much more than that. At twenty-six, she wasn’t a single step closer than she’d been as a nineteen-year-old with big dreams. She had nothing, no career, no money, not even a car. Maybe it was time to admit that she wasn’t going to find the lucky confluence of circumstances that was going to let her perform for a living.
At twenty-six, maybe it was time to look for something else.
All things considered, she was probably fortunate that the most recent band implosion had taken place in San Francisco, home of her sister and her grandparents. After all, it had been a place to stay and a place to work while her grandparents went on their three-month tour of the South Pacific. For a few weeks, she’d pitched in without complaint, trying for once to fight off the inevitable restlessness and get on her feet.
And then everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.
“Dammit!”
Joss jumped at the sound of Gwen slamming down the receiver in the cradle. “You’ve gotten louder since you came back from Vegas, that’s for sure. What’s up?”
“Interpol,” Gwen said, investing the word with an immense amount of disgust. “They’re dropping the investigation of the one-penny Mauritius.” Her voice vibrated with frustration. “A million dollar stamp, one of the rarest in the world, and they’re just giving up.”
“How can they drop the case? I thought you knew who had the stamp.”
“I have a theory, even a name, but apparently that’s not enough.”
“They’re investigators, aren’t they?” Joss set down her coffee. “Can’t they figure it out?”
Gwen pushed back from the desk in annoyance. “They can’t find any leads. They say there’s nothing to follow up on.”
“I suppose Jerry could have just cooked up the story to make Stewart look bad,” Joss speculated.
Gwen shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense to me, not the way they were talking that night in the hotel room. I mean, Jerry says he stole the stamps for Stewart because the collector wanted them. It makes sense that Stewart might have slipped and said too much to him. They were buddies.”
“Is that why they’re testifying against one another?” Joss asked wryly.
“I think Jerry took it kind of personally that Stewart shot him.”
“Sensitive. So Interpol doesn’t believe that Jerry’s Swedish collector is the same guy who tried to buy the two Mauritius stamps from Grampa?”
Gwen shrugged. “I don’t know if they don’t necessarily believe it, but they can’t find anything to substantiate it.” She rose and stalked over to rip a photograph of the smiling Stewart off a bulletin board and toss it in the trash can. “The stamps Stewart had stolen from Grampa’s collection were for Karl Silverhielm, I’d bet money on it,” she said, crossing back to her seat. “He’s got a reputation for being obsessive and he’s been after the Post Office Mauritius pair for the past five years.”
It mystified Joss that anyone could be that hung up on little squares of colored paper. “What’s the big deal about the Mauritius, anyway?”
“There are two of them—the one-penny and the twopenny. You know the two-penny stamp, it’s the indigo one.”
“The Blue Mauritius.”
Gwen nodded. “The one-penny is a kind of red-orange.”
“The Orange Mauritius?” Joss guessed.
“No one calls it that. They just say the one-penny Mauritius.”
“Does anything about stamp collecting make sense? I mean, how can a measly stamp be worth over a million dollars? Why does anyone care?”
Gwen smiled. “They’re over a hundred and sixty years old, for one thing, and they’ve got a story. It was all a big mistake, see? That’s where the most valuable stamps usually come from.”
“Like the upside down airplanes?”
“Sort of, only whole sheets of the Inverted Jennies are out there. Only a handful of Post Office Mauritius stamps exist.”
“So what’s the big deal? What was the error?”
“They were made by an island printer when the local post office ran out of stamps. The postmaster told him to print ‘Post Paid’ on them but he screwed up and put ‘Post Office’ on them, instead.”
“The wrong words? That’s what a million dollars of fuss is all about?” Joss shook her head in amazement. “You collector types.”
“Silverhielm wants a Post Office Mauritius pair, badly.”
“So why didn’t Grampa sell? He’s ready to retire, why not take the money?”
“I don’t think he liked Silverhielm,” Gwen said slowly. “There’s something a little off about him and I think Grampa sensed it. Besides, his offer was only a million for each.”
“I thought that was what they were worth.”
“Separately. Together, they’ve gone at auction for as much as three million.”
It paralyzed Joss to think about that kind of money. It paralyzed her that she’d been the one responsible for losing at least part of it. “Did Grampa have any idea they’d be worth that much?”
“He got them from his grandfather and they probably weren’t cheap when he got them. Like investing in gold bars. Expensive, but worth it.”
“Except that it’s not so easy to stick gold bars in your pocket and walk away with them the way Jerry did with the stamps.” Joss stared moodily into her coffee cup. “It kills me to think about telling Grampa about this.”
“It’s not as bad as it was,” Gwen said softly. “We got most of them back.”
“You got most of them back, and you almost got shot doing it.” Joss picked a quarter up off the desk and began rolling it in her fingers. “So why is Interpol dropping the case? Didn’t they look into Silverhielm?”
Gwen nodded. “They say they’ve done some investigation but their hands are tied at this point. They can’t just walk in and search his house or his safe-deposit boxes.”
“I suppose not, but have they interviewed Stewart?”
“He doesn’t know anything.”
“Or won’t say.” He was a thug and a liar. As far as Joss was concerned, there was no reason he might not be a coward. Still… “Why don’t you try talking to him?” she asked suddenly. “He might tell you.”
“I’m not sure I could do it,” Gwen said, resting her chin against her hands. “It’s too hard, knowing what he did and seeing him again. He was practically family.”
Fresh anger coursed through Joss. Stewart had worked at the store when Gwen had been a gawky fourteen-year-old, looking up to him. She’d trusted him. They’d all trusted him
