Finders Keepers by Edie Baylis (epub ebook reader txt) 📕

But Teagan thought the box contained love letters, didn’t she? Unless she’d opened it? Unless Darren had told her to open it? Or was it possible that she was working for the Powells?

Dulcie sucked at her lips. Stop it. Stop it! She was being ludicrous. Teagan didn’t have the capacity to pull off either of those things. That limitation was the exact reason why she’d been chosen.

She closed her eyes to get a handle on her escalating panic. Wait! Didn’t Teagan say that she’d stopped taking the box around in her handbag?

Dulcie’s mouth twitched into a smile. If she had, then it meant the box was in this flat. Most probably in the girl’s room.

She’d be generous and give Teagan the benefit of the doubt until this afternoon, but if she didn’t show in a few hours, then she’d turn the little tramp’s bedroom over until the box was found.

GWEN GRABBED HER MORNING COFFEE and sat in her usual chair looking out of the window of her maisonette, but despite the sun shining brightly, she felt anything but.

She picked at the start of a snag in her tights, hoping it didn’t turn into a ladder, then glanced at the clock on the mantlepiece. Still ten minutes before she needed to leave. Enough time to finish her drink. Raising the cup to her lips, she blew on the coffee. She’d left it a bit late to have a hot drink, not that it would matter if she spent another hour sitting here before going into work. She always arrived early, but sitting around wracking her brains for an answer she didn’t have was getting her nowhere, short of frustrated.

Gwen’s lips pursed. She’d seen Lena sipping at the vodka yesterday without a care in the world as she rattled away on the phone, absentmindedly patting that bump of hers. But who had she been on the phone to? That’s what she wanted to know. Unfortunately, she’d only heard the tail-end of the conversation, but had heard enough to know that the wedding had been brought forward. And whoever Lena was telling, it was clearly someone who was attending.

She also wanted to know what was in Lena’s desk. Last night she’d hung around even later than usual in the hope that once Lena had left for the night, she’d get a chance to look in that drawer of hers. Nosy, she knew, but she’d watched her stuff some paperwork back in there before carefully securing the key back in her purse and felt sure that something in that drawer the girl went to great pains to lock was worth seeing.

Standing up, Gwen finished her now drinkable coffee and straightened down her skirt.

Slipping on her court shoes, she grabbed her handbag and walked towards the front door. Hopefully she’d get the chance to either look through Lena’s phone again today or even better, get in that drawer.

Twenty Four

KEITH LOOKED AT SAUL, experiencing an uncharacteristic flutter of nerves at the expression on the man’s face. ‘He said she had it. I know that’s what he said,’ he repeated. He’d already said that about ten times so far, yet he was still being stared at like a compulsive liar.

‘You also said he wasn’t blagging you,’ Saul growled, not happy with this latest turn of events.

Since the minute they’d picked up that girl last night he’d been looking forward to this moment. True to form, he’d chosen to drag out revealing the pièce de résistance until today to ensure the magnum of Bollinger chilling in the fridge was cold enough for the long-awaited reveal.

This situation – the one where he held in his hands the haul of exquisite pink diamonds lifted from the firm’s grasp was one of the daily images that had replayed on loop in his mind every single day of his long seventeen year stretch.

He could have done this last night, but he’d wanted to savour it and draw out the anticipation a bit longer. Now he had, it was all for nothing. Nada.

Keith stared at the contents of Teagan’s handbag. There was the usual collection from a woman’s bag on the table: a purse, lipstick, mirror, a couple of tampons and some stuff he didn’t know the words for – that gunk birds put on their faces.

Gingerly reaching out, he peered inside the now empty black leather bag, staring into the compartments and tugged at one of the side zips. ‘You’ve checked all of these?’

‘What do you take me for? Some sort of cunt?’ Saul slammed his fist on the table. ‘Of course I’ve fucking checked them!’

Snatching the bag from Keith, Saul shook it violently before throwing it across the small kitchen where it rebounded off the wall and landed with a soft ‘whump’ on the lino. ‘That stoner twat must have been winding you up and you being the thick bastard that you are, swallowed everything he told you.’

Keith stiffened. He would kill that fucktard stoner. He was not a thick bastard and didn’t appreciate being called one, even by Saul Powell. ‘The guy had no reason to make it up! That’s what he said she said,’ he seethed. ‘I told you at the time I wasn’t sure if it was definitely the diamonds, you know that.’

‘Well, whatever it was, it isn’t in the bloody bag. You said it was something of Michael Pointer’s and there’s fuck all in here relating to Michael-fucking-Pointer, unless he had a penchant for lipstick and bastard tampons!’

Keith swallowed his irritation and shrugged. ‘Then it must be still at Footlights or at Robert Adams’ place.’

‘That is of course, presuming someone else didn’t lift it like Jonah thinks,’ Saul added, scraping his hand across his face in sheer frustration. ‘Christ, I’m fucking sick of this! I just want my shit back and now we’re lumbered with that silly bitch in there.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom.

Keith cringed. He hadn’t