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

there were flaws in the design or execution, she couldn’t spot them without a magnifying glass. The red enamel of the
shell was as perfect as a human hand could make it. The small gems set in colorful precision were clear and so clean
she could hardly believe they were natural.
Automatically, Laurel’s fingers closed over a jeweler’s loupe. She examined stone after stone under the loupe’s
ten-power magnification. A few tiny feathers and dark specks, invisible to the naked eye, convinced her that the
stones were imperfect enough to have been created by nature.
Under the glass, the stones confirmed something else. The facets of the gems were just irregular enough to
suggest that they had been cut before computers took over and created the monotonously regular, sterile gemstones
that Laurel so disliked.
„Faberge!“ she whispered. „It has to be.“
There was little doubt remaining in Laurel’s mind that the scarlet egg had been created in the workshop of the most
famous craftsman Europe had ever produced.
„It could be a fraud, of course.“
Laurel frowned and examined the egg again. After a time she straightened, sighed, and set aside the loupe. If the
egg was a fraud, it was a fraud so meticulously created that it was a masterpiece in its own right.
Again Laurel looked at the label on the wrapper. Again she saw her own name and address. Again a ripple of
gooseflesh passed over her skin.
In the past, Swann had sent his daughter bright stones from various parts of the world, sops to the conscience of
an absent father. Yet even taken all together, the stones wouldn’t come close to touching the worth of a Faberge egg-
„A million bucks at least,“ Laurel murmured. „Probably a lot more, if it can be authenticated and sold openly.“ But
she wasn’t naive enough to believe that a national treasure could be bought and sold on the open market like pork
belly futures.
Jamie Swann wasn’t that naive either .
„Daddy, where the hell are you when I need you?“
Laurel grimaced as her own words echoed in the empty room.
„Dumb question. You’re exactly where you always were when Mom or I needed you. Somewhere else.“
Laurel began to think about all the unhappy reasons why her father might have sent her a million-dollar gift with no
warning and no return address. The longer she thought, the more certain she became.
Somewhere on the violent face of the earth, Jamie Swann was in trouble.
And now, so was she.
 2



When the pager on Cruz Rowan’s belt went off, he was waist deep in a hole the size of a grave, working hard, hacking
away at debris in front of a rock wall, trying to find order at the edge of chaos.
The pager wasn’t impressed. It kept on beeping.
With a grunted curse Cruz stabbed at the pager button and went right on digging. Only his boss had the pager
number. At the moment, Cruz wasn’t interested in talking to Cassandra Redpath. He had more important things on his
mind.
Cruz wielded the pickax as though it weighed a pound instead of twelve. Each time the pick smashed rhythmically
into rock, loose soil and chips of stone flew up and stung his face like birdshot. He ignored it. Discomfort meant little
to him when he was chasing a ground fault, trying to discover whether the earth had opened up a year ago or a
century or an eon.
After twenty strokes, Cruz paused to wipe his forehead with a towel. His short dark-brown hair was nearly black
with sweat. He was naked to the waist. His back glistened wetly. When he began swinging the pick again, the sun
shone like a heat lamp on his muscular, tanned shoulders. Though Cruz wasn’t a particularly big man at just under six
feet, he was solidly built.
After a time he set aside the pick, stretched, wiped sweat from his eyes, and grabbed a nearby shovel. With the
easy movements of a man who is naturally well coordinated and very fit, he attacked the rubble, clearing it away one