Page 112 of Gem Warfare

“Spill.”

“I pour carefully,” said Mom.

I narrowed my eyes at Maddox.

“Oh!Cass Temple!” Maddox leaned in. “Is that a little bit of steam coming out of your ears?”

“Who is Cass Temple?” asked Mom. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“That’s what I would like to know.”

“Me too,” said Mom, waiting.

“That’s a really good question,” replied Maddox. “Who is CassTemple? I’d love a beer, Mrs. G.”

“I’ll get…” started Mom.

“No beers for you,” I cut in, grabbing Maddox by the elbow and steering him out of the kitchen and into the empty living room. I shut the door behind me, despite my mother’s protestations. “I want to know what’s going on that you aren’t telling me about. You’ve asked a bunch of weird questions about this case and you know Cass Temple. I saw the way you two looked at each other. She’s not just a suspect. You know each other.”

“Cass Temple is one of the world’s worst thieves,” he said.

“She’s bad at it?” I frowned. I thought she was excellent at it. She’d gotten in and out of a police station’s secure evidence locker without even a whiff of suspicion. She’d run rings around us before we even knew who she was.

“No.” Maddox cracked a smile. “No, she’s very,verygood at it. I’ve been on her tail a long time and I can’t catch her. She’s like a sneeze that disappears into vapor and gets carried off by the wind.”

“That’s the weirdest metaphor I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s a simile.”

“Whatever.” I crossed my arms, entirely unsure who was correct.

“Regardless, she’s a thorn in my side and I wasthiscloseto catching her,” he said, holding his thumb and forefinger up.

“How did you even know she was here?”

“I didn’t. I had a feeling she might surface, given the Queen’s Ruby discovery, but not so fast. It’s just the kind of thing she likes.”

“Priceless jewels?”

“I don’t think she has anything against them but it’s the story that would have attracted her. She’s made a life out of repatriating questionable goods.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Queen’s Ruby has a dubious history. They’ve tried to wash it out of history, and I’ll bet they’ve paid good money to cleanse all mention of its provenance from the internet, but there’re still rumors of how they came to own it. It all boils down to colonialism, empire, and theft.”

“Go on.”

“I’m sure you know the official version. The ruby was a gift to the nation from a country in the Far East.”

“I read that.”

“But the real story behind it was that Rachenstein was an occupying power. They plundered the resources that were valuable at the time. Silks, spices, precious metals, textiles, but there were also beautiful temples rich with jewels and antiquities. The ruby was one of them. It was the centerpiece of a large statue in an important temple. Rachenstein insisted on having it. Maybe it was through threats or promises, who knows? But the ruby was removed and given to Rachenstein. Numerous diplomatic missions have made attempts to recover it. Both countries insisted it’s rightly theirs and then it disappeared. Rachenstein thought they might have stolen it. While the other side thought Rachenstein had intentionally made it disappear. That created a whole new diplomatic argument with each insisting the other didn’t possess it.”

“Wow.” I paused, thinking. “And that’s where Cass Temple comes in?”

“That’s where Cass Temple comes in.”

“You think she stole it to return to its country of origin.”