Diamond Fire (Hidden Legacy #3.5)- Ilona Andrews Page 0,9

very beautiful.”

Why don’t we have this? As soon as I got home, I would buy a photo album online and get Grandma Frida and Mom to cough up their wedding pictures.

“Thank you.”

Mrs. Rogan turned the page and I saw her, young and radiant, next to a man who looked like Mad Rogan. She was glowing. Her gown was delicate like spiderwebs. The tiara perched on her dark hair as if it always belonged there.

“Wow.”

Mrs. Rogan laughed. “Thank you so much for cheering me up. I’m going to add Nevada’s picture to this album. Rogan is my only child, but I will be gaining a daughter and her picture will belong in this album.”

“She will be very honored,” I told her.

“Did you notice the tiara?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s gorgeous.”

“It’s called the Sealight Crown. Technically it’s a kokoshnik, not a crown, but crown sounds more impressive. The jewel is an aquamarine. Most people don’t know this, but natural aquamarine is often found in sea foam color. They heat it to achieve the light blue. But this stone hasn’t been altered in any way. This particular shade of blue green is important to our family.”

Rogan had given Nevada a beautiful necklace with a pendant. She thought it was an emerald at the time, but it turned out to be Tear of the Aegean, a one-of-a-kind blue-green diamond. Now it totally made sense.

“Will you let Nevada wear the tiara?” I probably shouldn’t have asked that. It was rude.

“I was counting on it. After the wedding, the Sealight will belong to her and she can pass it on to her and Connor’s children.” Mrs. Rogan sighed. “One small problem.”

“Yes?”

“The crown is missing.”

“What do you mean it’s missing?”

Concern flickered over Mrs. Rogan’s features. “It was in its usual place two days ago and it’s not there today. Unfortunately, we have to conclude that it was stolen.”

Considering how many people had been in and out of the house, it wasn’t shocking. We vetted everyone, but background checks never told you the whole picture. A landscaping crew prepared the grounds for the wedding, carpenters were building the custom arbor, another crew was raising an enormous clear tent, at least eight people were hanging lights on the trees, the interior designer and her people, the furniture delivery people . . . That would be a lot of people to interview. It would take Nevada at least two hours. Getting her to sit still for that long would be a challenge.

“The Sealight is tagged with a sensor,” Mrs. Rogan said. “It’s embedded into the crown and cannot be removed without destroying the tiara. The system can track it through a satellite with the accuracy of up to one mile. Right now, it’s telling me that the tiara is still on the premises. I would like you to find it.”

Me? I had worked for our agency since I was twelve, first doing small things like surveillance and answering phones, then moving on to my own jobs, but none of my cases were that significant. Mostly, I dealt with insurance fraud because it was low risk, and runaway teens because kids told me things they wouldn’t usually tell an adult. This was a big leap.

“We would . . .” I was a rude idiot. I should thank her for her confidence. “I mean, thank you for trusting me. But we must sort through at least a hundred employees, many of them new to the estate. Nevada can do it in a fraction of the time it would take me, and she would do so with complete accuracy. My sister never had a false positive.”

“I don’t think the culprit is an employee.” Mrs. Rogan looked like she’d bitten into a lime. “I’m confident it’s a member of my family.”

“Why?”

Mrs. Rogan turned to the bookcase. A section of it—six feet wide and twelve shelves high, all crammed to the brim—rose about one-eighth of an inch off the floor and moved toward us.

I held my breath. The weight had to be enormous.

The bookshelves slid past us and gently landed on the floor, revealing a short passage leading to a round chamber. The lights came on, highlighting persimmon-colored walls pitted with alcoves and niches, each holding a treasure: statues, jeweled daggers, scrolls and books in vacuum-sealed cases, and in the center, in the place of prominence, a niche with a bare jewelry holder.

I remembered to breathe.

“Moving the bookcase by normal means would take several people,” Mrs. Rogan said. “They would have to unload the books, slide