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was, he’d do something stupid, like break his own rules and pursue her until she was naked and writhing in his bed. Then it would happen.
    After a week or two of steamy, sweaty, heart-pounding, soul-numbing sex, he’d grow bored and she’d grow attached. Just like every other woman he’d met in the past four years. And then he’d need to avoid not just her, but Ernie and April as well. And he liked them.
    Then again, they were going on vacation, and when they returned, they wouldn’t live in his building anymore.
    No. He couldn’t do it.
    Jules was no one to him, absolutely no one. Too bad his body seemed to disagree.
    He flipped the knob to cold and shivered, washing beneath the frigid water. By the time he’d shaved, all thoughts of his troublesome neighbor had been replaced by his case.
    Dressing quickly, he focused on what he knew about the Diamond Gang. No one else on the force wanted to touch the cases that had been passed from one detective to another over the past two years. The burglaries were considered trivial and unsolvable to everyone but Seth and the four jewelers who had been put out of business.
    The little mom-and-pop shops had struggled to survive against the influx of national chains before the robberies. After them, they couldn’t stay afloat. The shop owners needed to know who had destroyed their livelihoods. They needed closure and Seth needed to give it to them.
    “Solve these,” Captain Peterson had said last week, as he handed Seth the stack. “And I’ll see to it you’re given the opportunity to take the sergeant’s exam.”
    Yeah, he’d solve them all right. Seth’s career had taken enough hits over the years. Nothing was going to stand in the way of his promotion now. He had no intention of remaining a beat cop forever.
    Except, he wasn’t a beat cop. Technically, he was Detective English. Ha, detective in name only, thanks to his second partner and Seth’s dead ex-wife. He pushed away the familiar fury and focused his attention on current events.
    It had taken two years, but the Diamond Gang had finally slipped up.
    With the remaining businesses doing their best to tighten security, the owners at Holcomb’s Jewelers had grown creative. It worked. Two weeks ago, while robbing Holcomb’s, the thieves missed one of the recently installed cameras hidden inside the body of a cheap lamp shaped like a stained glass lighthouse.
    While the camera hadn’t been capable of recording sound, the video came out crystal. Thanks to it, Seth had his first solid set of clues. The thieves were coordinated, ski-mask-clad, and fast. They seemed to know exactly which cases to hit. But the biggest discovery from Holcomb’s video came as a surprise. One of the gang members was a woman.
    Just before leaving the store, she’d bent over a display case in the center of the room. She’d seemed enamored with a piece of custom jewelry. A rare red diamond. While lusting after the ring, her shirt rode up. The camera captured an image of the tattoo on her lower back: a light green snake coiled around three red roses.
    When Mr. Holcomb itemized the list of stolen items, the red diamond ring was included. The ring was on loan from a local philanthropist who’d planned to use it as the centerpiece in a fund-raiser for the Tidewater Children’s Network next month.
    And yesterday, Seth had received a voice mail from a woman named Aimee-Lynn who claimed to have knowledge of the case. While she didn’t admit to being a member of the gang, she did request to meet with him today to discuss what she knew. She’d even claimed to have proof she wanted to share in exchange for “help for a friend.”
    His gut quivered at the memory of returning her call. She’d whispered on the phone as if she feared being discovered. After setting an appointment to meet with him at four this afternoon, she’d hung up. Unless his instincts failed him, Aimee-Lynn was the female recorded on the Holcomb’s tape.
    That burglary,