Remember When (In Death #17.5)(66)

"PI, and yes, I did."

"Did he hold you at gunpoint? Did you have a seizure? Or did you just lose your mind?"

"The stones are going back where they belong. There'll be a press release announcing the partial recovery, which will get Crew off my back."

He lunged up, pulling at his hair as he circled the room. Thinking it was a game now that they were friends, Henry scooped up his rope and pranced behind Jack. "For all you know he's heading to Martinique. To Belize. To Rio or Timbukf*ckingtu. Sweet Baby Jesus, how could my own daughter fall for a scam so old it has mold on it?"

"He's going exactly where he said he was going, to do exactly what he said he was doing. And when he gets back, you and I are going to give him your share, so he can do exactly the same thing with them."

"In a pig's beady eye."

To settle the dog, Laine got up and poured kibble into a bowl. "Henry, time to eat. You're going to give them to me, Jack, because I'm not going to have my father hunted down and killed over a sack of shiny rocks." She slapped her hands on the table between them. "I'm not going to lie to my own children one day when they ask what happened to their granddaddy."

"Don't you pull that shit on me."

"You're going to give them to me because it's the only thing in my life I've ever asked of you."

"Damn it, Laine. Damn it to hell and back again."

"And you're going to give them to me because when Max turns them over and collects the fee, I'm going to give you my share. Well, half my share. That's one and a quarter percent of the twenty-eight, Dad. It's not the score of a lifetime, but it's not sneezable. And we'll all live happy ever after."

"I can't just-"

"Consider it a wedding present." She angled her head. "I want you to dance at my wedding, Dad. You can't do that if you go to prison, or if Crew's breathing down your neck."

On an explosive sigh, he sat again. "Lainie."

"They're bad luck for you, Dad. Those diamonds are cursed for you. They took Willy away from you, and you're on the run, not from the cops but from someone who wants you dead. Give them to me, get the monkey off your back. Max will find a way to square it with New York. The insurance company just wants them back. They don't care about you."

She came to him, touched his cheek. "But I do."

He stared up at her, into the only face he loved more than his own. "What the hell was I going to do with all that money anyway?"

14.

Laine drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she sat parked on her own lane, studying the dark green Chevy.

"You know, precious, your mother used to get that look on her face when..." Jack trailed off when she turned her head, slowly, and stared at him. "That one, too."

"You stole a car."

"I consider it more of a lend/lease situation."

"You boosted a car and drove it to my house?"

"What was I supposed to do? Hitchhike? Be reasonable, Lainie."

"I'm sorry. I can see how unreasonable it is for me to object to my father committing grand theft auto in my own backyard. Shame on me."

"Don't get pissy about it," he muttered.

"Unreasonable and pissy. Well, slap me silly. You're going to take that car right back where you found it."

"But-"

"No, no." She lowered her head into her hands, squeezed her temples. "It's too late for that. You'll get caught, go to jail, and I'll have to explain why my father thinks it's perfectly okay to steal a car. We'll leave it on the side of the road somewhere. Not here. Somewhere. God."

Concerned by the tone of her voice, Henry stuck his head over the front seat to lap at her ear.

"All right. It'll be all right. We'll leave the car outside of town." She sucked in a breath, straightened. "No harm, no foul."

"If I don't have the car, how the hell am I supposed to get to New Jersey? Let's just consider, Lainie. I have to get to Atlantic City, to the locker, get the diamonds and bring them back to you. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's what I want."

"I'm doing this for you, sweetheart, against my better judgment, because it's what you want. What my baby girl wants comes first with me. But I can't walk to Atlantic City and back, now can I?"

She knew that tone. Using it, Jack O'Hara could sell bottled swamp water out of a tent pitched beside a sparkling mountain stream. "There are planes, trains, there are goddamn buses."

"Don't swear at your father," he said mildly. "And you don't really expect me to ride a bus."

"Of course not. Of course not. There I go being pissy and unreasonable again. You can take my car. Borrow," she amended swiftly. "You can borrow my car for the day. I won't need it anyway. I'll be busy at work, beating my head against the wall to try to find my brain."

"If that's the way you want it, honey."

She cast her eyes to heaven. "I still can't believe you left millions of dollars' worth of diamonds in a rental locker, then sent Willy here with several million more."

"We had to move fast. Jesus, Laine, we'd just found out Crew killed Myers. We'd be next. Tucked my share away, took off. Bastard Crew was supposed to come after me. I all but drew him a damn map. Stash was safe. Willy gets another chunk of it here, then he'd double back for the rest while Crew's a thousand miles away tracking me. That was going to be our traveling money, our cushion."