Read Fifth Victim for Free Online Page A

Sean and it seemed that to hesitate now would be to let down everything he’d stood for. So if it came to it, I thought fiercely, then yes, I would die to protect Dina Willner, as her mother had asked.
    And maybe I’d do it just a fraction more willingly than I might have done, a hundred days ago.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    ‘Isn’t this just to die for?’
    Dina opened the ring box and turned it towards me. Inside was the biggest, ugliest yellow diamond I’d ever seen. It looked like nicotine-stained glass and cost the same as a car.
    I held up my unadorned hands with the fingers splayed, and shook my head. ‘I’m the wrong person to ask about jewellery,’ I said evasively. ‘But couldn’t a ring as a birthday present be … misconstrued?’
    She coloured slightly, snapped the box shut again and handed it back to the eagle-eyed sales assistant. ‘You’re right,’ she agreed. Her eyes drifted indecisively across the glittering display cabinets. We’d been into a dozen similar high-end stores so far on this street alone, and all that dazzle was starting to give me a bad head.
    ‘The party’s the day after tomorrow. I just wish Mother had given in earlier, then I would have had more time to find something suitable,’ Dina said. She sighed. ‘Tor’s so difficult to buy for. I mean, what do you give the guy who’s got everything?’
    Recognising that Dina was clutching at straws on the ideas front, I refrained from the old joke about penicillin. Torquil Eisenberg, whose twenty-first birthday celebration was the cause of all the fuss, was the son and heir to a vast transportation empire. Eisenberg Senior, so I understood, owned a large percentage of everything that flew, drove or floated with a bellyful of bulk goods, from crude oil to car parts. There was rich, and then there was Eisenberg rich. I took a wild stab that suggesting some aftershave and a pair of socks was probably not quite going to cut it.
    ‘You’ve seen the necklace Tor’s mother has, of course – the Eisenberg Rainbow?’ Dina said now, undeterred by my silence. ‘All these rows of beautiful diamonds – different cuts and colours. Not just white, but some are pale pink, or deep blue like sapphires. It’s priceless, and utterly fabulous.’
    She sighed, as if – by courting Tor’s favour – she might get to wear it herself one day. I’d seen news photographs of the jewellery in question. To me it looked as fake as something from a cheap Christmas cracker, but I thought it best not to say so.
    ‘What’s he like – Torquil’s father?’ I asked instead as we walked back out into the sunshine. I checked the passers-by out of habit before we crossed the street and I blipped the locks on Dina’s Mercedes SLK. ‘Have you ever met him?’
    ‘Mr Eisenberg?’ Dina looked blank for a moment, then shrugged. ‘A couple of times. He’s OK, I guess,’ she said, and heard the doubtful note in her own voice. ‘Well, he can be OK – when everything’s going Tor’s way. Which is kinda weird, because from what Tor says, he’s hardly ever around.’
    So, money can’t buy you everything .
    We climbed into the car. I fired up the engine to let the air con disperse the heat that had built up inside the cabin, and found Dina watching me.
    ‘Why did you ask?’
    My turn to shrug. ‘I’m just surprised, that’s all,’ I said, ‘that he’s putting on a big birthday bash for his son when there’ve been these kidnappings. You would have thought he’d be wary of conspicuous displays of wealth – go out of his way to make his son seem a less attractive target.’
    She laughed. ‘From what I hear, Tor hasn’t had to ask twice for anything since he was about six years old,’ she said wryly. ‘Can you imagine what would happen if his twenty-first birthday party was cancelled because it might be risky?’
    ‘He likes taking risks?’
    ‘He wrecked his first Ferrari when he was sixteen. He’s into skydiving, snowboarding, you name it,’ she