"Of course. But the design is something you wouldn't like, I'm sure. It's to satisfy this Arab leader's taste that I have to make the rings large, naturally, and each must feature one perfect gem. It is not easy. You see, each ring must look enough like the other to ward off envy among the generals. You understand the problem? I have been traveling to many countries in search of seven brilliant gemstones fit for princes."

"Fascinating. You're hunting for treasure."

"You could put it that way. I'm afraid it is elusive treasure. The stones I must find are rare. Since each one must be valued at one hundred thousand dollars, naturally I'm thinking of emeralds."

"And that's where Vivian came in," I said, shivering a little.

"Yes. Are you cold?"

"Please go on. I must know about Vivian."

"All right," he said, putting his arm around me for warmth. "This part of the tale goes back to that time I was telling you about in Zimbabwe. You remember?"

I nodded, my head close to his.

"It was a very dangerous time, in 1976. The British had agreed to Zimbabwe's independence, and among the celebrations, the country was plunged into chaos. Various African factions were fighting to take control of the government. Well, just before the civil war completely overtook Zimbabwe, I told my partners we could only stand to do one more transaction before it was simply too risky to continue.

"There were ambushes every day. There were mutilations, rapes, every kind of atrocity. I don't like to speak to you about this. It is too upsetting."

"I'm fine. What happened?"

"The black Africans were the targets, mostly, by other black African factions, but the streets were becoming unsafe. And for those Europeans who were left, the country had become a very uncomfortable home. The newly formed government was in a constant state of crisis and there was always a threat of an overthrow. Each week, the country was swept with new rumors. Supporters of one faction would be beaten. Supporters of another would be found slaughtered. Many people would simply disappear."

"So what did you do?"

"It was time to leave Zimbabwe for good. So, I worked for a month, buying up as many emeralds as I could find. The government troops had begun to wield their guns without any checks. Any suspect, you see, could be shot on sight."

"Were you crazy? Why didn't you just go?"

He looked at me and smiled. "Yes," he said, "I must have been crazy."

"What happened?"

"By that late date, all the other gem buyers had left. The Africans who still held onto valuable rough stones were becoming desperate. African rule, they saw as a victory over the English, true, but their new government was in upheaval. The coming war meant they were losing us Europeans who bought their gems."

"They could kiss the black market goodbye."

"Exactly, and the most unbelievable stones came to me from out of the bush. Never in my life, Madeline, had I seen such raw treasure as these. I bought and bought and bought."

"How much?"

"Gantree gave me eleven thousand American dollars and I spent it all."

"Wow. And how many emeralds did that money buy?"

"Well, at the time I believed the emeralds might be worth a thousand times what I'd paid for them when cut."

I was shocked. "How did it end?"

"I had been very lucky, but I knew it was time to quit. I had collected fifty-two very large stones. They were magnificent. I told Vivian and Gantree it was over."

"Did they agree?"

"Let me tell you what happened on my last trip out to a village to buy. The last two stones I bought were from an old lady-the same old lady, as a matter of fact, I told you about at dinner, the one who years earlier swallowed the emerald."

"Yes. You saw her again?"

"This time she was showing me stones found by another family member, I think. Anyway, I paid her for the emeralds in almost the last of my reserve of U.S. dollars. This time there were no troops to interrupt us. Afterwards, she ambled off into the bush. My friend who was driving and I watched her disappear into the trees."

Zelli paused in his story, and I didn't want to push him to talk about his memories. He rubbed my arm, and stood in thought.

In a few moments he went on. He said that it was only a few seconds later that the young men felt the earth jump, heard the low eruption, saw the flash. The calm old lady who'd been sitting next to him in the Land Rover only minutes before, agreeing on a price, counting out the dollars, must have stepped on the wrong patch of jungle, trod upon a land mine, and died on the spot. The fierce guerilla fighting had turned the very earth into a death trap.

It had been Zelli's last gem deal in the new Zimbabwe.

"The problem came when Vivian tried to leave the country," Zelli continued. "She was not permitted to board the plane out of Zimbabwe. Her luggage was searched. Her clothes were searched. Even her body. These black Africans were now in charge and Vivian told us later that the Zimbabwe militia enjoyed stripping a white woman. The airport security officers tore through her personal things. In her wedding album, they found a large section which had been cut out and the space filled with a box. Fifty-two rough emeralds were confiscated."

"Oh my God," I whispered.

Zelli looked at me, taking in my reaction, and then went on. "It was only due to the fact that she had two thousand U.S. dollars hidden in a fake shaving cream can, I believe, that she was able to pay off the soldiers and escape Zimbabwe."

Vivian, strip-searched in Africa. The mind boggles.

"At least," Zelli said, with his arm around me at the curb, "that was the story that Vivian told us when we all met up again in the States."

But all these years, Zelli had kept tabs on Vivian. He kept an eye on the emerald market, noting the sale of any gems larger than three carats, examining several over the years, looking for distinctive occlusions that told an expert gemologist they were from the Sandawana mine district of Zimbabwe. In the past twenty years, he had not seen many turn up, and that handful he carefully traced back to other known gem hunters from that earlier time.

I had followed this story very closely.

"It's suspicious that the missing emeralds haven't shown up on the market in all this time, isn't it? I mean, if the officers in Zimbabwe had really confiscated them, they'd have tried to unload them to cash out. And if they turned them in to their government, then why weren't they put on the market by the Ministry of Mines?"

"You have a very fine mind, Madeline." Zelli seemed to be enjoying this conversation enormously.

"The only reason those emeralds would be out of circulation is if they were destroyed..."

"Unthinkable," Zelli agreed, smiling.

"Or..." We both thought the same thing. "Vivian kept them all along."

Zelli took my hand and whispered, "I so admire you American women."

But I needed to hear the end of this story. I begged him to tell me the rest.

The years went by, he said. Each of the partners prospered. His own business became established in the highest of international circles. He designed custom pieces for royalty, what there was left of it, and did well-paid errands for oil-rich potentates and Far Eastern billionaires.

And then, out of the blue, he received the wedding invitation. All these years later, Jack's baby granddaughter had grown up and was getting married. And he knew Vivian would be there. He thought it would be a fitting time to bring up the subject of the emeralds once again. He was determined to fulfill his Arab commission and wondered, perhaps, if Vivian might be ready to cut a deal. Time had passed, he figured. Gems of that quality were almost impossible to unload quietly. If she did still have the rough emeralds, she'd really have had no way to sell them without him.

He talked with her briefly, by phone, upon arriving in Los Angeles the day before the wedding. If she was ready to cash in, he told her, they could let bygones be bygones. As far as their third partner, Jack Gantree, was concerned? Why would he have to know?

Vivian had not exactly confirmed that she had the gems. But she didn't deny it outright. Zelli told her to bring seven matched gems to the party and he would look them over. If they were as fine as those two he remembered so clearly from the day a poor old African woman had her life blown away, walking through the wrong field, in the wrong country, at the wrong time, he thought his picky buyer, the Sultan, would be very pleased indeed. It was business, he explained to me. As if this type of business went on every day.

Alas, Zelli's business deal never had time to resolve itself. Vivian died before she ever had a chance to show him the rough.

I drove back home, flushed, my breath coming quicker. Vivian's office was searched. She was killed. It had to be tied to Africa, to the missing rough emeralds. I was beginning to get a pretty good idea of why Vivian's office had been turned upside down. Someone was looking for them. I'd bet on it.

Chapter 22.

It was nearly eleven, but I was buzzed. When I got home I found a message from Paul on the machine. He'd managed to arrange some sort of settlement offer with Five Star's attorneys. I called him quickly and asked him to come over. I wasn't planning on sleeping any time soon, and Paul stayed up half the night himself. The only problem was how he was going to get here. One of Paul's eccentricities is that he refused to get a driver's license. He didn't want them to have him in their system. And I always wondered whether he just didn't enjoy having all his associates have to drive him around. Luckily Wes was home and, as it turned out, Holly had another broken date with Donald. They offered to pick up Paul and bring him by.

I threw my jacket on a chair and walked into the kitchen, thinking I'd put together something to sustain us through the upcoming summit meeting. Now, what was the perfect thing to serve while discussing a three-million-dollar lawsuit? Caviar? Ah, that's positive thinking.

I searched through my CD collection, looking for the right music. Odd. As I flipped through the stack, I discovered I had several discs of Arlo's mixed in. I had thought I'd gathered up all his stuff and returned it by now. I started pulling out the ones I needed to send him. When I got to Peter Gabriel's So I felt a momentary pang of loss. I flicked the case open and put the CD on. Loud. One last time.

Several minutes drifted by. I flipped the light off in the kitchen and went to my office. A framed photo of Arlo and me sat on my desk. Wesley, in an effort to help me over the breakup, likes to turn the picture face down when he thinks I'm not looking. I turned it up and studied it. I had certainly looked happy.

Maybe it had been building. Maybe it had been the flirting with Honnett which was going nowhere. Maybe it was resistance to the new. Maybe I just missed the jokes.

There was a buzz at the door. What a strange mood I was in. I set the picture back on my desk. Then I turned it face down, and hurried back out to the entry hall. Had Paul arranged another ride and arrived early on his own?

"Hey, Mad. Is that my Gabriel CD you pinched?"

Standing at my front door, like I'd conjured him up out of my sad swirl of emotions, was Arlo.

"Hi."

"Please, Mad. Don't tell me you've got company."

"I'm expecting some."

He gave me a hangdog expression.

"Really," I said, smiling.

"So I have to stay outside? Is that our new rules? We're supposed to be friends, now, but only if I remain curbed?"

I laughed. And he knew he'd hooked me.

"So what you're saying is, my CDs may enter your house, but not my cute little body. Am I getting the hang of it?"

"Are you saying it sounds harsh?"

"If I promise to keep my hands off of you, will you invite me in for a drink?"

I opened the door wider and he passed quite close, sneaking in a quick, charming kiss on his way in. It was in the mouth vicinity, but it was chaste, like a good friend. Since that was what we were trying to evolve into, good friends, I let him follow me to the kitchen where I kept the booze.

"No date tonight?" I asked it lightly, as I poured the bourbon he liked over a few cubes. I hadn't bothered to turn on the blazing overhead lights, and we stood together next to the center island, in the low glow of the light coming from the glass door of my Traulson refrigerator.

"It's hard, Mad," he said, looking adorable. "I shouldn't have broken up with you."

I poured myself a fresh glass of Chardonnay and sighed.

"It had been coming for a long time," I said, comforting the guy. Which was really such a good joke, I wished I could laugh. He'd broken up with me, and now I was the one he turned to when he needed consolation.

"Maybe we should just take a break," Arlo said after sipping from his glass.

"From breaking up?"

"Sure. Am I nuts? Everyone needs a little breather. Why shouldn't we just give the breakup a rest?"

"For how long?"

"As long as it takes," Arlo said, putting down his glass on the counter and putting his hand on my waist, just underneath my sweater.

"Oh no, sweetheart." I put down my wineglass and removed his hand, gently pulling it out from under and placing it over the knit fabric. After all, a woman needs to draw clear boundaries.

At first it had stung me. After all we'd been through, Arlo was the one to suggest we were going nowhere in a limp balloon. It wasn't so much that I disagreed with his assessment. I loved him. But not, I suspected, in a totally fulfilled way. It was more that I hadn't been courageous enough to break it off. I'd been too happy to have the status stay indefinitely quo. And I wasn't proud of myself, either.

"Look at it this way," Arlo said, slipping his hand underneath the back of my sweater. "We've been going at this breakup for a few months now, and has either one of us found anyone new who could do it for us? No."

I was relieved he hadn't waited for my answer.

"I've grown up, Mad," he went on most sincerely. "I'm not the silly kid you remember."

He was a comedy writer and couldn't help going for the laugh with that one. I had to chuckle. He was some 36-year-old kid.

"I know it's only been a matter of months. But think of those weeks in dog years, Mad. You love dogs. If I was a poodle, I'd have gained like a year or two of wisdom already, just since we broke up."

"That's true." I felt the heat of his hand on my back as he moved it a few inches higher and to the side, just below my new lace bra.

"I'm really grown up now, Madeline. I'm ready to talk about stuff."

"Stuff?" Arlo had never, since I'd known him, been comfortable talking about stuff.

"Grown-up manlike stuff." He nudged his finger beneath the clasp to my bra.

Uh-oh. This was one of his great talents. He had this special gift for unsnapping bras. When Arlo was in junior high, he'd stolen one of his older sister's bras, fastened it around a beach ball, and at night in the dark of his bedroom, he'd practice unsnapping it in one swift move. I think he came up with the whole idea from the Playboy Advisor. And now, twenty-five years later, it was still a skill that served him well.

As I felt a sudden, well, freedom that meant the master unsnapper had worked his magic, I was ready to protest. "Arlo..."

"I wuv you, Maddie."