Read The River of Bones v5 for Free Online

old, and you look wonderful.”
    “I’d be thrilled if you did, and you’ve just made my long flight worthwhile.  I spent the whole night worrying about you.  Simon said you’d be fine, but I worried myself sick anyway.”
    “What time is it, because I’ve lost track?”
    “Seven in the morning, and I flew all night to get here.”
    “Where are Simon and Sasha?  She’s the one who landed me here.”  He groaned and eyed the sack of clear liquid dangling overhead, with a plastic tube dropping to a needle stuck in his left arm.  Another tube ran out of his white bedclothes to the floor, draining his belly wound.
    “It wasn’t her fault that you were stabbed.  I like her a lot, and Simon said she cried half the night.  A doctor stopped a little while ago and said your surgery went well, so both left to get some breakfast.”
    The black horror of the past night crept back, and he wiped his eyes with both hands.  He had come within inches of getting killed, just to show he was brave.  Beautiful women had always been his Achilles’ heel . . . and now there was one with a story a mile long.
    “Are you all right?”  Molly leaned forward in her chair.
    “I just remembered how close I came last night.”
    “Why did you ask Simon to call me?”
    “Crazy as it sounds, I want to go to Siberia.”
    Stillness filled the room, and not even the medical devices made a sound.  Molly’s chair scrunched across the floor, moving closer, then she said, “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you behind.”
    He hurt himself jerking his head to one side, looking at the woman beside his bed.  She laughed and her eyes brightened.
    “For crying out loud, you can’t go.  Simon and I will probably get caught and spend the rest of our lives in a gulag, and I don’t even know if he wants to go.”
    “Okay, why did you call me then?”
    “I need to borrow money for two airplanes and my hangar payments.”
    “What did you have in mind for collateral?”  Her eyes were still beaming, but she had stopped laughing.
    “Sasha has a rose-colored diamond the size of a pea, and I thought you could get it appraised in Texas and then we could come to some kind of an agreement.  I haven’t any idea what it’s worth, but it must be a small fortune.”
    “Why not get the appraisal done here, and how come you need me?”
    “I wouldn’t dare let anyone in Alaska see an uncut pink diamond.  Simon and I would be followed by every prospector in the state until the day we died, and then they would dig up our graves just to make sure we weren’t hiding something after all.  This place has more fortune-hunters than anywhere on earth, and the most big blabbermouths as well.
    “And by now everyone has heard I’ve been stabbed, and I can only pray they believe it happened because of a woman, otherwise they’ll follow me just to make sure nothing’s going on.”
    “Simon said the police stopped last night.  He told them you’d caught someone trying to break in, so I doubt there will be much in the way of rumors.  Do you think they will catch the person who did it?”
    “It wouldn’t do any good, since I couldn’t identify anyone because everything happened so fast.”  Suddenly, the horror came back.Thank God the assailant had run off, rather than knifing him again, and he’d always remember the Russian words.
    “Jake, I’ve seen the diamond.  How much money do you want?”
    “Two hundred thousand . . .”  He watched her eyes, looking for some sign of acquiescence, an indication he could borrow that much by putting up the diamond.  He had nothing else to offer her.
    “We need to get the diamond appraised like you said, and I can do that in Texas without causing too much suspicion.  I’m sure it’s valuable, but I insist that I go along.”
    “Why on earth would you want to, and don’t you understand the risk?”
    “I suppose I do, but all my life I’ve played let’s pretend, and I’m sick of it.  I want to feel