To Have and to Heist(15)

I gave Garcia a brief outline of the facts, since he loved facts so much. Chloe’s excitement when she’d been approached about the freelance museum job. Her growing online attraction to the consultant who hired her. The invitation from the executive director to the private viewing and her decision to go with the black dress instead of polka dots or flowers. Her frantic call. My cab ride—I didn’t mention the part about speeding. And finally, my failed attempt to rescue her.

“It must be hard for Chloe as a single mom,” Garcia said. “Lots of bills to pay and no one to help. Sometimes people get desperate.”

My spider senses tingled. This was not where I had expected the conversation to go.

“Olivia is safe, healthy, and happy,” I said. “Chloe works three jobs to support her. They’re renting the first floor of a nice house that has three other lovely tenants, and although money is tight, the only real issue she has is an ex who has consistently refused to pay child support or alimony. He’s someone you should investigate, not Chloe. He’s a nasty piece of work. His parents disinherited him after they found out he’d abused her. He barely scraped through college, and now he’s involved with a bad crowd.”

“No one is trying to take Olivia away,” he said, understanding.

“Then I don’t appreciate your attempt to insinuate that my friend would resort to theft to make ends meet. It’s beneath you and the dignity of your profession.”

He bristled, like I’d hit a nerve. Maybe he was one of those TV detectives who’d lost a partner or came home one night after solving a murder to find his best friend sleeping with his wife, and now he spent his days working and his nights drinking whiskey out of a bottle until he fell down drunk on his unmade bed in the dingy apartment he felt he had to live in because it was a reflection of how wrecked he felt inside.

“My apologies.” He held up a hand in a gesture of capitulation. Detective Garcia had nice hands. Strong. Tanned. A light dusting of tawny hair on his forearm. I’d never thought about a man’s forearm as being sexy before, but something about the way he moved . . .

While Detective Garcia flipped through his black notebook, I silently indulged in a few fantasies. Detective Garcia and I on a tropical island where nudity was encouraged. Detective Garcia and I dancing with our bodies plastered together in my favorite nightclub. Detective Garcia crying with happiness as I walked down the aisle in a red-and-gold lehenga and a pair of gold stilettos with a relieved parent on each arm.

“I have to consider all scenarios,” he continued. “We’re not talking about the theft of a candy bar. The necklace that was stolen is an antiquity called the Wild Heart. It was loaned to the museum by a private collector for a special exhibit. It’s made entirely of diamonds and emeralds and is valued at $25 million.”

$25 million. I couldn’t even conceive of that amount of money. How many bags of candy would I be able to buy with $25 million? Or candy stores? I could pay off my loans and Chloe’s loans, my brothers’ loans, and my parents’ mortgage. I could buy a house with a yard and a gate to keep aunties and suitors out. I could hire Garcia to protect me 24-7. I would never have to worry about money again.

Garcia opened his file and slid a picture of the necklace across the table. I’d never seen such a beautiful piece of jewelry. A huge heart-shaped pink diamond surrounded by tiny diamonds rested at the center of a chain of pink diamonds surrounded by diamond and emerald leaves in a floral arrangement.

“Wow. Just wow,” I said. “I didn’t know diamonds came in pink.”

“It wouldn’t be worth $25 million if the diamonds were clear, or so I’ve been told,” he said. “Not really a jewelry man. No time for that kind of thing. Crime doesn’t sleep.”

“Neither do I when my friend is wrongfully accused of a crime and there is no evidence to implicate her.” I settled back in my chair, confident in my TV show legal analysis. Detective Garcia wasn’t so bad. Gorgeous. Fit. Dry sense of humor. Not particularly threatening. Employed. Not a professional thief.

“It could be that she had an accomplice,” Garcia said. “Someone who was part of the heist from the beginning. Someone who was there to catch the necklace when it was thrown out the window . . .”

Maybe Garcia wasn’t that handsome after all. He had a cleft in his chin and his cheekbones were almost too defined. He’d probably insist on wearing a tuxedo to our wedding instead of a sherwani and there would be no lazy Sunday afternoons eating chocolate croissants in bed because he’d be a sugar hater and health nut like my dad.

“I think this is the part where I ask for my lawyer.”

“You have that right,” Garcia said. “But I only have a few more questions and then you’re free to go. It might take hours for your lawyer to get here.”

“That might work for someone who didn’t have to binge crime shows with her eighty-year-old landlady to get a reduced rent,” I said. “But I know all the tricks. I’ll make that call.”

* * *

◆ ◆ ◆

?There were times I hated having a huge family. First, I never had a summer weekend to myself. Why couldn’t the Chopras and the Devs （my mom’s side of the family） just stop getting married? Why couldn’t people just live together and save all the poor single people from having to repurpose old outfits, buy expensive gifts, learn new dances, and eat too much food when they’d rather be lounging on the couch eating handfuls of expired candy, drinking fancy cocktails, and watching romantic comedies with their bestie?