Look What The Stork Brought In?. Dixie Browning

jade.

      But he’d promised Miss Emma. Sooner or later he was going to have to bring up the Ch’ien Lung, and the longer he put it off, the tougher it was going to be.

      Damn Donna! He’d gone easy on her that day she’d called him because she’d been crying so hard he could barely make out what she was saying. And because he’d always been a sucker for his sisters’ tears. They were his baby sisters, after all. They’d gone through a lot together, even though they weren’t all that close anymore.

      The arrangements had all been made. The museum had offered to send somebody after the stuff, but Donna had wanted to keep it over the weekend before she took it in to be photographed for the catalog. They had an old set of photographs, but they were pretty dog-eared and the quality wasn’t too great.

      As it turned out, Donna had actually wanted to show the stuff off to a man she’d been seeing, who’d expressed an interest. An antique broker by the name of Rafael Davis.

      According to her story, he’d waited for her to fall asleep—which was the first Joe knew that his sister had a new live-in lover—and then he’d cleaned her out and skipped town.

      She hadn’t discovered the theft until morning. Then, instead of calling the cops to report it, she’d called Joe. Brother Joe, ex-cop, who had bailed her out of trouble more than a few times. The jerk had done a job on her. Missing were two expensive cameras, a diamond-and-emerald ring, Miss Emma’s jade collection and Rafael Davis, alias Richard Donaldson, alias David Raferty.

      Twenty years ago, maybe even ten, the creep might’ve gotten away with it, but communications were too good these days. Even the smallest departments were coming on-line. That was how Joe had found out about the woman in Amarillo, who’d signed over her life’s savings to a securities broker named Rick Donaldson, thinking he was going to invest it for their future. Instead he’d walked off with her money and a small Andrew Wyeth watercolor.

      In Arkansas, he’d bilked a widow out of her late husband’s insurance money, claiming he’d invested it in a house for them to live in after they were married. He’d taken her three-karat wedding ring out to be cleaned and remounted for her, and that was the last time she’d seen him.

      All Joe could figure was that either women were criminally dense, or the guy was incredibly good. Or both. Donna had two college degrees and was working on her third, not to mention a lot of experience with men, all of it bad. Every time one of her marriages broke up, she swore off men, but it never lasted. She’d been fleeced just like all the rest.

      He and Sophie ate in the kitchen, which suited Joe just fine. He needed a cozy, casual atmosphere to put her off guard. He planned to work his way around to the subject, even though he’d half decided to put off the hard questions until tomorrow.

      “Salt?” she asked, and he shook his head.

      “I shouldn’t. It makes my ankles swell, but just this once I’m going to celebrate. I might even make some chocolate pudding. Did you know that nursing mothers can take in a lot more calories and not gain weight?”

      He murmured a response while he framed his first question. “Sophie, do you know what a fence is?”

      Her gray-green eyes widened. “Certainly I know what a fence is. You’re not going to tell me I need a security fence, are you? Because I can’t afford—”

      “Not that kind of fence. The kind I’m talking about is—”

      “Picket. There used to be one out front, but it fell down. I cleaned up the last few sections after I moved in. I’m saving them to use on a play yard.”

      Joe reached down and massaged his bad knee under the table. “I’m an ex-cop, not a landscape artist. A fence is street slang for a receiver of stolen goods.”

      “I knew that. But why—? Oh. This is about Rafe, isn’t it? I was afraid of that.”

      She was afraid? Now, that was interesting. “Rafe Davis. Is that what he called himself when you two hooked up?”

      She bridled at that, and he warned himself to slow down. He had plenty of time. As much time as he needed. She wasn’t going to sell anything, not while he was here to prevent it. And she wasn’t going to wiggle off the hook, either, because he had her right where he wanted her.