Baltimore [3.5] Broken Silence Read Online Free Page B

five-star restaurant every night.
    ‘Did you see her?’ Brock asked casually, but Amber wasn’t fooled. Lighthearted Brock had left the building. It was time to talk business and he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
    ‘Yeah. The doctor says she’s ready to go. Told that social worker to get her foster care.’
    ‘Finally. We’ll grab her from the fosters and get out of here. We can be home by Wednesday if we drive straight through. We dump the kids and get paid.’ He frowned when she didn’t immediately agree. ‘Don’t tell me they backed out? That’s a perfectly good kid in there.’
    ‘No. In fact, their lawyer’s texted me three times today, asking when we’ll drop her off. The deal’s still good. One white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfect little baby girl, coming up.’
    ‘Excellent. The arrangement I made for the other one is still on, too. Confirmed today.’
    ‘Good.’ But that deal didn’t sit as well with Amber. Selling a baby to a childless couple was fine, but selling a six-year-old . . . But other than killing the kid she didn’t see much choice.
    ‘Of course we could have gotten more for the baby if she’d been a little younger,’ Brock complained. Again . Amber was sick of hearing him whine about the price.
    ‘Unfortunately, the baby’s mother didn’t cooperate with that plan,’ Amber said stiffly.
    ‘Should’ve just held a pillow over her face your first day on the job.’
    ‘I would have if I’d known how long she’d linger.’
    ‘No you wouldn’t have,’ he said in that condescending way she was coming to hate.
    ‘Probably not.’ Amber was many things, but the cold-blooded murderer of a dying woman? Not her style. She’d left that to Brock. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Babies are like cars. You drive one off the lot and the value automatically goes down. We couldn’t have gotten her as a newborn.’ Amber hadn’t met the Smirnovs until the baby was two months old. ‘The difference between a two-month-old and a six-month-old is negligible.’
    ‘“Negligible” is in the eye of the beholder,’ Brock said broodingly as he opened a bottle of beer. ‘I’ll be a lot less worried about “negligible” when we get our hands on that necklace.’
    ‘And the earrings,’ Amber murmured. ‘And the rings and the bracelets . . .’
    Diamonds and emeralds and sapphires. Oh my . She’d been captivated from the first moment she’d laid eyes on Tatiana’s gems, amazed that the woman wore them every day. But Tatiana had casually informed her that she owned even nicer jewelry that she used to wear with her evening gowns before she’d been diagnosed with cancer. It was all in the safe.
    Discovering how much each piece was worth and the magnitude of the Smirnovs’ wealth blew Amber’s mind. Tatiana’s jewelry alone would sell for nine hundred G’s. And that was only what they’d get from a fence. Retail? They’d originally cost three times that.
    That the Smirnovs spent that kind of money so cavalierly while Amber struggled to pay her bills made her so damn angry. But she’d get the last laugh. When they combined the sale of the jewelry with the sales of the both the baby and the brat, she and Brock would be millionaires.
    ‘I still can’t believe Tatiana hid her jewelry from me. After I took care of her all those months and she still didn’t trust me? Bitch.’ They owed me. The Smirnovs damn well owed me .
    Brock swigged down half the beer. His eyes had taken on that angry glow she didn’t like. ‘You are sure she brought them with her? She didn’t leave them in the hotel safe in Minnesota?’
    ‘You’ve asked me twenty times, Brock. Yes, she brought them with her. On the day we left I asked her if she wanted me to get them out of the safe and put them on her. She looked awful in them by that point, but I figured it would make it easier in the end. She said that no, she’d already packed them. I worried that a thief could