Deadly Jewels by Jeannette de Beauvoir Page B

if you have to scream it, then you probably are.
    There was an exaggerated sigh behind me. “Oh, look,” said Claudia. “The grown-ups are acting, like, real grown-up again.”
    Yeah. That helped a lot.
    Even Lukas was in a bad mood. “We had to stay in Dad’s office all afternoon,” he informed me over the spaghetti dinner that I’d assembled hastily, banging the pots as much as possible to vent. “It was bor -ing.”
    â€œI’ll bet it was,” I agreed.
    â€Why do you have to go to Boston?” Claudia asked her father.
    â€œI have something I need to do there,” Ivan said. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
    â€œCan I come with you? You can drop me off at Mom’s house. That way I don’t have to go eat bugs with Belle-Maman and Lukas.” Lukas stuck his tongue out at her.
    â€œNo,” said Ivan. “I’ll be back Sunday. Your mother isn’t expecting you until the usual time. She might not even be home.”
    â€œSo what? I’m old enough to, like, stay alone in the house, you know.”
    â€œI’m sure you are. You’re not coming.”
    â€œWhat kind of bugs do we eat at these things?” Lukas asked.
    â€œI think they’re called insects,” I said, trying hard to stay engaged with him. It wasn’t his fault I was angry with his father. “And I don’t know which ones. I’ve never been to a dégustation before.” I tried to rally some enthusiasm. “It’ll be an adventure, won’t it?”
    Claudia scrunched her hands up under her oversize sweater sleeves, a gesture she’d taken to doing a lot lately. “Yuck. I’ve totes lost my appetite. Can I be excused?”
    â€œYes,” I said and “No,” said Ivan simultaneously. We glared at each other.
    Later, as we were getting ready for bed, he tried being conciliatory. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask you how things went today with Julian.”
    â€œThings went fine,” I said shortly.
    â€œSo it’s just an archaeological thing? Nothing for you to worry about?”
    â€œNothing for me to worry about.” I snapped out my light.
    *   *   *
    The truth was that Julian hadn’t quite known what to do with Patricia’s find. “I guess someone should tell someone in London,” he said. “But damned if I know who should tell whom.”
    â€œYou mean about the murder?”
    â€œAbout the theft,” Patricia said unexpectedly. “Once the jewels were placed in the vault, that more or less ended the English participation in the process. Well, there were Bank of England people who went with it, but they didn’t spend the whole war in Montréal. Anyone who had access to it was Canadian, so the thief must have been Canadian, too.”
    Julian shook his head, his headlamp moving as he did. “Not necessarily,” he said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what nationality they were, if the killing was done here, it’s ours, one of our crimes contre les personnes . But it’s one hell of a cold case.” A slight pause. “Still, we have people who like doing those.”
    â€œAnd you’re going to bring them down here.” Patricia’s voice was flat: she knew already.
    â€œI have to. This guy—and it’s most probably a guy—was murdered in Montréal; we have a duty to investigate. And we’ve got to get London involved, which probably means first getting Ottawa involved.” He sighed; Julian was no lover of governmental red tape. “This may be great news for your dissertation, but it’s gonna cause a lot of sleepless nights for somebody, and a lot of work for the rest of us.”
    â€œWell, I’m not apologizing,” she said. “It’s still good for me, and it’s good for you, too, Martine, right?”
    I considered. What had sounded like the perfect PR