Carats and Coconuts (9 page)

When a perfect mineral crystal has
been cut and polished into a form of amazing beauty by some skilled
artisan like my mother, it’s called a gem.

And I’d indeed found a gem in
Roman.

I also had a gem of a family, and one
Roman and I would do anything to protect.

Of the four thousand known minerals,
only approximately fifteen have been made into commercially
available gems. There are a few hundred more, that have throughout
history, been made into rarer cut stones.

There is one, however, that is rarer
still.

Probably more valuable per volume than
all the artifacts on earth combined. Steeped in the history of
kings and queens and exotic places, there is a story of untold
riches.

And that story begins right here in my
parent’s – Mr. and Mrs. Claus’ – Whoville.

But that’s a story for another
day.

Tonight, my father takes flight to
treat the kids of the world to their own favorite gems in the form
of the toys he and my mother and their elves have made.

They’ve turned their wealth into a
wealth of love that they spread around the globe on this one
magical night.

“
I just don’t get it,” Roman
said, holding me even closer.

My dad and his reindeer team waved
while passing us one last time on their way to their
runway.

“
Get what?”

“
Is your father Santa Claus
or not?”

“
I suppose it depends on how
much you truly believe,” I said, knowing I’d told him the truth as
I knew it.

“
All I know is, I believe in
you and our family, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you all
safe.”

And I knew he meant it.

I kissed his cheek, then turned back
to the sound of my dad’s sleigh bells jingling with glee as he
called out to Comet, Cupid and Company.

Roman and I watched as Rudolph and his
ruby red, GPS-endowed nose disappeared into the swirling snow and
darkness of Christmas Eve night.

“
Is his nose a real ruby?”
Roman asked.

“
It is,” I said, relieved to
be able to share all of my past with my prince. “C’mon, I’ve got
something I want to show you.”

I took his hand and led him to my
parent’s gem vaults, where they’d spent years perfecting techniques
to capture the colors and brilliance of the world’s rarest
gems.

If we were going to save the kinds of
rubies that made Rudolph’s nose able guide a sleigh, we had our
work cut-out for us.

We also had a lot of packing to
do.

As soon as the holidays were through,
we were on our way to the exotic locale that held the secret to my
family’s fortune.

In the mean time…

Merry Christmas to all.

And may your new years too be filled
with carats and coconuts.

THE END

(The Prequel to COZY CASH MYSTERY
#3)

T
here’s crazy.

Then there’s a cut above
crazy.

And when your parents are
two of the world’s top gemologists, you not only learn to deal
with
cuts
–
brilliant, baguette, briolette and the list goes on - but you also
get damn good at dealin’ with the
crazies
that those cuts bring into
your life. And by crazies, I mean the smugglers and thieves who
transport gems around the globe.

So yeah, as you can imagine, my life
to date has been anything but Mayberry. And I don’t see that
changing anytime soon.

I’m Zoey Witherspoon, Designer and
Stylist to The Stars, a fairly new PI, and now the Princess of
Caserta. And as if that’s not enough of a crazy-packed resume, I’m
also the daughter of George and Suzie Witherspoon of Witherspoon
& Witherspoon, the world’s premiere gem vault and
lapidary.

Not sure what a lapidary
is?

My parents are experts on
all-things-gemstones, as in diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires
and the four thousand other mineral crystals of the earth. They
also are expert cutters, polishers and engravers of those same
stones.

Seems like a luxurious lifestyle,
right?

Well, it is luxurious, in a
way.

But the sad thing is…this world can’t
responsibly deal with the kinds of wealth my parents cut from
rocks. Just like the world can’t deal in a socially moral way with
the oil drilled out of our oceans and seas.

Y’all think oil is the only thing
breeding and feeding terrorists?

Try handing those same thugs fistfuls
of precious gems. Or showing ‘em how and where to get their own
rock sacks full of ‘em.

The gem trade breeds an entirely
different kind of terror. And I’m about to put an end to it…or at
least the part of it I know how to stop.

Now you might think that, in order to
do such work, you’d find me in the Middle East or perhaps North
Korea or somewhere in Africa.

No dice…I’m in Michigan.

Here along the fabulous shores of Lake
Michigan, it may be the end of the holiday season, but deep below
the snow-covered earth of our Winter Wonderland, it looks like
Christmas forever in my parent’s underground gem vault. Or if not
that, it could be the main warehouse for all the high-priced, fancy
jewels you see dangling and dripping from every jeweler’s ad on
your television screen.

People may think my parents are just a
crazy couple who believe they’re Santa and Mrs. Claus. And for
those of you who’ve heard about our typical Hullabaloo and Holly
Too holidays, the crazy couple bit might, on the surface at least,
seem true.

But under my dad’s Santa Claus
Workshop, through a secret entrance in the floorboards, lies the
Witherspoon & Witherspoon gem vault, which makes The
Smithsonian’s stone-stash seem paltry by comparison.

While a lake effect blizzard is
blowin’ outside, things are really heating up down
there…

“I
just can’t believe one rogue elf could steal
anything
from this
fortress.”

Those were the words spoken by my
prince and fake husband, Prince Roman Bellesconi Umberto-Vittorio
Emanuele Vanvitelli, while stepping through the fourth solid,
anti-drilling and cutting, magnesium and concrete-embedded door
leading into our vault’s main room.

“
Let alone The Witherspoon
Blue Moon Diamond, and now your Precious Aquamarine
too!”

I couldn’t believe it
either.

But it
was
true.

“
What bothers me more,” I
said, placing the coconut that contained our Blue Moon Diamond on
one of my parent’s cutting tables, “is why the hell did he give the
diamond back?”

“
Are you sure it actually is
our diamond?”

I heard my mother’s voice before I saw
her.

But I couldn’t see her at all now. All
the vault’s lights had gone out.

Roman grabbed my hand and used his
body to shield mine.

“
Easy. Everything is fine,”
my mother’s voice created a much-needed sense of calm.

All at once, our Blue Moon Diamond
began to glow with an intense orange-red
phosphorescence.

“
It’s
our
diamond all right,” I said, sort
of relieved and sort of scared even more.

“
How do you know?” Roman
asked.

“
Orange-red phosphorescence
is almost exclusively limited to dark blue diamonds,” I said, as
the lights in the vault came back on.

“
That said, this effect is
never as intense with other stones as it is with our Witherspoon
Blue Moon. She’s indeed a rarer-than-rare blue beauty,” Mom said,
effectively completing Roman’s first gemology lesson.

“
And you can only see the
phosphorescence in a dark room, using exposure to ultraviolet
light,” my dad piped-in as he joined us in the vault’s main cutting
chambers.

“
You’re right then, Plum
Puddin’,” Roman said. “Why would Stanley give back The Blue
Moon?”

“
First, I’m usually right.
Second, Stanley has major issues besides his dwarfism,” I said,
thinking that was as good a place as any to start explaining my
theory about our rogue elf. Plus, I couldn’t resist teasing Roman
about my golden gut instincts.

“
What kinds of issues?”
Roman asked, his Dark Knight aura giving the word ‘issues’ a very
sinister undertone.

Actually, Stanley’s size was a benefit
in this biz. He could get away with a lot that the rest of us
couldn’t, but more on that later.

“
Let’s just say there’s a
major connection to our Blue Moon being contained in this
packaging,” I said, knocking my knuckles on top of the coconut’s
hard shell.

“
Go on,” Roman
said.

As his protection mode kicked into
high gear, his sentences always got more and more staccato, which
meant I didn’t have much time left to evade his
questions.

“
Stanley giving back our
Blue Moon Diamond is probably a sign that it’s small potatoes. Or
rocks, I guess, compared to what’s still left for him to steal,” my
dad said, having a seat on one of he and my mom’s work
stools.

I didn’t like the worried glances
passing back and forth between my parents, but they were right to
be worried.

“
What’s left for him to
take? And from where?” Roman asked, again using his preferred
short, very pointed and spot-on interrogation-style
questions.

“
Our Blue Moon Diamond is
small compared to what’s left in Brazil,” I said, knowing I could
no longer put off
what
was at stake or
where
it could be found.

“
Brazil? And coconuts?”
Roman asked.

“
Along with natural beryl
crystal,” my mother added to the mix.

“
We don’t just mine diamonds
in Brazil. We also mine natural beryl crystal. What you know as
emeralds and aquamarines and the even rarer still pink morganite,
yellow heliodore and the rarest-of-rare, red beryl.”

“
Ahhh. Thus the reason for
the missing Precious Aquamarine as well,” Roman stated, his mind
beginning to sort through what was still missing from our vault
inventory and why it was gone.

“
But why the Blue Moon in
the coconut? Brazil has coconuts?”

“
Brazil has much more than
coconuts,” my mom said, the normally robust color of her cheeks
draining away to match the blizzard howling outside. “They have The
Coconut Highway.”

“
It’s a coastal road lined
with coconut palms, leading to our largest mine,” Dad added,
supplying the final piece for Roman’s mind puzzle.

“
Thus, Stanley’s inside joke
of mixing carats with coconuts,” I said, holding up the now empty
coconut shell as my parents began examining our Blue Moon Diamond
with their loupes.

While my parents got lost in their
precious rock, I pulled Roman aside and out of their
earshot.

“
Stanley will stop at
nothing to gain control of our mines.”

“
How do you know that?”
Roman asked, his espresso-colored eyes now darker than a ride down
one of our mine car shafts.

“
Trust me. I just
do.”

“
Well, one of these days,
you’re going to have to trust me, and tell me everything, Zoey. And
I mean everything,” my prince said.

And I knew he was right.

But how could I tell him everything,
if telling him meant I could lose him forever?

C
olor is the most sought-after and recognizable of gem traits.
The more intense the color, the more valuable the stone.

These days, the most valuable stones
on the black market, as well as the open international gem markets,
come from our mines in the Brazilian states of Bahia, Minas Gerais,
and Mato Grosso.

No, no, no. I don’t want you to get
the wrong idea. My parents are totally legit. They do everything
they possibly can to guarantee our stones are legally
traded.

But unfortunately, you can’t control
what happens to the stones people steal from your mines.

No Kimberley Process Certificate
determines whether or not a gem is obtained legally to begin
with.

Here’s another interesting
tidbit…

Do y’all know what gives a gem its
color?

It’s the impurities and defects. The
more imperfections a gem has, the more intense its color, and the
higher its value.

Kind of gives the saying “colorful
people” a whole new meaning, right?

Except…in the gem world, people’s
imperfections don’t make them more colorful and entertaining. They
make them that much more deadly.