by Andrea Kane
“Good morning, Fred,” she greeted him, never glancing up as she shut the door and continued reading her notes. “Please find a way to get around this traffic. I’ve got to be in midtown in twenty minutes, rush hour or not.”
Her driver muttered a good morning along with a grunt of acknowledgment, and pressed the button that activated the automatic door locks. Then, he pulled into the stream of traffic.
It wasn’t until a chunk of time had passed that Rosalyn got the niggling feeling they’d been driving for way too long. Her head came up, and she blinked when she saw where they were.
“Fred? What are you doing? We’re in Harlem, practically in the Bronx.” She leaned forward as she spoke, searching the rearview mirror to see Fred and hear his explanation.
The flat, emotionless gaze that looked back at her did not belong to Fred. Nor did he say a word.
Rosalyn froze. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The menacing Asian man still didn’t answer. He just continued driving over the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx.
Rosalyn wasn’t stupid. She knew this wasn’t a case of a mix-up in drivers. This had been planned. And it was linked to the murderer who was threatening Matthew.
Alarmed as she was, she forced herself to outwardly keep her cool. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded. “And why? What do you plan on doing this time?”
The driver veered off into a lousy section of the Bronx. “Your husband has visitor on the way,” he stated. “FBI. More questions. Burbank weak. He talk. Stupid. Dangerous. We warned. He not listen. We punish. You die.”
Die? So much for Rosalyn keeping her cool.
“You’re wrong,” she responded, confused and desperate. “The FBI’s not coming by. And, even if they do, Matthew wouldn’t say a word. He didn’t last time. He won’t this time.”
“No trust. Too many talks between him and FBI. No more.”
The finality in his tone was absolute. There was no reasoning with this animal.
That did it. Rosalyn lunged forward, scrambling to climb into the front seat and wrestle away control of the steering wheel. As she did, she spotted the long, open switchblade on the passenger seat, and shuddered. The knife was covered with blood. She forced her gaze away, trying to climb over the center console, groping and clawing at the driver’s thick arm to break his concentration and yank his hand off the wheel.
He grabbed hers instead, bending her forearm sideways until blinding pain shot through her and she could hear the crunching sound of bones. She cried out, struggling to escape his grasp.
“Stay in back,” he ordered, shoving her off the console. “You can die quick. Or you can die slow. Your choice.” He released her arm, sending her sprawling into the back.
Rosalyn slid back into her seat. Her arm was throbbing horribly. Her life was on the line. And she had no idea how to save it.
Fate intervened.
The Explorer approached a red light. Her intended killer accelerated to run it. As he did, the wail of an ambulance siren reached their ears. An instant later, the emergency vehicle appeared and sped through the intersection.
Rosalyn’s abductor slammed on the brakes, swearing in Chinese. He and Rosalyn both lurched forward.
She didn’t miss a beat or pause to regain her bearings. Manually, she pressed open her door lock, yanked the handle, and flung open the door. She hit the ground running, heading for the first crowd of people she saw—a bunch of teenage boys shooting hoops.
Hands trembling, she unhinged the gate and rushed inside, slamming the gate as if it were some kind of protective wall.
The basketball game stopped. A half-dozen tall, muscled teens turned in her direction. A half-dozen pairs of wary eyes stared at her. She twisted around, peering back at the street and the unmoving Explorer. The driver had leaped out and dashed around to the open rear door. Suspicious passersby, recognizing a stranger on their turf, were already pausing on the sidewalk to scrutinize him. He scanned the area for a minute. Then, he slammed the rear door shut, ran back around to the driver’s side, got in, and gunned the engine, disappearing around the corner.
Rosalyn sank down on the cracked and broken ground, leaning her head against the fence and trembling from head to toe. The pain in her arm was so sharp, she could scarcely breathe.
“Hey, lady, you all right?”
She looked up and gazed blankly at the sweaty teenager holding a basketball, who had come over when he saw her collapse.
“All right?” Her laugh was hollow.
“You on something?” he asked, seeing her glazed expression.
Oh, how she wished she were. “No.” She managed to shake her head, simultaneously reaching for her tote bag and remembering it was still in the car with her file. “A hospital…I need a hospital. My arm…” She winced. “My cell phone’s gone. Could you…?” Her voice trailed off.
“Here.” He groped in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Use mine.”
Kindness and charity still existed, and thank heaven for it.
“Thank you,” Rosalyn said gratefully, reaching out with her good arm and taking the phone. “Thank you so much.”
Matthew Burbank was reading the morning paper and drinking a mug of coffee when the doorbell of the apartment gave a quick ring.
He folded the newspaper and set it down with his mug, rising to head over and answer the door. It had to be Sloane. Roz had left a little while ago for a breakfast meeting. Anyone but her or Sloane would have been announced by the doorman.
Reflexively, he peeked through the peephole. His hand, already on the door handle, froze.
There was a distinguished-looking silver-haired man in a suit standing outside—one he recognized right away. It was Special Agent Richard Williams, the FBI agent from the Art Crime Team who’d interviewed him about the Rothberg.
What the hell was he doing here?
Fighting a surge of panic, Matthew inhaled slowly, trying to calm himself. When he felt sufficiently composed, he opened the door. “Agent Williams. This is a surprise.”
Williams’s brows rose quizzically. “Is it a bad time?”
“No, of course not. I just wasn’t expecting you.”
“Well, don’t blame your doorman. I showed him my ID, and he let me up without a formal announcement. I hope that’s all right.”
“Yes…of course…it’s fine.” It occurred to Matthew that Special Agent Williams was still standing in the hallway. Hastily, he moved aside and gestured for him to enter. “Please, come in.”
“Thank you.” Williams stepped into the foyer. “I noticed your bodyguard hanging out outside the building. A very formidable-looking fellow. I’m sure he’ll scare off any additional, or returning, intruders.”
Matthew swallowed hard to keep down his coffee. How did Williams know about the bodyguards? And what did he mean by “returning intruders”?
“My wife hasn’t been herself since the burglary,” he tried, realizing that lying about the security guy could do nothing but hurt him. “Knowing we have some kind of protection puts her mind at ease.”
“Of course.” Williams seemed to buy the explanation. He glanced around. “Is your wife home now?”
“No. She’s at a client meeting.”
“I see. In any case, I had some business on the Upper East Side, so I took the liberty of dropping by here afterward.” He reached into the inside pocket of his sport jacket and extracted a note pad and pen. “I reviewed all the interviews I conducted regarding the provenance of Dead or Alive, and a few loose ends presented themselves. I’ll just need to ask you a couple of additional questions.”
“No problem.” Heart pounding, Matthew showed Williams into the den and gestured at the settee. “Make yourself comfortable.” Even as he extended the invitation, he could hear the unsteadiness in his own voice, feel sweat dripping down his spine. “Can I offer you anything—coffee, tea?”
“Nothing, thank you.” Williams lowered himself to the settee, perching at the ve
ry edge of the cushion. “I’ll take up only a few minutes of your time. Also, this will be much less stressful for you than coming down to the Field Office. A quick chat in your own den is a lot more pleasant than a conversation in an interviewing room. Then there’s the convenience factor. Your office and your files are just a few rooms away.”
Matthew started. “Why? Is there something in them you need to see?”
“You tell me.” Williams’s expression never changed. “According to your partners, you keep extensive files on the sale of all your paintings, including duplicate sales receipts. Yet I don’t remember your producing any of those items at our last meeting. I assume it was an oversight. Would you mind if I took a look at that file now?”
“I gave you a stack of material on Dead or Alive when I came down to your Field Office.”
“True. But all that was related to the buy, not the sale.”
“I thought Phil showed you the financial records that…”
“He did. I’m not asking for financial records. I’m asking for the file. Or, at the very least, the duplicate receipt. You do have that, don’t you?”
Matthew was drowning, and he knew it. “I gave you all the material I had. It’s possible the receipt for that particular painting was misfiled. We’re talking about precomputer times.”
“Right.” Williams nodded, getting to his feet. “That’s why I thought the proximity to your office would help. You can show me your filing system. And maybe we can locate that missing receipt.”
Silence.
“You don’t have it, do you?” Williams asked with quiet assurance.
It was clear that Williams already knew the answer to that question. So all Matthew could do was to try the human error approach and hope it worked.
“Honestly? No. I forgot to get one from Cai Wen. I realized it right after we completed the transaction. I felt like an idiot. So I never mentioned it to my partners.”
Williams still didn’t avert his gaze. “I can understand your embarrassment. So rather than leave empty-handed, why didn’t you go back later and get the receipt? Or, if Cai Wen wasn’t available, why didn’t you ask him to mail you a duplicate, which you could have signed?”
“I guess I never thought of it.”
“I find that very hard to believe. From everything I heard from your partners, you’re a meticulous record-keeper. Unless, of course, that one time you were off your game? Maybe something happened that threw you enough to forget about the receipt and to get out of Dodge ASAP? Maybe that same something made you forget to mention any of this to me during our interview?”
That was it. The dam broke.
“I didn’t kill Cai Wen,” Matthew blurted out. “I just forgot to get the damned receipt. So if you came here to accuse me of something—”
“I didn’t,” Williams interrupted. “Although I am curious about how you knew Cai Wen was murdered. It didn’t exactly make it to the U.S. newspapers.”
“I…” Matthew’s heart was pounding so hard, he was afraid it would explode from his chest. “We didn’t leave Hong Kong until the next day. You saw that on our passports. I must have heard or read something…”
“And conveniently forgot to mention it when we spoke? Not likely. Oh, and for the record, Cai Wen wasn’t killed until the next day—the day you left Hong Kong. So you would have had to either be at the murder scene or sitting at the Hong Kong police station to have heard about the homicide before boarding that plane. Would you care to revise your story?”
“I didn’t kill him. I’m not a murderer. I didn’t…”
“Are you covering for one of your partners?” Williams continued to drill away. “Did Leo Fox or Phil Leary kill Cai Wen?”
Matthew’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. He gritted his teeth and fought to think straight. “I want my lawyer here,” he managed at last.
“No problem.” Williams gestured toward the phone. “Give your daughter a call. I’m sure she’ll drop whatever she’s doing and rush over. Oh, would you mind finding out if she’s in the city or at her place in New Jersey? Because if she’s got an hour-plus drive, I’ll take you up on that cup of coffee.”
Leo Fox had just decided that chili red would be the perfect accent for the spare bedroom he was converting into a small home gym for Derek when the telephone rang.
“I’ll get that,” Sloane told them. Scooting across the hall to the master bedroom, she chuckled as she heard Leo explain to Derek that the chili red would “pop” and energize his workout.
Her humor was short-lived.
“Hi, Dad,” she greeted, having noted the caller ID and knowing her mother was at a breakfast meeting. “Everything okay?”
“No.” Her father sounded even worse than he had the night he’d called to tell her about the break-in. “I need you to come to the apartment right away.”
“What’s happened?” Sloane sank down on the edge of the bed, a sick feeling forming in the pit of her stomach.
“That agent from the Art Crime Team, Richard Williams, is here.” Her father’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “He knows we’re hiding information on Cai Wen’s murder. He all but accused me of killing him.”
Sloane went very still. “He just showed up on your doorstep and started grilling you?”
“Pretty much, yeah. And on the one morning you didn’t drop by. He knows I’m calling you. But I said some stupid things…I—”
“Dad, listen to me,” Sloane interrupted. “Don’t say another word to him. Just give him a cup of coffee and a seat on the sofa. Then, go into the breakfast nook. You’ll be in his sight, but you’ll have distance between you. Sit there. Keep your back to him. No eye contact. Read the newspaper. Look out the window. But don’t even glance his way. And don’t engage in any conversation whatsoever. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I understand.” A hard swallow. “Sloane, I’m in trouble. Please hurry.”
“I’m on my way.”
Sloane grabbed her purse. She was worried. She was badly thrown, not by what had happened, but by the timing. And she was livid.
She marched across the hall and poked her head into the room Derek and Leo were chatting in.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” For Leo’s sake, she kept herself in check. “One of my clients has an emergency. I’m going to have to take off.”
“Well, of course.” Leo looked startled and a tad disappointed. Abruptly, he brightened. “Derek and I can finish up here, and then we can arrange a follow-up for all three of us once I’ve finalized my ideas. I have some wonderful plans for this place. Oh, and I took some photos. I’ll show them to Wallace so he can coordinate the paintings he chooses for you with my design ideas.”
“That would be great, Leo. Thanks for understanding.” Sloane had no idea what he’d said, nor did she care. Her gaze was on Derek. “Can I speak to you for a moment before I take off?”
“Of course.” Derek glanced over at Leo. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time,” Leo acknowledged with exaggerated cheer. “I’ll be jotting down notes.”
Sloane waited until she and Derek were in the front hallway, far out of earshot. Then, she spun around and faced him, eyes blazing.
“You bastard. How could you?”
“With great difficulty.” Derek issued no denial and no apology. “I hated having to divert you. But, as I told you, if it came down to protecting you or protecting your father, there’d be no choice. Not in my book. And if he’s as innocent as you say, no harm was done.” One dark brow rose. “Right?”
Without responding to the question, Sloane snatched up her coat and keys. “We’ll deal with this later,” she bit out. “In the meantime, I expect Leo to leave ten minutes after I do. You’re not taking this opportunity to get him alone and subtly assess him and how much he knows—the way you have been for the past two hours. That ends now.”
She reached for the door, then paused, staring Derek down. “You used me. I won’t forget that. Or forgive it.”
“It’s me,” her father said tersely, keeping his voice as low as possible.
“Dad? What is it?”
“It’s bad, Sloane.” His voice held that same strained sound it had the night of the robbery when he’d called her from the hospital. But now, it was muted to almost a whisper. He was clearly desperate to keep Rich Williams from overhearing him.
“I just got a call from your mother,” he said. “She’s in the hospital. In the Bronx. The man who picked her up this morning wasn’t her driver. He was some Asian thug. He must have gotten behind the wheel while Fred was getting coffee, and Jake and Tom were changing shifts. The son of a bitch kidnapped her, broke her arm, and was taking her to God knows where—to kill her.”
Sloane felt ill. “How do you know that?”
“Because he told her. He said he was killing her to punish me. That the FBI was about to drop in and I’d talk. How the hell he knew Williams was on his way over here, I have no idea. All I know is that there was a traffic incident, your mother jumped out of the car, and she ran for help. I don’t have specific details. She’s on heavy pain meds and I don’t want to grill her. But I can’t leave the apartment to go to her. Not without giving Agent Williams an explanation. What should I do?”
Before clamping down on her personal feelings, Sloane asked one question. “Are you sure Mom’s all right?”
“Yes. I spoke to her doctor.”
“Good.” The professional Sloane Burbank kicked in. “Give me her doctor’s name and number. I want the hospital staff to keep Mom comfortable—and there—until after I’ve had my talk with Williams. My goal is to get rid of him without mentioning this—for now. We’ve got enough on our plate without adding Mom’s attack and abduction to the mix. There’ll be plenty of time to fill him in later.” A pause. “Unless the cops have already been notified.”
