Even a Diamond can be shattered...
After the owner of a security company is murdered, his sharp-edged wife goes on the run. Forced to abandon everything she holds dear - her home, her friends, her job in special ops - she builds a new life for herse...
I ran my gloved fingers across the package. What was inside? A small bump in the bottom left-hand corner told me it wasn't simply a letter.
I pulled out my phone. "Nick, can you find out whether Luke's expecting a package? Something small in a padded envelope?"
"Have you got something?"
"Maybe. Can you ask him?"
"Gimme a second."
Muttering followed then Nick came back. "The only thing he's expecting is a portable hard drive, and that's being sent to his office."
Unless this was Barbie's portable hard drive, it looked like we had a problem. "Can you get the lab on standby?"
"I'm on it. How long will you be?"
"Leaving now."
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We had our own forensics lab in the basement at the office. It didn't do the flashy stuff—we contracted that out—but the small team could cover most of what we needed. As I pulled into the car park, Nick was waiting.
"Where is it?"
I held up the envelope between a thumb and finger.
"Let's go."
In the lab, the head technician, Test-tube, pushed back his chair and sauntered over. Of course, his mother didn't actually name him Test-tube, but I'd never known him as anything else.
"All right, boss?" he asked.
"Just peachy. Let's see what we've got, shall we?"
He ran the package through a scanner, much like the ones at airports. An indistinct blob showed up in the corner. What was it?
Test-tube donned a pair of latex gloves, gingerly sliced through the flap, and peered inside.
"Well?"
He looked up at me. "Have some patience."
He'd known me too long to take my shit. Dammit. I nearly snatched the bloody thing off him, but I forced my hands to my sides as he tilted it over a tray. Something tumbled out, and I took a step closer.
"Oh, fuck."
It was a fingernail. As in a whole fingernail, yanked out at the root. The gaudy paint job, shocking pink with silver and black stars, spoke of happier times for its owner.
"Tia's?" Nick asked.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat and nodded. No doubt about it. My toes sported the same design, painted by her last week as we'd watched a movie. I borrowed a pair of tweezers and angled the nail under the light. Yep, I even recognised the wonky star where the brush and her language had both slipped. Luckily, Luke hadn't been around to hear her turn the air blue.
While I planned which parts of the kidnapper's anatomy I was going to remove, Test-tube fished around in the envelope and extracted a note. One line, typed on plain white paper:
