthew said. “I mean, in the long run, obviously we need to find a more secure vault for the stones. But until we know what happened to the red diamond, this is ideal. Symbolic. Beneath the sign that stands for the stones. We did good.”
“Now if all the other problems connected to the theft and the plane crash were only half this easy to solve,” Dakota said dryly.
They swept, cleaned up, put away the broom and toolbox. Yet all of them ended up back in the front entrance hall. For them the sign had never been a corny symbol, but an echo of the very real vows they’d made to help others when they’d joined the Texas Cattleman’s Club. At the moment, they were all frustrated in fulfilling those vows.
“The more we dive into this mess, the less makes sense,” Dakota groaned.
“Let’s go over what we know,” Matthew suggested. “Nothing’s surfaced to identify Riley Monroe’s killer yet, has it?”
No, it hadn’t-and the red diamond was still missing. As yet, the men had no evidence to link the plane crash to the jewel theft-but the jewel thief positively had to be someone on that Asterland plane flight. Klimt, one of the few who might have given them specific answers about what happened on that plane, was still in a coma. Riley Monroe’s killer was obviously their jewel thief, but the cops had no leads or even ideas on Monroe’s killer yet…and one of the most curious issues in the whole mess was that two stones had been recovered, and not the third. All the Texas Cattleman’s Club directly involved with this-except for Aaron-had gone over the plane with a fine-tooth comb. As had the authorities. As had the two investigators, Milo and Garth, sent by the Asterlanders.
“Well, something has to break,” Matthew said. “Part of the problem is that none of us copes well with frustration. We’re all in the habit of going out and doing something to fix things. Having to wait is partly what’s driving us nuts.”
Dakota concurred. “I also doubt that there’s a gem as notoriously unique on the planet as our red diamond. Which means that it can’t surface anywhere without raising news. Even in the blackest of a black market, it’ll raise a flurry when it shows up-if we don’t find another way to find it first.”
“Yes. The red diamond is really the key to solving the rest,” Ben said thoughtfully, and then, “Justin?”
Justin swiftly turned toward them. “I agree with all of you. It’s just going to take a little more time. None of us have ever accepted failure and we’re not about to now.”
The others exuberantly agreed, but Ben was still frowning at him. “Something was on your mind. You were really staring at the sign. Did something occur to you?”
“Yeah, it did.”
Justin couldn’t explain. Not to anyone. But this strange epiphany thing had happened when he’d taken one last look at the precious emerald and opal. Suddenly his heart had started beating like a drum, hollow, anxious, the
And the drumming in his heart kept thundering like a hollow echo. Memories of Bosnia knifed through his mind. He’d had such a heroic goal when he’d volunteered to go there. He’d wanted to help. To save people. And at the time, he’d been egotistical enough to believe that he was an ideal person to do that-that he was one of the best docs in trauma medicine anywhere.
Only he’d flown into a nightmare. Patient after patient had been suffering severe wounds from bombs and guns and shrapnel. But the conditions were petrifying. Sometimes there were no drugs. Sometimes there was no heat, no electricity-hell, sometimes not even running water. He had the skill; he had the heart, but he had no way to save them. And patient after patient died, until Justin had started to feel a breaking sensation on the inside. Maybe it wasn’t his failures that caused the deaths, but it was still failure. It was still unlivable. And when he’d come home, he’d aimed straight for plastic surgery and away from any medicine where patients died.
It made sense to him then.
It made sense to him for a long time.
It had made sense to him until he’d asked Winona to marry him. All these years, he’d prayed that Winona could love him, but now that she’d admitted to those feelings…aw hell, Justin knew exactly why his heart felt hollow. Because it was. Part of him was missing, no different than that damned red diamond was missing. He was afraid of failing her. Afraid of not being the strong, honorable man that she seemed to think he was-the strong, honorable man that Justin was no longer positive he was, either.
Ben’s fingers closed on his shoulder. “Something is wrong. Do you want to sit down somewhere? Find a place to talk?”
Matthew picked up on Ben’s concern. “Justin, hell, you looked like you’d been driving yourself ragged when you first walked in. What’s wrong? Tell us. What can we do?”
“Nothing,” he started to say. He wasn’t sure if he felt more relieved-or more worried-that he’d finally figured out why setting the marriage date had been throwing him for six. At least he was finally getting his mind wrapped more clearly around the problem.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that he had a clue what to do about it.
Startling all of them, a telephone suddenly rang. The Club, of course, was closed. A call this late was likely nothing more than a telemarketer or a wrong number. But Justin took the excuse to hike for the phone, relieved to get away from his friends’ searching attention, no matter how well-meaning their concern.
The closest receiver was in the Club office. He reached the phone just as it rang for a fourth time.
“Justin? Oh, thank God I got you. I didn’t know where to track you down…” He heard Winona’s voice, sounding not at all like her. Win kept her cool in a thousand crises, and always for others. Yet her tone was shrill with panic and fear. “I need you. Right now. Oh God, oh God. Angel isn’t breathing right. Something’s terribly wrong. I’m afraid to take her to the hospital, afraid to do anything that could make it worse, I-”
No matter how messed up he was, this was easy. Justin didn’t have to think. Winona needed him. That was cut-and-dried. “I’ll be there in five minutes flat. I promise.”
