Flawless

Once she reached Forty-Seventh Street, she walked along until she saw her destination, Flawless.

She felt sad, remembering how excited they’d all been when Gary had gotten the job. He’d started working there soon after the wedding, just a little more than a year ago.

While the shop—like many others in the Diamond District—advertised Exceptional Quality for Exceptional Prices, it was a high-end and well-respected store. It had been in the Krakowsky family for four generations; landing a job there without being a Krakowsky was no easy feat.

But that was then, and this was now.

In truth, she was glad that she wasn’t going to run into Gary today, given her desire to bash him over the head with something. Julie’s words had been true. She hadn’t wanted to rush into marriage; Gary had. Julie was a video game designer and loved what she did, and she’d wanted to go further in her career. She’d been all set to head to grad school in California when Gary had begged her to marry him.

It was ironic.

She was glad that Gary had gotten this job after the wedding. He was friendly with his coworkers, and at that moment she was glad that she didn’t know any of them.

She heard the soft sound of the buzzer as she entered the store. The door, she knew, was connected wirelessly to a camera that counted and recorded every entrance and exit made at the store.

There was a large showroom filled with display cases. To her left the cases held diamonds set in yellow gold, to her right were cases with diamonds set in white gold and through an archway beyond there was a small display nook for gems of various sorts set in platinum. Beyond the counter—where some of the finest pieces were displayed—were the offices and the private rooms where salesmen sat down with important clients and served champagne while discussing the merits of the best stones. She knew all this because Gary had once described the setup for them.

She arrived just as one of the salesmen was drawing down the inside shutters that protected the window displays at night. He didn’t challenge her entrance, however, but smiled at her.

It wasn’t quite closing time; he was just getting ready.

“Good evening, miss,” he said to her, smiling again.

“I’m sorry—you’re closing,” she said.

“Mr. Krakowsky is in the platinum room with another customer—you’re fine,” he told her.

The salesmen here dressed in designer suits and were perfect gentlemen. This one was in his early forties, she thought, with dark brown hair neatly clipped and a clean-shaven face.

“What can I show you?” he asked her.

“Actually, I was looking for Gary Benton,” she said. “Is he working today? He’s a friend,” she added, almost choking on the word. “And that’s why I came—he speaks so highly of the store.”

“No, I’m sorry. At the moment it’s just me and Mr. Krakowsky. But I’ll happily show you whatever you’d like to see.”

He was still standing too far from the display cases for her to pull off her sleight of hand.

She smiled sweetly. “I heard you have some exceptional loose diamonds.”

“Of course,” he told her, grinning. “We are in the Diamond District, after all.” He offered her his hand. “I’m Matt Townsend. How do you do?”

“Kieran Finnegan,” she told him, shaking. “A pleasure.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” he said. “Come over here, if you will.” He led the way to the counter.

He walked around behind it as she followed him, and ducked down to open a safe beneath the counter.

A chill swept through her. She was suddenly terrified that something would go wrong.

It couldn’t go wrong; she had to remain calm, act normal.

She looked casually around the shop as she waited. She glanced at the security camera, estimating her brother’s position when he had pilfered the stone.

She looked away to avoid suspicion, then looked quickly back at the camera again. Reflected in the lens she could see someone entering the store—another late customer.

No, not another customer.

The man was wearing a black hoodie, which shadowed his face. And she couldn’t see his face because he was also wearing a ski mask.

And he was pulling a gun from his pocket.

He was followed quickly by a second man—his twin in every detail.

Kieran felt her knees grow weak. She’d read about the recent run of jewelry store robberies, but...

But there were dozens of stores in the Diamond District. Why had the thieves picked this store on this day?

“Stay down,” she said softly to the salesman.

They hadn’t killed anyone yet—had they? Even so, there was always a first time.

And when there were guns involved, there was no sense in taking a chance.

No diamond was worth a man’s life.

“Stay down,” she repeated.

But either the salesman didn’t hear her, or he heard her and had no idea what she was talking about.

He rose, setting out a velvet cloth with several uncut diamonds. “Here you—”

He broke off, staring. Kieran’s back was to the new arrivals, but she knew Matt Townsend had a clear view of them and the gun—guns?—that was undoubtedly pointed at him now. He stepped back, raising his hands.

Just at that moment, a distinguished-looking older man came in from the platinum room with a young woman in a gorgeous fur coat.

The woman saw the thieves and screamed.

“Shut up or I shut you up!” one of the gunmen said. “You got two seconds.”

She didn’t hear him. She was still screaming and was clearly hysterical.

Kieran turned to see the first man pointing his gun in the screaming woman’s direction, while two others—when had the third man entered?—kept their guns trained on Matt.

Kieran wasn’t sure what propelled her—maybe it was the stark raving fear that if he shot one person he would shoot them all—but she wasn’t about to let the terrified woman die, much less put them all in the morgue. She hurried over to the young woman and slapped her cheek, then took her face in both hands and said softly and firmly, “Stop. Stop right now. We’re going to live. We’re all going to live, all right?”

“Smart girl,” one of the gunmen said.

The woman had stopped screaming. The older man—Mr. Krakowsky—looked at Kieran with what she thought was gratitude in his eyes.

“Take whatever you want,” he told the thieves. “We won’t move a muscle to stop you or set off the alarm.”

“Good call, old man,” the second gunman said. “You,” he told Kieran. “You look bright, and you’re definitely pretty—there’s got to be a guy out there somewhere who wants you alive. And you’re obviously the type who would really like to see everyone survive here today. So if you listen carefully to my every word, we’ll all be able to sleep in our own beds tonight.”

She wasn’t sure if being called bright and pretty by a gun-wielding thief was a compliment, but there were three men in her life who loved her very much: Declan, Kevin and Daniel.

She clung tightly to the concept that everyone would live.

“So, Red,” the thief continued, “scoop up those diamonds on the counter. Now. And you, guy behind the counter, get out the other diamonds down there in your safe. The really good ones. And you, Red, you make sure he does it. I want all of them.”

“Do what he says,” Mr. Krakowsky advised.

“And, Red, watch him, because if you lie to me, Screaming Mimi over there gets it first.”

Matt ducked beneath the counter again. He was shaking.

“If the alarm goes off, I shoot every one of you,” the thief promised. “I’m a crack shot. Six bullets, only four of you. No problem.”

Townsend was far too terrified to hit the alarm. He brought out five velvet cloths filled with loose diamonds and set them on the counter.

“Now, man behind the counter, go ahead of me. Get out your keys so you can open the back door. Old man, you and Screaming Mimi get down on the floor. Come on—move. Time is of the essence.”

Everyone stared at him—frozen—for a split second.

“Down,” Mr. Krakowsky said, pressing the young woman to the floor with him.

“You,” the first gunman snapped to Kieran. “Get those stones and come with me—now.”

Kieran stared at him. She wondered whether she could even move, she was shaking so badly. Some instinct came to her rescue. She swept up all the diamonds while the thief who had done the talking headed to the back with Matt Townsend. A second one moved to stand close to her. Even though she knew that his gun wasn’t touching her, she still thought she could feel it.

The third remained near the door, oblivious to the camera, his gun ready.

The thief in charge shouted from the back that the door was open. Kieran stood with the velvet-wrapped diamonds in her hands, frozen once again.

Then the nearest gunman grabbed her arm and turned, walking backward and keeping his eyes on Krakowsky and the other customer as he pulled her down a hallway and toward the back door.

He fired a shot as he walked; she felt the pistol’s kick shoot through her via his grip on her arm. The sound was deafening.

She couldn’t tell if anyone had been hit or not.

All she knew was that she was being hustled through the store and out the back door.

The alley beside the store had once been an open-air path. It was still a pedestrian passage, but now it was flanked by new buildings—new as in maybe only fifty or so years old—and boasted sidewalk cafés at both ends.

“Move!” the third man shouted, hurrying to catch up to them. “Someone in there must have set off the alarm. Hear the damned sirens?”

Her captor shoved her toward the wall, and all she could do was wonder if they would or wouldn’t shoot her in the back.

But before she hit the wall she was grabbed by the third man. “Keep her—we may need her,” he said, wrenching her around to face him. His eyes were like chips of blue ice. “If you—”

He stopped speaking for a moment, and she saw his eyes widen. Did he know her? she wondered.

He quickly found his tongue again. “We’re going to run, and you need to do everything I say. If you don’t, I will fucking blow a hole right through you. Got it?”

Kieran was trying so hard not to shake that she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to move. She finally nodded.

“Good. Now run. And don’t hold me back. Don’t trip, don’t falter, don’t stop for any reason. Your life depends on it.”

* * *

The moment Craig brought the car to a screeching halt, double-parking next to a silver Mercedes, he and Mike leaped out. They were already communicating via headsets, ready for whatever they might find inside.

A half dozen uniformed NYPD cops had arrived just ahead of them and were lined up outside the door of Flawless.

Mike produced his badge and said, “FBI. Anyone go in yet?”

“Just got here,” one of the cops said.

“We’ll take it easy—there could be people in there,” Mike said. “If two of you will cover me on the left, I’ll take the door. Craig, what are you thinking?”

Craig had been studying the building and thinking about the best way in.

Space had been at a premium in NYC for decades, if not centuries. Buildings tended to be flush against each other, but there were exceptions. In this instance, there was a café at the end of the block, with tables spilling out on a throughway that led to the back of the building. An old archway suggested another narrow alley at the back of the building that fronted the block, an alley that presumably ran between the buildings that faced one street and those that faced the next.

“Going around—there’s bound to be a back door,” he told Mike briefly and pulled his gun.

He didn’t wait for a go-ahead or a reply but moved as soon as he was done speaking.

He heard Mike’s voice in his ear. “Hey, watch what you’re doing. You need backup, you say the word.”

“I’m good, no problem yet,” he said in return.

He moved as quickly as he could and rounded the corner. He saw that there was an actual archway on the end of the alley, space enough for some outdoor seating for a chain luncheonette.

There were people at the tables.

“Move!” he shouted, threading his way through them. “Move!”

“What the fuck—” someone said.

“We’re moving in,” Mike said over Craig’s earpiece.

“You take care.”

“I have backup.”

Craig swore softly, running into a chair a man had pushed back.

“Dickhead!” the man said.

“Move—”

“You dickhead!”

“Move. FBI!” Craig roared.

The man moved and then someone screamed and everyone got out of his way.

Craig realized then that he was wielding his Glock.

“What’s going on, Craig?” Mike demanded.

“I’m running!” Craig panted.

He tore down the pedestrian alley as fast as he could move.

As he reached the rear of the jewelry shop he could see that the back door was open.

He heard Mike’s voice again in his ear. “I’m inside. Two people in here, both okay. One is old man Krakowsky. He said they went out the back and they have a hostage.”

“I’m on it,” Craig said.

Dammit. The thieves had been there—and they were a step ahead.

He could see people running at the other end of the alley.

Men in black hoodies. And they weren’t alone.

Mike had been right. They had a hostage. A woman was being dragged along with them.

At least she wasn’t dead on the ground in the alley.

Swearing, Craig cranked up his pace.

As the thieves neared the street, he saw that they were heading to a van that was waiting at the end of the alley, a commonplace white van.

The sliding door was open, the driver obviously waiting for his companions to jump in.

One of the thieves drew the woman out of the way as they reached the sidewalk. Another brandished his gun.

People were screaming everywhere. Some were running; others, too startled to move, stood where they were.

Right in the way of the thieves.

And in his mind’s eye, all Craig could picture was the video of the thieves shooting the manager. And of the dead woman lying in an alley.

“Craig, what the hell are you doing?” Mike demanded.

“I’m on them.”

“You’re on them how? Wait for backup.”

“I can’t—I’ll lose them.”

He could hear Mike cursing.

“Can’t talk—running!” Craig said.

The thief holding the woman turned and saw—in the midst of the chaos—that they were being followed. He shoved her into the van and jumped in after her.

Craig practically flew toward the street. The last of the thieves was entering the van, and the door hadn’t closed yet. He couldn’t fire, though; he could too easily hit the woman or an innocent bystander.

He was going to need both hands, he thought, and shoved his Glock back into the holster nestled into the small of his back. Then he launched himself through the open door.

He pitched headfirst into one of the thieves and heard a cracking sound—the guy’s head hitting the far wall.

The driver screeched into traffic, rounding the corner onto the avenue and yelling, “What the hell...?”

His entry had been something like a bowling ball striking the pins at the end of the lane. All three thieves went sprawling. The woman was facedown, and he was somehow entangled with her legs.

“Craig, what the hell’s going on?” Mike demanded.

“White van going south on Fifth,” he said.

The thief he’d catapulted into was out cold. That left two more, plus the driver.

He heard a cacophony of shouting in the van. And through his earpiece, he could hear Mike cursing Craig beneath his breath between giving orders to stop every white van on Fifth.

Then Craig saw that one of the men was rising and that he had a gun. Craig reacted, rolling the woman onto her back as he struck out with his left foot. He caught the guy right in the jaw, and he stumbled back awkwardly, then fell flat on his rear.

Craig barely missed getting whacked across the head by the third man. But he ducked in time and head butted the man in the gut.

By then the second man was moving again. He lifted his gun and aimed at Craig’s head.

He never got the chance to fire.

Craig was astonished—and incredibly grateful—to see that the woman had not only moved, she’d found a tire iron and cracked the thief hard over the head with it. He went down like a brick.

The panel door suddenly slid open. The last of the thieves hopped from the moving vehicle.

The driver suddenly stepped on the gas. Craig looked out the windshield and realized that they’d miraculously hit a clear patch of Fifth Avenue.

Craig knew he couldn’t have gone after the thief anyway. The woman was still in the van, and the driver was alive and well.

Now his lead foot on the gas sent both Craig and the woman flying. He landed half on top of the unconscious man she’d hit and half on top of her.

For a moment he got a good look at her face. Mid to late twenties, brilliant blue eyes, deep red hair, fine bone structure and porcelain skin.

He got moving again quickly, staggering to the front, pulling the Glock out of its holster as he went, then pressing the muzzle against the driver’s head.

“Pull over. Now.”

“Ah, hell,” the driver muttered. He added a few colorful expletives, but, as ordered, he pulled over to the side. Craig cuffed him and then went back to cuff the other two, easing their guns out of reach as he did so, swearing inwardly. A takedown wasn’t easy when he was stooping over the whole time to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling of the van.

The young woman was getting to her feet at that point, and he realized she was tall enough that she needed to stoop, as well. He met her eyes. They were a stunning crystal blue, almost impossible to look away from.

“Thanks,” he told her. “You saved my life.”

“I think you saved mine,” she said.

“Oh, fuck you both,” the driver said. “No one saved anyone. We don’t kill people. We’re thieves. We don’t even use real guns!”

Craig spun around toward him and then bent down to pick up the thieves’ guns.

It was an incredibly real copy of a Smith & Wesson. And it was made out of plastic.

He grabbed the other weapon off the floor of the van; it, too, was an excellent copy and, like the first, made of plastic.

“Where the hell did you get these?” Craig demanded.

The driver laughed. “Toy store,” he said. “Check that one out. It’s a water pistol.”

“You idiot. Don’t you know that the police would shoot you, whether these were real or not?”

“Police never should have caught us,” the driver said.

“Am I hearing this right?” Mike demanded over the earpiece.

Craig wasn’t sure how Mike could hear anything, frankly. By now sirens were ripping through the air and police cars were surging around them.

He slid open the panel door, holding out a hand with his badge showing. “Lower your weapons. FBI. The situation is under control.”

He looked back at the driver.

The guy wasn’t wearing a ski mask or a hoodie. He looked like any other blue-collar worker in a Yankees’ beanie and a plaid flannel shirt. He was about thirty-five, Craig estimated. Brown hair, neatly trimmed beard and mustache.

Someone’s all-around good old boy uncle, perhaps, come to the big city.

Craig realized that he and the woman were no longer in danger—not as far as this crew went. He regretted the fact that he was now certain he had been right.

There was a copycat group working the streets. With real guns—guns that killed.

He’d won the bet with Mike.

He wished that he’d lost.

Two groups...

And the one that killed was still out there.

CHAPTER THREE

ALL KIERAN WANTED to do was escape, but getting away wasn’t going to be that easy.

The police and the FBI and everyone else who had shown up where the van had stopped needed to speak with her.

At least half of them were convinced that she needed medical attention.

She was somewhat banged up. There weren’t seats in the van—the back had been empty except for some tools, including the tire iron she’d used on the thief when he’d had a gun trained on the FBI agent.

Except that it hadn’t been a gun at all; it had been a water pistol. However, she didn’t feel quite so foolish, because Mr. FBI hadn’t known it was a water pistol, either.

Why the hell did companies make such accurate children’s toys? Were they trying to help raise the next generation of crooks?

She needed to leave. She needed to get back to the pub before Declan started worrying about her.

But instead she was stuck sitting in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in a blanket and drinking coffee while desperately trying to convince the police and EMTs and whoever else was there that she was fine and just needed to leave.

Finally one cop told her, “Sorry, miss, you’re not going anywhere. You’re the best witness we’ve got against these guys.”

“But I really need to go to work.”

She hadn’t seen the agent who had leaped into the van like a fullback since the cops had sounded and he had jumped out again. An officer had helped her out, and then others had entered the van to gather up the thieves, who were now on their way to a police station somewhere to be held for arraignment. She’d overheard the driver, a good old boy with a beard and flannel shirt, inform them that he wasn’t talking to anyone until he had a lawyer.

She had turned over all the diamonds to the police—including the one her brother had pinched.

She realized that she was now actively afraid of explaining to Declan what she had been doing. She had promised to work that night, and while Daniel might manage for a few hours, he wasn’t up to handling the night crowds.

One of the EMTs came over to her. “You should really go to the hospital for a checkup, just to make sure you’re all right. Sounds like you got pretty shaken up in that van.”

“I swear, I’m fine,” Kieran said, putting a little more pressure on the ice pack pressed to her cheek.

“Everyone who was in there looks as if they’ve been in the ring with Ali,” the EMT said. He kept talking, but Kieran didn’t hear him. She was too busy being horrified by the reporters—with cameras—who had arrived on the scene.

She had to get out of there.

She slid off her perch. She’d told her story at least three times: once to a nice-looking man in his late thirties wearing a pin-striped suit, once to an officer in uniform and once to an older man with gray hair and a grim face. They’d said something about statements and the DA’s office getting hold of her. Fine. They had her information and they could call her later.

She did not want to appear on the news.

As she slipped around the ambulance, hoping that she could just blend into the crowd, she stopped short. The FBI agent who had literally jumped to her rescue was talking with the man in the pin-striped suit she had spoken with earlier.

“The bosses want you to make a statement, Craig,” the man in the suit was saying. “They want you to say that the jewel thieves have been caught.”

“Mike, they haven’t all been caught. These guys didn’t kill anybody. Don’t you understand? They were running around with toy guns!”

“Yeah, toys now. How do we know that they weren’t packing the real thing before? That they weren’t expecting to be caught sooner rather than later and were determined not to go down for murder?”

“Mike, why would they think—”

“Because it’s hit the news, Craig. Two people dead—you didn’t think that they’d be able to keep a gag on it long, did you?”

Kieran froze where she stood.

Two people were dead?

Killed by the same thieves who’d taken her hostage?

She stared at the two men in shock.

“Yeah,” her savior—Craig—said. “And I’m telling you, the killers are still out there.”