Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9)

Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9) Page 3

Donatucci nodded.

I explained that there had been two occasions. The first was when I delivered the ransom after Bobby Dunston’s daughter was kidnapped, but all the people involved in that incident were either dead or in prison. The only other time was when I helped out a woman named Jenny, an acquaintance from the old neighborhood who had married really, really well—at least that’s what I thought at the time. Unfortunately, her husband cared more about making money than he did about her, and Jenny drifted into an affair with a man she had met on the Internet. They arranged to meet at a hotel. When she woke the next morning, he was gone and so were the jewels her husband had given her—matching necklace, earrings, and brooch. The thief offered to sell the jewels back before Jenny’s husband missed them—sell them for more than they were worth—and she agreed. I handled the exchange. I went to a motel and waited in the room the thief had designated. When he called, I left the money in the room and went to a second room that he specified. That’s where I found the jewelry. I packed it up, and after a few minutes I went home. I never saw the thief.

“He was penny ante,” I said. “I doubt he could manage a caper like this. Besides, he didn’t know my name.”

“The thieves know you from somewhere,” Donatucci said.

“Just because they know me doesn’t mean I know them.”

“That’s true. The thieves could have heard your name somewhere. Where would they have heard your name, McKenzie?”

I shook my head slowly even as I wondered the same thing myself.

“You keep saying thieves,” I said.

“There are at least two,” Donatucci said. “Unfortunately, we can only ID the man who walked out of the museum with the Lily tucked under his arm.”

“Who was that?”

Donatucci smiled. There was this girl in high school; because of her I joined the chess club. The president of the chess club was a good guy, backed up the starting point guard on the school basketball team. He would smile just like Donatucci when I fell into one of his traps, which was just about every time we played.

“C’mon,” I said. “Don’t do this to me.”

Donatucci smiled some more. “Do what, Batman?” he said.

“Give me a break.”

“My advice, McKenzie? Forget the whole thing.”

I knew what Donatucci was trying to do, and I wasn’t going for it.

“You know what?” I said. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do—forget the whole thing.”

“What difference does it make if the artnappers asked for you? You don’t know who they are. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Besides, you don’t need me.”

“Don’t need you, don’t want you.”

“If I don’t act as go-between, the thief, the thieves, they’ll find someone else.”

“For one-point-three mill, you know they will.” Donatucci stood up and started buttoning his coat. “Just go about your business, McKenzie. Tend your turkeys. Forget about the Jade Lily. Forget I was even here.”

I stared out the window, watching the turkeys peck at the food on top of the box.

Batman was a vigilante nut job, my inner voice said. That’s not me. It’s not! Still, he was my favorite superhero when I was a kid. Him and Spider-Man, who was a bit of a vigilante, too. I took a deep breath. Damn the Lily. Damn the thieves. Damn Mr. Donatucci, that old man. He should have retired years ago.

Donatucci made his way as noisily as possible to the arch between the kitchen and the dining room. I turned toward him just as he knew I would. He was smiling again.

“Do you play chess, Mr. Donatucci?”

“Yes. Do you?”

“Yeah, but apparently not very well.”

“We should play sometime.”

“I think we already have. One hundred twenty-seven thousand.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said ten percent of the ransom. That’s a hundred and twenty-seven thousand.”

“So it is.”

“Plus expenses.”

“In that case, you can buy lunch.”

Dammit.

Besides Mr. Donatucci and myself, there were six men and one woman gathered around a long table in a windowless conference room. Three of the men looked as if they wished they were somewhere else doing something far more important. From the expressions on the faces of the other three, this was as much fun as they’d had in quite a while. The woman, on the other hand, was visibly agitated. She was one of those ultra-chic plus-size gals that gave you the impression she could have been Heidi Klum if only she dropped a hundred pounds.

“This is an emergency meeting of the executive board of trustees,” she said.

“Hey, Perrin. Who are you talking to?” asked one of the happier board members. “We all know why we’re here, Madam President.”

“Ms. Stewart is not the president,” said the man next to him. “She’s the executive director. We don’t have a president, remember?”