“May I inquire—?” began Escott.
“We have to be quick and not attract attention,” she said, glancing toward the kitchen door. Her strong husky voice sounded unused to whispering. “The owner’s an old friend and let me sneak out the back.”
“Toward what purpose?”
“I’m ostensibly having dinner with my boyfriend and his parents. They’re my alibi—no one else should know about any of this. I’ll tell you why if you take the job.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“I heard about you through Mrs. Holguin. She said you pick locks, recover things, and can keep quiet. She said I could trust you.”
Escott does everything a private detective does, except divorce work, calling himself a private agent instead. It’s a fine point, allowing him to bend the law when it’s in the interests of his client. He’d found it profitable.
“Mrs. Holguin’s assessment is accurate. How may I assist you?”
“I need you to recover something my cousin Agnes stole from me. She’s my first cousin on my late mother’s side. We’ve never liked each other, but this time she’s gone too far.”
“What was taken?”
“This . . . ”
Miss Weaver wore a long necklace with a heavy pendant dangling from it. She held it up. Escott struck a match to see. Set in the pendant’s ornate center was an oval-cut yellow stone the size of a big lima bean.
She pointed at the stone just as the match went out. “This is supposed to be a nearly flawless, intense-yellow diamond. That color is rare, and one this size is really rare. Sometime in the last week my cousin Agnes got into my locked room and switched them. She had a copy made of this pendant, a good one—that’s real white gold, but around a piece of colored glass. She thinks I’m too stupid to notice the difference.”
“You want to recover the original?”
“And substitute this one, but I’ll handle that part. I happen to know she is too stupid to know the difference. When I get the real one back I’ll put it in a safety deposit box so she can’t steal it again, but it has to be done tonight. Can you help me?”
“Before I undertake such an errand I need proof of your ownership of the diamond.”
She gave a flabbergasted stare, mouth hanging wide. “Isn’t my word good enough?”
“Miss Weaver, please understand that for all I know, you—”
I put a hand on his arm before he could finish. Accusing a client of being a thief using us to do her dirty work was a good way to get slapped. She looked solid enough and angry enough to pack quite a wallop.
Another, louder rumble of thunder rolled over our little piece of Chicago. A stray gust of cool air made a half-assed effort to clear the alley stink, but failed and died in misery.
“Tell us a little more,” I suggested.
For a second it was even money whether Miss Weaver would turn heel back into the kitchen or give Escott a shiner, but she settled down. “All right—just pretend you believe me. The diamond is called Hecate’s Golden Eye. It’s been in my family for generations, passed down from mother to daughter. There’s no provenance for that.”
“What about insurance? Is your name on a policy?”
“There is none, and before you say so, yes, that’s stupid, but I can’t afford the premium. The family used to have money, but it’s gone. I work in a department store, and it’s been enough until now because I lived in the family home, then Grandma Bawks died and left the house to Agnes, so I’ve had to start paying rent.”
“Your cousin charges you rent?”
“With a big simpering smile. One of these days I’ll rearrange her teeth. I’m moving out. I’d rather live in a Hooverville shack than under the same roof with her and that smirking gigolo she married.”
“Could you put events in their order of occurrence?” Escott asked.
“Yes, of course. I know all this, but you don’t. Hecate’s Eye belonged to Grandma Bawks—my late mother’s mother—and in her will left it to me. Agnes got the house. It’s a big house, but the Eye could buy a dozen of them.”
“It’s that valuable?”
“And then some, but Grandma Bawks knew I would always keep the gem and someday pass it down to my daughter. She couldn’t trust Agnes to do that. Hecate’s Eye has been in our family for generations; it’s always brought good luck to those who respect it.”
“Interesting name,” I said.
“It’s for the one flaw in the stone. It looks like a tiny eye staring at you from the golden depths.”
“Hecate, traditionally the queen of witches,” Escott murmured. “Does this diamond have a curse?”
“Yes. It does.”
For all that Escott’s own friend and partner was a vampire, he had a streak of skepticism about other supernatural shenanigans. He’d also apparently forgotten that the customer is always right. “Really, now . . . ”
She put her fists on her hips, ready for a challenge. Most women fall all over themselves once they hear Escott’s English accent, but she seemed immune. “There are stories I could tell, but suffice it to say that any man who touches the Eye dies.”
Her absolute conviction left him nonplussed for a moment. I enjoyed it.
“That’s why I have to be along, to protect you from the curse.”
“Keep going, Miss Weaver,” I said in an encouraging tone. She favored me with a brief smile. It didn’t make her pretty, but she was interesting.
“Grandma Bawks passed on two weeks ago. Before she went, she gave me the pendant. She put it into my hand and gave her blessing the way it’s been done for who knows how long. I’m not the eldest granddaughter, but she said the stone wanted to be with me, not Agnes.”
“Agnes didn’t agree with that?”
“Hardly, but she wouldn’t say anything while Grandma was alive or she’d have been cut from the will. Agnes got the Bawks house and most everything in it; I got a little money, some mementos, and Hecate’s Eye, but that’s more than enough for me. My cousin wanted everything, so she stole the Eye. I had it well-hidden in a locked room, but somehow she found it.”
“Being female, your cousin is exempt from the curse?”
“She doesn’t believe in it, neither does that rat she married, but if he so much as breathes on it, he’ll find out for sure. Her being female might not matter: Grandma gave it to me. The stone will know something’s wrong.”
“Curses aside, these are tough times,” I said. “A rock like that could buy a lot of money for you.”
“That’s how Agnes thinks. She’s never had a job, and her husband’s too lazy to work. She’s selling the stone to live off the proceeds. It would never occur to her to try earning a living.”
I liked Miss Weaver’s indignation.
“I don’t want the money, I want my grandmother’s gift back.” She looked at Escott. “You can go through the history of the family at the library, look up old wills wherever they keep those things, and I can show you Grandma Bawks’s will and her diary, and it will all confirm what I’ve just told you, but there’s no time. Agnes is selling the stone tonight to a private collector, then it’s gone forever. I must switch it before he arrives. Will you help me?”
Escott glanced my way, though he couldn’t have seen much more than my shape in the dark. I knew what he wanted, though.
Damnation.
“I believe her,” I said, hoping to get out of things.