Diamond Before Dying (Reapers in Heels #4) Read online

  "Yes, Avery, I was in the room with Dicky Ramburg," Brooke said. The numbness was wearing off. She got to her feet. "I didn't know who he was at the time, obviously."

  "Well, Stanley knew him so he couldn't have been that great of a guy," Avery pointed out.

  "Stanley knows me," Brooke shot back. "What does that say about me?"

  Avery threw her hands up. "Good question."

  "Not cool."

  "I'm not trying to be cool," Avery said. "I'm trying to figure out what the hell my baby sister was doing with Dicky Ramburg."

  "Well, obviously, you knew who he was," Brooke said.

  "That's exactly right."

  "And maybe if you had kept me in the loop we wouldn't be here right now," Brooke finished.

  Avery held up a hand. "Okay, wait a minute. This is my fault now? It's my fault that your sleazy boyfriend got the crap beaten out of him by Dicky Ramburg? Is that what you're saying."

  "That is exactly what I'm saying."

  Avery leaned in until their noses were touching. "You're stupid."

  "I'm stupid?"

  "That's what I said."

  Brooke poked her sister in the chest. "You asked me what happened!"

  Avery poked her back. "Because you, in a nervous wreck, called me."

  "I was a nervous wreck!" Brooke snapped. "What the hell was I supposed to do? I needed help. Am I not supposed to call my big sister for help?"

  "Did you need help or did you need somebody to clean up your mess?" Avery asked, taking a step back.

  Brooke ran her hands over her face. "I can't believe this," she muttered. "You asked me what happened and I'm trying to tell you. You can't even wait for me to finish the story before you go nuclear? Would it have killed you to wait five minutes to get all the details before blowing up at me?"

  Avery just shook her head. "Fine," she said. "Gimme the rest of the details."

  Brooke folded her arms again, chewing on her lower lip for a second before continuing. "Stanley brought me along on a job. He was meeting with Dicky Ramburg. Stanley was the go-between for Dicky and somebody else. This somebody else wanted a human skull."

  Avery gaped at her sister. Brooke held up a hand, cutting her off before she had the chance to say anything. "Let me finish."

  "Oh, I'll let you finish," Avery conceded. "I can't imagine that this is going to get any better. But I'll let you finish."

  "Thank you for your support," Brooke said, sarcastically. "Anyway, Stanley was the go-between and he wanted me to validate the skull before proceeding with the deal."

  "Validate the skull?" Avery echoed, really not liking where this was heading.

  "I don't know the details," Brooke started.

  "Of course not," Avery muttered.

  "But Stanley said the skull his buyer was looking for was supposed to be really old," Brooke continued. "Stanley wanted me to authenticate the age of the skull that Dicky had found. He said that if I did that for him, he'd clear a large portion of my debt with him."

  "The debt you acquired after you took out a loan from your loan shark boyfriend to go buy more shoes?"

  Brooke held up both hands. "Hey, hey, one thing at a time here. Okay?"

  Avery nodded. "Of course. Would you like to schedule another time where we can discuss your poor financial planning skills? Or maybe instead we should talk about how proud Dad would be. Years of Grim Reaper training and you use it to go around authenticating human skulls for sleazy dirtbags."

  "It was a job," Brooke said by way of an explanation.

  "We have a job," Avery said. "We're grim reapers. That's our job. We're not supposed to be pimping ourselves out."

  "I was not pimping myself out."

  "Sounds like you were."

  "But I wasn't."

  Avery thought about it for a second. "Well, I guess I could say you were whoring yourself out? That's more appropriate, isn't it?"

  "Anyway," Brooke continued, ignoring the jab. "I agreed to do the job. Stanley made a bunch of poo-pooing warnings about what a bad guy Dicky was, but I had never heard of him and, plus, he turned out to be super fat and disgusting. How bad could he be? I took a look at the skull, told Stanley that it was about twenty years old and Dicky freaked out. He did the whole godfather routine, acted as though Stanley had done him some great grievance. He wanted to know my name and badge number."

  "We don't have badge numbers," Avery muttered.

  "I know," Brooke said. "I was just making a point. Which was: Dicky freaked out. He didn't like the fact that I was a grim reaper. Stanley refused to tell him who I was and then Dicky tossed us out."

  "And you didn't think this was a problem?" Avery asked.

  "I didn't think it was my problem," Brooke said. "I asked Stanley about the skull, but he wouldn't give me any details other than the fact that it was going to be a big payday for him if he could find the real skull. Dicky's boys roughed him up a bit the next day. Nothing too bad, though. Again, they wanted to know who I was and, again, Stanley wouldn't tell them."

  "A real knight in shining armor."

  "He has his moments," Brooke said.

  Avery rolled her eyes. "I was being sarcastic."

  "I know," Brooke replied. "But I wasn't."

  "He dragged you into this crap," Avery said. "The least he could do was keep your name out of it."

  "After the thing this morning, I went back to Stanley's place," Brooke continued, ignoring another eye roll from her sister. "Ramburg was already there and had worked Stanley over real good. Apparently he decided that the million dollar payday for the old skull was too good to pass up. So he had his guys work on Stanley until he couldn't talk, and now I'm on the hook for finding the stupid skull. I'm also inclined to think that once he found out I was your sister, he was more than a little ticked off."

  "Ya think?" Avery shook her head in disbelief. "He's Dicky Ramburg."

  "Like that's supposed to mean anything to me!" Brooke snapped. She pointed to her sister. "Maybe if you kept me in the loop every once in a while, I would have known not to get involved."

  "Maybe if you just stopped associating with Stanley altogether, your overall quality of life would improve," Avery suggested. "Did you think about that?"

  "No, but I am thinking about the other night when we walked up to Dicky Ramburg's place and picked up some illegal grim reaper equipment off of him."

  Avery put her hands on her hips. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means you knew who Dicky Ramburg was and never told me," Brooke said. "That's what it means."

  Avery shook her finger at Brooke. "Oh, no. No. No. No."

  "Yes."

  "Hell, no."

  "Hell, yes," Brooke snapped. "You knew who this guy was."

  "I knew who he was because I do my job," Avery shot back. "And he's a dirtbag. In fact, he's a bigger dirtbag than Stanley is."

  "Well, I know that now. Maybe if you had kept me in the loop I would have known it then." Brooke pointed at the ER. "Maybe if you had told me about Ramburg, my boyfriend wouldn't be in there right now bleeding in his damn brain!"

  "Oh, so he's definitely your boyfriend again?" Avery asked.

  "Okay, we're not doing that right now," Brooke said.

  Avery ran her hands through her hair. "I can't believe this. Of all the things for you to get mixed up in..." She shook her head. "Dicky Ramburg."

  "And maybe if you actually clued me in on what exactly Ramburg does," Brooke said. "I can join you with this particular freakout. Otherwise, I'm left out here by myself in my own personal freakout."

  Avery sighed and rubbed her eyes. She looked at her sister. "You're not by yourself." Her tone was sincere.

  "Sure feels like I am."

  "Well, you're not."

  "Are you sure about that?" Brooke asked. "Because right now I'm on the hook for some super old skull that my boyfriend was supposed to find. And if I don't find it, I'm dead. You're dead. Mom's dead. Everybody I know will be dead. I know this because this was the
threat Dicky Ramburg made over the beaten and bleeding form of my boyfriend. So yeah, I feel like I'm alone out here on this freakout because my big sister would rather rip me up one side and down the other for dealing with Dicky Ramburg instead of helping me."

  "I didn't say I wasn't going to help."

  "It sure sounds like you aren't."

  "You're my little sister," Avery said. She walked up to Brooke and put her hands on her shoulders. "You're my little sister and if you need help, I'm going to help you."

  Neither of them said anything for a minute.

  Brooke started to calm down. She gave her sister a small smile. "Thanks." Avery started to open her mouth, but Brooke cut her off immediately. "Don't ruin the moment by saying something like that if I never got back together with Stanley this wouldn't even be a problem."

  Avery squeezed her sister's shoulders and then sat down. "Well, technically it wouldn't." She sighed. "Dad used to deal with Ramburg, that's how I knew him."

  "Dad knew him?"

  "Turns out Dad knew quite a few unscrupulous members of society," Avery said. "He passed a few of those contacts along to me."

  "Why not me?"

  "Because he saw that you already had a bad habit of hooking up with unscrupulous members of society," Avery said. "He didn't want to be an enabler."

  "And you've dealt with Ramburg?"

  "A few times," Avery said. "Mostly I've dealt with his reputation. Which, for the record, stinks."

  Brooke sat next to her. She inhaled deeply through her nose and then slowly exhaled. "Can we just go to the cops?"

  "We could," Avery said. "But Ramburg has more than a few of them on his payroll."

  "That's great," Brooke muttered. "What about the Council?"

  "After the crap with Messor & Decessus, the last thing we need is more grief with the Council," Avery said. "Also, if we go to the Council we might end up implicating ourselves in a few things."

  "Oh, this just gets better," Brooke said. She looked at her sister. "So what do we do?"

  Avery drummed her fingers on the armrest. "Good question."

  three

  Elsewhere in Saint Mercy's, Julia and Jeroen Berge were making use of another empty waiting room.

  Married for almost thirty years, the Berge's were in their mid-fifties with slowly graying hair and a normally cheerful outlook on life. That cheerful outlook, though, was being put to the test today. They sat there in strained silence, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.

  The ticking of the clock on the wall seemed to grow louder with every passing minute.

  Jeroen folded his other hand over his wife's and squeezed. She looked up from her shoes. He gave her a weak, but supportive smile. It was going to be okay. That's what he desperately wanted to say, but he couldn't move his lips. He knew that the minute he spoke, he would lose it. All the stress and tears and frustration that he had been bottling up for the last three hours, they would just come pouring out in a rush of emotions. That wasn't what his wife needed. She needed a rock and he was going to be that rock. So he just took her hands in his and squeezed.

  Julia appreciated the gesture of strength from her husband, but it felt hollow to her. She struggled to keep her emotions in check, but every time she heard the doors to the operating rooms open, her heart skipped a beat. Was it the doctor for them? Did he have news? But no, it would just be another nurse or a janitor. She couldn't take the waiting anymore. The waiting was the worst. At this point she didn't want assurances. She didn't want false platitudes. She didn't want hopeful wishes. She just wanted the truth. She just wanted to know what was happening to her baby. Her poor little baby.

  Their baby. Twenty-three years old, a senior in college and he was still their baby. He'd always be their baby.

  Julia felt nauseous all of a sudden. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose, trying to keep the bile from rising up. The waiting was the worst. The waiting was always the worst.

  The doors to the operating rooms open again. Julia and Jeroen looked up hopefully. Dr. Burton approached them, still dressed in his operating scrubs. He pulled the surgical gloves from his hands with a loud snap. Julia tried not to look into his face. She knew that if she did, she would learn the truth and the truth wasn't going to be what she wanted it to be.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Berge?" Dr. Burton said in a soft and gentle voice.

  Jeroen got up, pulling Julia with him. She looked into Dr. Burton's eyes. She couldn't help herself. She looked into his eyes and saw the truth immediately. Julia shrank back against her husband.

  "No," she sobbed into his chest.

  "I'm so sorry," Burton said. The words were standard. He knew them by heart, like some kind of twisted screenplay. Twenty years of delivering this kind of news and it never got any easier. "We did the best we could," he continued. "But your son's injuries were too severe."

  Burton didn't need to go into details. The details weren't important to the Berge's. What was important was that their twenty-three year old son had passed away on his operating table. The victim of a horrible car accident, the boy's chances had never been good. But Burton tried his hardest.

  "No," Julia sobbed over and over again. She pressed her face against her husband's chest and curled her fingers tightly into the sleeves of his shirt. "No, no, no."

  Her baby. Her poor little baby.

  Dr. Burton looked at Jeroen. "I'm sorry," he said again. The words felt hollow. He wished there was something else he could say, something else that would help ease their pain, but there never was.

  Jeroen just nodded his head slightly. He didn't know what to feel. He didn't know what to think. He just held his precious Julia close. Something broke inside of him. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. The parents weren't supposed to outlive their children. This wasn't right.

  Dr. Burton took a step back, trying to give the Berge's some semblance of privacy as they dealt with their grief. He would still need to talk to them. There were things that still needed to be taken care of. But for now, they needed a few moments. Burton felt disgusted with himself. As though a few moments were all it took to recover from something as horrible as losing your only child.

  There were days, days like today, when Burton really didn't like his job.

  Burton was pulling the surgical gown cap from his head when the first scream pierced the silence of the waiting room. He turned sharply. It came from the operating room.

  There was a second scream, followed by the sound of something crashing.

  "What the hell?" Burton muttered. He started for the OR.

  Julia lifted her face from her husband's shirt, leaving behind damp tear stains. She looked up at him, but Jeroen was just as confused.

  "Sarah?" Burton called out as he pushed open the door to the OR room. "What the hell's going-" The words died in his throat and Burton took a step back. "That's not possible," he muttered. The color slowly drained from his face.

  Burton tried to quickly walk away but he tripped over his own feet. He went sprawling across the tiled floor. "That's not possible," he said again.

  Julia and Jeroen looked at the doctor in confusion. What was going on?

  "Doctor Burton?" Julia asked, her voice heavy with concern. "Doctor?"

  The doors to the operating rooms swung open again.

  The Berges looked, but they could not understand. Their vision was blurry from the tears. It didn't make any sense.

  A bloodied figure stumbled out into the waiting room, limping with every step it took. It's head was bent at on odd angle.

  "No," Julia whispered again. She slowly started to shake her head. "No."

  The figured reached for the Berges with an arm that ended in a bloody stump of bones. Then the figure spoke in a weak, raspy voice, "Mom...? Dad...? It hurts..."

  four

  On the eighth floor of Saint Mercy's Laura Benson took her eighty year old grandmother out for a roll. It used to be they went out for walks in Bryant Park, but after her grandmo
ther's second stroke, her days spent walking were now replaced with days of rolling. She adapted pretty quickly to life in the wheelchair and Laura did her best to keep their traditions alive in whatever way possible. So for this week, instead of a roll down the newly repaved sidewalks in Bryant Park, Laura took her grandmother for a roll through the mostly empty hallways of Saint Mercy's eighth floor.

  "What about that lawyer?" her grandmother asked.

  "What about him?" Laura said as she pushed her grandmother down the hallway. Her arms ached a little. Her grandmother barely weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, but it still took a little bit of an effort to push the wheelchair. Laura never complained, she took her exercise where she could get it.

  "He was a nice boy," she said.

  "He was almost fifty, Memaw," Laura replied. "He was hardly qualified to be called a boy. Also, it turns out he was married."

  "Married?" Memaw couldn't believe her ears. "Married?" She scrunched up her face in indignation. "Then what was he doing with you?"

  "That's a good question," Laura said, taking them around the corner.

  "You brought him to meet me!"

  "In hindsight," Laura said. "I probably should have asked if he was married."

  "He should have told you he was married."

  Laura shrugged. "Either way one of us should have probably brought it up."

  "And it should have been him," her grandmother insisted.

  "I think you're probably being a little hard on him, Memaw," Laura said.

  "Oh, brother," the old lady muttered. "What's this world coming to?"

  "I'm just saying, I could have asked," Laura pointed out. "The blame's not all with him."

  "That's a terrible point of view," Memaw chastised her. "How do you plan to find a husband with that kind of attitude?"

  "I don't know," Laura responded. "Maybe a husband isn't in my future. I'm gonna be thirty-five next month. I'm pretty sure there's a cut off point."

  "A cut off point?"

  "Yeah, if you're not married by a certain age," Laura explained.

  "Then what?"