"Ann Maxwell - Risk Unlimited 01 - The Ruby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

„Nope.“
Though Laurel smiled pleasantly enough, she didn’t say anything more.
Tom sighed, accepting that this contact was going to be like all the rest. Business, plain and simple. He began
flipping through papers, finding the one for Laurel Swann to sign.
Laurel waited with outward patience. She sensed that Tom, like other men whose lives crossed hers, wanted to
progress from a professional contact to a personal one. She was so accustomed to keeping men well beyond arm’s
length that she hardly noticed any longer that she was doing it.
Watching her parents cope with love, anger, regret, rage, despair, and finally divorce had taught Laurel that
diamonds might be forever, but a relationship wasn’t.
And if it wasn’t forever, it wasn’t worth the pain.
„Well,“ Tom said, „this must be your lucky day. Somebody’s sending you a big present.“
Laurel made a sound that could have meant anything. Like most jewelry makers, she shipped her work materials
without fanfare. She hid gold and even parcels of precious stones in plain sight beneath plain brown wrapping paper
and ordinary packing tape.
But she had just gotten a shipment of gold from her Armenian metals broker on Hill Street in Los Angeles. She was
expecting nothing of interest at the moment.
„Here you go,“ Tom said.
Laurel took the box in both hands. Ten pounds. Perhaps more. Certainly not much less.
„Need any help?“ Tom asked.
„No, thanks. I handle heavier stuff all the time.“
Laurel looked at the label, hoping the box wasn’t from one of her Seattle or San Francisco customers returning
unsold goods. That was always a possibility when you were a freelance designer and jeweler, even one with a growing
reputation and clientele.
There was no return address on the waybill.
„Well, damn,“ Laurel muttered. „I hope no one wants it back.“
„Why?“
„There’s no return address. Can you tell me where it came from?“
Eagerly Tom leaned forward, happy to have an excuse to prolong the conversation. He inspected the waybill on
the box, saw that Laurel was right, and muttered beneath his breath about hiring part-time help for full-time jobs.
„Wait a sec,“ Tom said.
He went to the van, grabbed a hand-held scanner from the dashboard, and waved it across the bar-code sticker
that was attached to one corner of the box.
„Huh?“ he said.
„Something wrong?“
„The waybill is domestic, but the bar code gives me an international routing number, like the shipment originated
overseas. Who do you know in Tokyo?“
„Nobody.“
The response was automatic and probably untrue. Her father’s last letter had come from Tokyo, but Laurel
discussed Jamie Swann with no one.
Part of it was natural reticence. Most of it was because as a child Laurel had had it drilled into her that no one – and
that included her mother – knew where Jamie Swann was or was not. All questions about Laurel’s father were ducked,
ignored, or answered with bland lies. If the questioner became too persistent, her mother called an unlisted number.
The queries always stopped.
„It must have come through a customs broker,“ the driver said slowly. „It was shipped out of Los Angeles
International Airport yesterday.“
Laurel searched her memory once more for an international shipment she might have coming.
There was none.
Silently she wondered if her father was on his way to her house once more, turning her life upside down with his
charm and his bleak eyes. Sometimes Laurel was curious about what Swann saw and did during his long absences.
Most of the time she was glad she didn’t know.