Remember When

gripped the hands she'd folded on the table. "This isn't a game."
    "Isn't it? Isn't it always?"
    "Alex Crew, may he rot in everlasting, fiery hell, is looking for those stones. He's killed one man, and he's responsible for Willy's death. Has to be. He'll hurt you, Laine. He'll worse than hurt you to get them. Because it's not a game to him. To him it's cold, brutal business."
    "Why did you get mixed up with him?"
    "I got blinded by the sparkle." Setting his teeth, he eased back, picked up his coffee. Then just stared into the black. "I figured I could handle him. He thought he had me conned. Son of a bitch.
    Thought I bought the high-toned game he was playing with his fancy fake name and patter. I knew who he was, what he'd been into. But there was all that shine, Lainie."
    "I know." And because she did know, because she could remember how it felt to be blinded by the shine, she rubbed her hand over his.
    "Had to figure he might try a double cross along the way, but I thought I could handle him. He killed Myers, the inside man. Just a greedy schmuck who wanted to grab the prize. That changed the tune, Lainie. You know I don't work that way. I never hurt anybody, not in all the years in the game. Put a hole in their wallets, sure, a sting in their pride, but I never hurt anybody."
    "And you don't understand people who do, not deep down, Dad."
    "You think you do?"
    "Better than you, yeah. For you it's the rush. It's not even the score itself, but the rush of the score. The shine," she said with some affection. "For someone like Crew, it's the score, it's about taking it all, and if he gets to hurt somebody along the way, all the better because it only ups the stakes. He's never going to stop until he gets it all."
    "So give me the diamonds. I can lead him away from here, and he'll know you don't have them.
    He'll leave you alone. You're not important to him, but there's nothing in this world more important to me than you."
    It was truth. From a man skilled as a three-armed juggler with lies, it was perfect truth. He loved her, always had, always would. And she was in the exact same boat.
    "I don't have them. And because I love you, I wouldn't give them to you if I did."
    "Willy had to have them when he walked into your shop. There's no point in him coming in, talking to you, if he didn't plan to give them to you. He walked out empty-handed."
    "He had them when he came in. I found them yesterday. Found the little dog. Do you want that muffin?"
    "Elaine."
    She rose to get it, set it on a plate. "Max has them. He's taking them back to New York right now."
    He literally lost his breath. "You-you gave them to the cop?"
    "PI, and yes, I did."
    "Did he hold you at gunpoint? Did you have a seizure? Or did you just lose your mind?"
    "The stones are going back where they belong. There'll be a press release announcing the partial recovery, which will get Crew off my back."
    He lunged up, pulling at his hair as he circled the room. Thinking it was a game now that they were friends, Henry scooped up his rope and pranced behind Jack. "For all you know he's heading to Martinique. To Belize. To Rio or Timbukfuckingtu. Sweet Baby Jesus, how could my own daughter fall for a scam so old it has mold on it?"
    "He's going exactly where he said he was going, to do exactly what he said he was doing. And when he gets back, you and I are going to give him your share, so he can do exactly the same thing with them."
    "In a pig's beady eye."
    To settle the dog, Laine got up and poured kibble into a bowl. "Henry, time to eat. You're going to give them to me, Jack, because I'm not going to have my father hunted down and killed over a sack of shiny rocks." She slapped her hands on the table between them. "I'm not going to lie to my own children one day when they ask what happened to their granddaddy."
    "Don't you pull that shit on me."
    "You're going to give them to me because it's the only thing in my life I've ever asked of you."
    "Damn it, Laine. Damn it to hell and back again."
    "And you're going to give them to me because when Max turns them over and collects the fee, I'm going to give you my share. Well, half my share. That's one and a quarter percent of the twenty-eight, Dad. It's not the score of a lifetime, but it's not sneezable. And we'll all live happy ever after."
    "I can't just-"
    "Consider it a wedding present." She angled her head. "I want you to dance at my wedding, Dad.
    You can't do that if you go to prison, or if Crew's breathing