“Is it real?” Dee was practically leaning over the jeweller’s shoulder as the man examined the gem in his hand.

“Oh yes, quite real. Almost flawless, and a little over two carats. A truly beautiful stone.”

“What would somethin’ like that be worth?”

“A diamond of this quality and size? Oh, upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Dee’s eyes widened. “Just for that one?”

“Yes.” The jeweller set it down and removed the loupe from his eye. “It’s natural, not lab grown, and very high quality.”

“Man, if I had a dozen of those, I could retire.”

Ryo laughed. “And then what would you do?”

“Yeah, you got me there.” Dee looked at the diamond, sparkling on the jeweller’s bench. “We really gotta be careful we don’t lose it. Sure as Hell can’t afford to replace it.” The gem had been in the possession of a homicide victim; it had been discovered in a velvet pouch tucked inside his one of his boots. There was a good chance it was the reason he was killed.

Trouble was, the victim had yet to be identified; he hadn’t had any identification on him, no wallet, driver’s licence, nothing. Not even keys. It was possible the murderer had taken them, either to make the attack look like a simple robbery gone wrong, or so they could locate the victim’s home, and possibly his car if he owned one, and search them for the diamond.

“It’s entirely possible that this diamond isn’t the only one our victim had. There could be others; the killer might have taken them and just missed this one.”

“Or, assumin’ there are others, they could be hidden elsewhere.”

“It’s possible. We don’t even know if this one belonged to our victim. For all we know, he might have stolen it, in which case, whoever it was stolen from might have sent someone to get it back.”

“Or done the deed themself.”

Ryo nodded. “We’re not going to know much of anything until we can identify the victim.” With careful fingers, he slipped the diamond into its pouch and zipped it back into his inside jacket pocket. “Thank you for your help. You’ll let us know if you hear anything about stolen diamonds, or if anyone offers to sell you anything similar to this one?”

“Of course.”

Carrying something that valuable around was nerve-racking. “Let’s get this back to the precinct.”


The End