Fortune and Glory (Stephanie Plum, #27)(73)

The minutes ticked on. It seemed like a lifetime, but it was only four minutes on my watch when Ramone finally stepped away from the safe. The door was open, and there was a collective sigh of relief that we hadn’t all been blown to bits.

We rushed into the storage unit and stared at the inside of the safe. It was as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room and no one moved. Everyone was frozen in stunned silence.

“It’s empty,” Grandma finally said. “There’s nothing in it but some comic books. It looks to me like Jimmy used to come here to sit in his La-Z-Boy and read comics. How could this be? Where’s the treasure?”

“Superman and Uncle Scrooge,” Potts said. “Excellent choice of comics but not worth much in their present condition.”

“This here’s a bummer,” Lula said. “I almost got blown up for nothing.”

“There was no charge attached to it,” Ramone said. “There was no chance of Hiroshima.”

Lula was hands on hips. “Well, what about those tunnels with the rats and the fire and the crazy-ass old assassin? What about that?”

“All in a day’s work,” I said.

Morelli was standing next to me. He looked over at me. Quizzical.

I shrugged. Truth is, it could have turned out a lot worse. My mother and my grandmother could have been horribly hurt or killed. I could have been horribly hurt or killed. Those possibilities had been laid to rest.

“The La-Z-Boys were sure there was a treasure in here. There were clues. There were keys,” Grandma said. “They were willing to kidnap and kill for it. What happened to it?”

“In this video game I play there’s a princess. And a dragon took her treasure. It was in a chest in the tower room and the dragon flew away with it,” Potts said.

“I like it,” Lula said. “Some hot-shot dragon flew away with the princess’s treasure.”

“I guess it could happen,” Grandma said. “Did the princess get her treasure back?”

“I’m working on it,” Potts said.

“I can’t think about this anymore,” my mom said. “I’m exhausted. Look at the time. I need to get dinner going.”

“I need some selfies for Facebook and Instagram,” Grandma said, standing in front of the safe. “I bet I could be a sensation. And if nobody minds, I’m going to take the comic books.”

“I’m gonna snap some selfies, too,” Lula said. “I might be able to add in a dragon to mine.”

Gabriela hadn’t moved forward with everyone else. She’d stood in place. Her expression throughout was thoughtful. Ranger was back on his heels with the same thoughtful expression.

I knew what they were thinking because I was thinking the same thing. This wasn’t done. There was more.

Morelli’s phone buzzed, and he checked the screen. “I have to go,” he said to me. “I don’t want to lose sight of Shine. And I have paperwork to do. I’ll call you later.”

I turned to Lula when Morelli walked away. “Can you take everyone home? I want to stay and talk to Ranger and Gabriela.”

“No problem,” Lula said. “I might even let Potts hum. He told me he stole a car so you could sneak up on the bad guys. He’s coming along.”

I waved them off, and I walked back to the safe. Ranger and Gabriela joined me.

“What was supposed to be in here?” I asked Gabriela.

“Diamonds,” she said. “D color and flawless. I represent the legal owner of the diamonds, and I’ve been empowered to claim them and have them tested and ultimately returned to my employer.”

“I assume you have documentation for this,” I said to Gabriela.

“I do,” she said. “Morelli has seen it, and it’s been filed with the court and the appropriate agencies.”

“Why were you following me?” I asked her. “Why didn’t you just go after the diamonds?”

“You and I have something in common,” Gabriela said. “Tenacity. Beyond that our talents are miles apart. You have no skills whatsoever, but you have dumb luck and uncanny instinct. I have skills, but I don’t always have luck. And as they say, it’s better to be lucky than good. At least some of the time. I realized in this instance, I was better advised to follow you around and let you find the diamonds than for me to do my own investigation. All I had to do was keep you alive. That in itself is a full-time job.”

I shifted my attention to Ranger. “Did you know?”

“No,” he said. “I was concentrating on keeping you in cars.”

“None of the La-Z-Boys took the diamonds,” I said. “I’m sure Jimmy has them stashed somewhere, either for himself or as part of the clue system. Shine had the last clue. Number nine. That was the number on the storage locker. The wedding bands had the safe combination, but maybe that wasn’t Jimmy’s clue.”

“You know the location of the clue,” Gabriela said.

I nodded. “I have a suspicion. Look under the La-Z-Boy seat cushion.”

Ranger lifted the cushion and found a folded piece of paper and a key ring with some age-worn keys on it.

Ranger pocketed the keys on the key ring and opened the paper. “RIP, Anthony.”

I called Connie. “Did Jimmy Rosolli have a relative named Anthony?”