Nick of Time by Tim Downs Page A

doorknob.”
    There was a long pause. “I’ve never really understood the attraction for diamonds,” he said. “I mean, look at it practically: The average person can’t tell a diamond from a piece of glass— yet we’re willing to pay a fortune just to be able to tell someone, ‘It’s a diamond.’”
    “Nick—don’t be a weasel.”
    “And when you go to buy a diamond the jeweler goes on and on about ‘cut’ and ‘clarity.’ You’re supposed to spend thousands more for a ‘flawless’ diamond, one that doesn’t have the tiniest little speck in it—something you couldn’t even see without a jeweler’s loupe. The whole thing’s a scam, if you ask me. Have you ever looked at a cubic zirconium?”
    “You want to buy me a fake diamond?”
    “Believe me, it’s a lot more economical.”
    “That’s good, Nick. You buy me a fake diamond, and I’ll pretend to be faithful.”
    There was another long pause . . .
    “I’m having you cremated,” Alena said.
    Nick rolled his head to the side and looked at her. “Excuse me?”
    “If anything happens to you, I’m having you cremated. Just thought I’d let you know.”
    “That’s planning pretty far ahead, isn’t it? Aren’t we supposed to pick a china pattern first?”
    “I read about this company in Illinois—LifeGem, I think it’s called. First they cremate you, then they take the carbon out of your ashes. They put all the carbon in this big press and they squeeze it for a couple of weeks, and when they’re done you’re a diamond. I’m serious. For twenty thousand bucks they’ll turn you into a one-carat diamond—any color I want.”
    Nick didn’t respond.
    “Yep,” Alena said. “One way or another, I’m getting a diamond out of you.”
    ***
    Alena flexed her fingers and looked at her ring; the flawless diamond sparkled blue and white under the halogen streetlamp. She felt raindrops patting softly on her hair; she looked up and saw silver needles streaking toward her from the darkness. The rain was beginning to fall harder now. In another few minutes she would be completely drenched.
    She looked at her cell phone one last time—it was 10:05.
    She snapped her fingers and made a little flip with her right hand. Both dogs rose to their feet and followed as she began the long walk back up the mountain.

8
    H ey.”
    Nick didn’t look at the man sitting across from him in the holding cell; he’d been very careful not to make eye contact since the man was dragged in kicking and screaming about midnight the night before.
    “Hey. You.”
    He was a very large man, so large that he seemed to taper at both ends—like a third-instar maggot that was just about ready to pupate. The man had obviously been displeased with his incarceration when he first arrived, which he expressed by fuming and pacing and slamming his hamlike fists against the cinder-block walls—but he gradually calmed and cooled as the hours went by, and by dawn he had become positively chummy. Nick liked him better angry.
    “Hey—guess what they arrested me for.”
    “It’s none of my business,” Nick replied.
    “We got nothin’ else to do. Go ahead, take a guess.”
    Nick let his eyes sweep the man like a basting brush passing over a turkey. “Well, there’s only one knuckle on your left hand that doesn’t look like it belongs to some simian; that means you used to wear a wedding ring, but you took it off recently—probably just last night. You’ve got three parallel scratch marks on your left cheek, and they angle down from your ear to your chin—so she’s not as tall as you are and I take it she wasn’t in a very pleasant mood. You’re wearing that T-shirt inside out, which I really appreciate if it says what I think it does, and you’re only wearing one sock—so either you’re trying to start a new fashion trend or you got dressed in a big hurry. Now, we put all these mysterious clues together and what have we got? She walked in on you and she didn’t