Accomplice Read online

  Lindsay’s hand on her shoulder was the only thing that kept Jess from chasing after the retreating figure of Agent Noah Grayson. Not that she knew what she would do if she caught him. Hit him with her shoe. Confess all her sins. Beg for his help.

  But men like him didn’t help women like her.

  Chapter 2

  Jessica turned in a slow circle in the center of the third-floor loft space that was her own personal gallery.

  Empty hooks littered the walls like an after-Christmas sale. Gone. Every painting in the room was gone. Stolen by that thief of an FBI agent.

  Almost of their own accord, her fingers flew to the bare skin of her neck and chest.

  Her necklace was gone, and all of her beautiful paintings of it were gone. It wasn't the value of the diamonds that had her worried, though lord knew she should be counting her pennies. If Brandon Kingsbury had his way, Jess would be left with only the clothes on her back.

  Charles' son—she refused to call a man twelve years older than she her “step-son”—had hired one of the most expensive and seedy attorneys in town to contest his father's will. A will that was more than generous to all involved. Charles had left plenty of generosity to go around.

  Never enough. Nothing he did was ever enough for Brandon. Jess had never understood why her husband put up with the underhand remarks and constant greed. Brandon never called unless he was short on money, never spoke a kind word to his father, and never missed an opportunity to make a crude remark about Jess.

  “He's my responsibility,” was all Charles would say on the matter. Despite their age difference, it was one of the few areas where she and Charles hadn't agreed. She had learned to let the matter drop. And to never be alone in a room with Brandon.

  If Brandon had his way, Jess would be left without her clothes and flat on her back.

  Her only consolation in the theft of the necklace was that at least it wouldn't end up in his hot little hands. Not that any judge should be able to rightfully take away what was hers. Not that she trusted the judicial system to do actual justice.

  The paintings that used to hang here all shared a common theme: that necklace. Portraits and still-life’s, they were some of her favorite works. They were museum-worthy artifacts: mostly family portraits from the Spanish ducal estate that had owned the necklace for over four hundred years.

  Discarded in the corner were a stack of her own canvases. Landscapes and portraits and still-life’s. Nothing museum quality, nothing precious to anyone but herself. Those seemed to still be in order.

  But the feds had confiscated the half-finished one that had been on her easel at the far end of the room. She discovered just last week that she'd left her palette uncovered and all of the hues had dried to a crackle. For months after the funeral, she hadn't had the heart to climb the stairs, let alone sit for hours and paint.

  Slowly she was coming out of that shell. Putting the pieces of her days together. Beginning to feel...not like herself, really. But human again.

  She had just replaced the paints in that dried up palette last week, begun trying to recreate some of the hues she had been working with before. The new palette was still here, and she re-checked the lid, making sure it was air-tight. Like she would ever get that painting back now.

  Someone had knocked a stack of charcoal sketches to the floor and she bent to pick them up. She had wanted to paint her necklace this time, so she had it out of the safe all week as she sketched it, posing it on a mannequin head, with fabrics, flowers. Trying to find just the right light.

  Jess had locked the necklace downstairs in the study before she left for her weekend away. She remembered turning the dial, double-checking the handle, hearing the harsh click of metal from inside.

  As far as she knew, the only other living person who knew the combination to that safe was Brandon Kingsbury. She hoped that the police had hauled his ass to the precinct for questioning.

  The problem was the she knew he wasn't the thief, and it would take the LAPD about thirty seconds to come to the same conclusion. He had a golf tournament in Florida over the weekend. There was constant video coverage of his smirking face plastered across three cable channels.

  Jess straightened the sheets of newsprint and went to set them back onto her workbench when a smaller piece of spiral notebook paper fell out from between two large sheets.

  It was another sketch, but not hers. The technique was crude but effective—it was an ink drawing of a woman hanging from a noose, her head bent to an awkward angle and her eyes bulging out. The woman wore a necklace. A necklace just like hers.

  ***

  Noah thumbed through yet another stack of photographs of the evidence from the Kingsbury mansion. He had gone over everything once in person before signing it into the property department. He had to be missing something.

  The department's forensic accountants had tracked a series of cash transactions that individually looked innocuous. But taken together, there was a larger pattern of money being moved from the late Charles Kingsbury’s U.S. accounts into offshore ones. The links were always indirect. He would spend lavish amounts of cash on parties, his personal jet, his mansion, vacations, cars. Within a few weeks, a foreign investment would pay dividends. He was either the luckiest investor in the world or a criminal.

  The trick was that foreign link. How had he gotten the money out of the country?

  Those suspicious transactions had ceased abruptly a year ago.

  Just last month, Noah’s boss, Billy Bob Cutlass, had passed along an anonymous tip that the Hearst Diamonds held the key to the mystery. The tip had come from an informant on another case—one that Noah wasn’t briefed on. The informant hadn’t been any more specific, and Cutlass wasn’t at liberty to share any more details about how a necklace was going to help unravel a money laundering scheme. Especially a money laundering scheme masterminded by a dead man.

  As far as Noah was concerned, this case should have been closed alongside the lid to Charles Kingsbury’s casket. And it would have been, too, if it weren’t for that informant. Then there was the circumstantial evidence against Jessica Kingsbury. There was no way she could be ignorant of all of her late husband’s business dealings.

  But the case was thin and Noah had a hunch that it wouldn’t get any thicker. Had Charles lived long enough to be indicted, no lawyer with more than two brain cells would have allowed his wife to testify against him. Knowledge of a husband’s misdeeds wasn’t enough to convict a wife. The evidence made Jessica look more like a victim than an accomplice. But he had yet to figure out who else could have been involved in Kingsbury’s schemes.

  The problem was there were too many possibilities. Kingsbury’s lawyer. His son, Brandon. Any number of acquaintances. The Kingsbury’s were known for entertaining, and their guest lists read like a Who’s Who of politics and business.

  Now that the same necklace had gone missing, Cutlass was even more insistent he was on the right track. The Hearst Diamonds and Jessica Kingsbury were both keys to some larger, more nefarious scheme. Noah wished he could feel the same enthusiasm for the case.

  “Hey Grayson. Did you read the insurance report yet?” Cole set a fat, sweating cup of soda on his desk next to a paper bag that smelled suspiciously like chili sauce.

  Noah's mouth watered at the scent. Their shared “office” was a pair of cubicles that shared one long stretch of Formica desk. And one trash can, which Cole tended to fill with his fast-food wrappers.

  Noah motioned toward the sack. “You know how much trans-fat is in one of those?”

  “That's what makes it taste so good.” Cole unwrapped one foil bundle and bit into the oozing tortilla.

  Noah tried to ignore the wafting aromas of garlic and pepper as he closed the file full of photographs and opened the large, double-wrapped envelope that had been couriered over from LAPD's grand theft department earlier that morning.

  He wondered why they hadn't just faxed it until he got to the second page.

 
“What's it say?” Cole's mouth was still full of burrito.

  Noah shook him off and started again from the top. He had that fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach. Instincts or nerves or whatever it was, this was big. Breakthrough big.

  “Spill it, man. I can't stand the suspense.”

  Noah threw him a pointed look, and another at the soda cup that was making a small puddle of condensation next to Cole's own stack of papers.

  His partner shrugged and moved the files out of harm's reach. “Happy?”

  Noah shrugged. “That diamond necklace that Jessica Kingsbury keeps in her Hollywood residence is insured for one point two million dollars.”

  Cole whistled.

  “And it's a fake.”

  Cole's jaw dropped. “So we have her on insurance fraud?”

  Noah shook his head, skimming through the remaining pages. “I don't think so. That one point two million dollar number is based on the value of the diamonds in the necklace.”

  “Wait, what? I thought you said it was a fake?”

  “It is. The Hearst Diamond Necklace is a five-hundred year old piece from some long-dead royal family's crown jewels. It is priceless. The necklace that was stolen is an exact copy made out of real, and very valuable, diamonds.”

  “It’s a real fake.” Cole grinned. “What does that mean for us?”

  “They obviously made no effort to hide that the necklace was a copy from the insurance company. There is a copy of the original purchase agreement from a jeweler downtown included right here in the paperwork.”

  Cole waited for Noah to continue.

  Noah waited for the idea to form in the trainee's head.

  “Got it boss. I will research that jeweler. See what kind of dirt I can dig up.”

  “And?”

  Cole raised one eyebrow. “And?”

  “And make us an appointment to talk to them in person. You don't have to stake out the place to find out more about them. Sometimes you just walk through the front door and ask.” Noah clapped one hand on Cole's shoulder. “Now if you will excuse me, I'm due in Cutlass' office for a briefing.

  His boss had a glass wall and a door that shut, but the furnishings inside were of the same monochrome laminate and particle-board of the cubicles outside. Still, having the privacy to hear your own thoughts instead of your coworker's phone conversations would be a nice change. God, Noah hated desk work.

  “Report, Grayson.” Cutlass squeaked back in his chair and waited. His balding head reflected the early afternoon sun that peeked in a large window.

  Noah told him the quick version of his afternoon at the Kingsbury mansion then his conversation with Cole.

  “Is that all you've got?”

  “We are following every lead, sir. I am open to suggestions or new angles. Everything we've tried so far has hit a brick wall. The necklace idea is a long shot anyway. Even though the thing is a reproduction instead of the genuine antique, it was real. Real diamonds, real workmanship. Someone put a lot of money into making that necklace valuable.”

  “Don't focus on the necklace. Focus on the girl. Something tells me that she knows more than she's sharing.”

  “That is what you keep telling me, but we don't have anything to take to a grand jury. If Jessica Kingsbury knowingly participated in her husband's blackmail schemes, or his money laundering, or God knows what else he was up to, then they covered her tracks better than his.”

  The older man leaned forward at his desk, resting his elbows on the cracked vinyl desk mat as he spoke. “Look, Charles Kingsbury was smart. His little plaything, not so much. Just keep watching her. Without her husband around to cover for her, she is bound to screw up.”

  Noah swallowed a sigh. “Sure, boss.”

  ***

  Jess ducked behind Tony’s hefty form as she half-jogged up the steps of the courthouse. The screech of tires on the street behind her threw a shiver down her back and she tried to ignore the voices that called her name from the sidewalk below. Paparazzi. Just what her day needed. One of her high heels twisted slightly, sending a sharp pain up her ankle and she stopped to give it a shake.

  Light bulbs flashed. The din of voices grew louder.

  “You all right ma'am?” Tony gently took her arm and helped her up the remaining steps.

  “I will be better once this is all through.” After this meeting with her step-son Brandon and his lawyer. After the lawsuit. After she got her necklace back. After she figured out what to do with the rest of her life. Then, maybe things would be better.

  “Yes ma'am.”

  Her lawyer, Leon Norrell, waited past the metal detectors, his expression grim. His expression was always grim in public. “Good morning, Mrs. Kingsbury.”

  She smiled at him, relieved to see the familiar face. The crinkles around his eyes loosened just a notch. It was as much of a smile as he ever gave.

  “I will wait with the car, ma'am.”

  She nodded to Tony. He had a concealed carry permit, but his gun wasn't welcome inside courthouse and he wouldn't trust anyone else with it. Besides, in today's verbal battle, Leon was the only defender she needed.

  They headed up the elevator to an upstairs meeting room, the kind used for arbitration. Which this was, of a sort. Brandon had demanded that the judge allow him details of the robbery, claiming that he had a personal stake in the goods that were stolen.

  “I am sorry that you had to go through the circus out front. I tried to argue with the judge that an in-person meeting was unnecessary. But Mr. Kingsbury's lawyer must have made a more convincing argument.”

  “It's all right. Let’s just get this over with.”

  They walked down a terrazzo-floored hall and past a secretary to their private meeting room. Inside was a conference table with half a dozen chairs.

  Brandon Kingsbury stood silhouetted against the tall glass windows that overlooked downtown Los Angeles. Jess's breath caught for half a moment. Sometimes he looked so much like her late husband that it hurt. Then he turned and the cruel gleam in his eye wiped away all resemblance to the man she had loved.

  “Jessica, darling. How have you been?” The man held out his arms as though expecting to hug her.

  She leaned her back against the wall next to the door and crossed her arms over her chest. His eyes travelled the length of her and as always she fought a wave of revulsion at his unmistakable lust. It was one thing for a man to appreciate a photo of a naked woman. It was something completely different to leer at another man's wife. His father's wife. And now the target of his own malicious lawsuit.

  “Don't look at me like that, darling. We are family, after all. You have had an exciting week, I hear.”

  After six years of nothing but crude remarks and poorly executed attempts to corner her alone, not to mention one memorable knee to his groin, did he really expect her to fall into his embrace?

  “Fine. Gentlemen. Ladies.” The word was a sneer on Brandon's lips. “I have a proposition for you.”

  Jess nearly rolled her eyes at the word. “I thought you wanted information about the theft.”

  He shrugged. “Just hear me out.”

  Brandon and his lawyer, Smythe, the much-celebrated counsel of celebrity drug addicts and professional sports paternity suits, sat. Leon held out a chair for her and she took it.

  Smythe handed a stack of papers across the table to Leon. “My client, as always, wishes to settle the disagreement amicably. He is willing to acknowledge that the marriage between one Jessica Hughes and the late Charles Kingsbury was indeed, legal and binding, and thus you do have some small legitimate claim to his estate.”

  Jessica pursed her lips and tried to calm the sudden clench of her heart. The core of Brandon's lawsuit involved contesting her marriage. If he was conceding that now, he must have something far worse up his sleeve.

  “The agreement in these papers details what my client feels is a fair and equitable settlement given the brevity of your marriage.”

  She wanted to
grab the papers and cram into Brandon's Cheshire-cat grin. She breathed in slowly, counting to three, and then out. Inner calm. Equilibrium. Let Leon do the talking.

  Her lawyer studied each page, making small “mmm” sounds every now and then. Smythe relaxed backwards in his chair. Brandon shifted in his, making the wheels creek.

  Jessica just breathed.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Leon pushed himself back up from the table and put the documents into his briefcase. “I believe we are done here gentlemen.”

  Smythe jumped to his feet and held out a hand. “Then it’s a deal.”

  “No.” Leon motioned for Jessica to follow him. She tried to give him a quizzical look, but his eyes were as unreadable as ever. “You clearly went to considerable effort, but I recommend that my client not sign these forms.”

  Brandon shoved himself backwards and stood up blustering. “She didn't even read it. Jessica, don't listen to this clown--”

  “Any lawyer who advised his client to sign this should be disbarred. She could sooner promise you flying monkeys and dancing mermaids as agree to the ridiculous terms in these papers. Now if you will excuse me, I have other work to attend to.”

  Jessica hurried after him, down the hall, and into another small conference room where he shut the door behind them. “What just happened back there? What is in that agreement?”

  He almost smiled at her and pulled the stack out and handed it to her. “Whatever you do, don't so much as doodle on these pages. His terms were, as he suggested, quite reasonable. He offered you the Hollywood home, several million in investments and cash. In short, to honor most of Charles' will.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “Wow. What is the catch?”

  “In exchange, he wanted the Hearst diamonds. Not the set that was just stolen, but the originals.”

  Jess opened her mouth and then shut it again. Leon, of course, understood the significance of that request. Charles had kept him on retainer for over thirty years, and he came from the old school of lawyers who would keep their client's secret life closer than any priest. A priest, after all, was still beholden to God.