Master of Illusion

by Nupur Tustin

  She recounted the details.

  “Did you call Mailand?” Julia wanted to know.

  “Not yet. I just wanted . . .” Celine gestured at the door, exhaustion taking over. “Dirck said it belonged to someone he and John were very fond of. It needed to be returned, he said.” She looked up at Julia. “I think he was referring to Annabelle.”

  “Annabelle?”

  “Bella, the woman I dreamt of. The woman Simon Underwood was telling us about. Bella is Annabelle Curtis.”

  “Annabelle Curtis? Did you say Curtis?”

  But Celine’s eyes had closed. “We need to get in touch with her . . . we need . . .”

  “Celine?” She felt Julia’s hand on her shoulder, heard her voice as if from a distance, but her eyelids remained closed, pressed shut. Her last conscious thought was of a blanket being thrown over her as she sank deeper into the couch.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Blake absently regarded the note Ella had left on his desk while he’d been speaking with Julia Hood. It was a message from Penny Hoskins. Annabelle Curtis was Simon Duarte’s sister.

  Penny had provided Curtis’s current address and phone number as well.

  The information was redundant. Blake had already discovered these details for himself. But after his conversation with Julia, he’d found himself agreeing with the Director of the Gardner.

  The Duarte-Bramer angle needed to be re-opened.

  Blake fingered the note and pondered what he’d learned. He’d been able to confirm Simon Underwood’s identity. The man checked out. He was also capable of forging a Vermeer.

  The source of this information had offered Blake yet another tidbit.

  One so compelling, it had convinced Blake that Duarte’s sister was worth a visit. But even without that, a consideration of the facts had led Blake to dismiss the notion of a forgery being at play.

  If Underwood had wanted to con the Gardner with a forged Vermeer, he would have done it years ago. To do so now, at the height of his career, made little sense.

  Involving Dirck Thins in the affair made even less sense. It was a pointless complication. And, financially, neither man would’ve benefited from the paltry reward being offered.

  That aside, why would the mob waste its time worrying about an attempt to return a forgery?

  Well, all right, maybe it would. If the loot from the Gardner was being used as collateral for unsavory deals in the underworld, the return of even a potentially forged item could cause quite a stir.

  The current possessor of the Gardner art would be in the unenviable position of trying to establish that the art was genuine—and, worse, might never even be given an opportunity to do so. In the criminal world, the mere suspicion of betrayal could cause heads to roll.

  It was a dog-eat-dog world; you murdered first, repented later.

  But then again, if either Dirck Thins or Underwood had been planning on returning a forged item, why bother hiding the work?

  Blake set Penny’s note down. He’d left a message with her personal assistant, informing her that the tip they’d been following had fizzled out; that the Vermeer the tipster had promised to return had turned out to be a forgery. But Blake didn’t believe that to be the case.

  Whatever Thins had been planning to return had yet to be found. Blake knew that because Mailand had called back with some unexpected news.

  The detective had received a report of a forced entry into Celine Skye’s cottage. The fingerprints on that scene matched the ones lifted from the Delft.

  It was clear Dirck’s killers had been looking for something—something quite specific. They hadn’t found it at the Delft, so they’d turned their attention elsewhere. From a mobster’s perspective, killing a man to prevent him from returning a forgery made sense; looking for said forgery did not.

  No, most likely, the story Grayson had brought to the FBI all those years ago was true. Duarte and Bramer had made off with the Gardner art.

  Had the mob found itself with nothing? That would explain why no trace of the art had been found.

  Or had Duarte and Bramer left the mob with a bunch of forged items? An offense as brazen as that would merit instant death.

  But it was Dirck who’d been murdered.

  Why?

  Because he knew where Duarte and Bramer were and had refused to divulge their location? Or because Thins had taken charge of the art?

  Either scenario seemed likely. Especially if Grayson was right, that Duarte had survived the car crash all those years ago and sought refuge in Central California.

  If that was the case, how had the mob come to learn that Duarte was still alive? And where was Duarte?

  Blake tapped his fingers on his desk. He had his suspicions about the former. As to the latter, maybe Annabelle would know.

  A man Celine couldn’t see sat on the faded red couch—wrapped in an oblique beam of sunlight that obscured Celine’s vision. Bella wiped her tears with a fierce swipe of her palm.

  You need to tell her I’m gone, Celine. Dirck’s low voice was tinged with regret. Tell Annabelle I’m gone at last.

  “It wasn’t an accident, Simon.” Annabelle’s voice trembled. She pressed the crumpled sheaf of papers in her hands to her stomach.

  “Bella—” The man began. The light changed and Celine caught a glimpse of his face and the thatch of white hair.

  Simon Underwood!

  “That’s what the police say. But it wasn’t. They were killed.” Strands of dark hair fell over Bella’s young face. “And Simon, poor boy, knew they were after them.”

  Why did Bella look so young, Celine wondered. Why did Simon Underwood look so old? Weren’t they the same age?

  Tell her I’m sorry, Dirck whispered into her ear.

  Sorry for what? Celine wondered . . .

  Annabelle Curtis lived in a red brick house on Beach Street in Revere. It was a ten-minute drive from the FBI office. Blake pulled up to the house, parking behind a brown UPS delivery truck.

  In the fading light of dusk, he could make out the white Nissan parked along the side of the house. Annabelle was at home. A flight of four steps led up to a white door with a black handle. The windows were white, the sash on both sides thrown open.

  The woman who answered Blake’s knock was slender, the loose gray-black curls framing her face the only sign of age.

  She peered at him. “Yes?”

  “I’m from the FBI’s Art Team, ma’am.” Blake showed her his badge. “We’re following some new leads in the Gardner Museum case.”

  She stared at him, face expressionless. Her hand remained on the door, though, and she stood motionless.

  “Your brother was an employee at the Gardner Museum, wasn’t he?”

  “That was nearly thirty years ago, Special Agent . . .” She looked questioningly at him, his name already forgotten.

  “Blake Markham,” he prompted her.

  “Well, Special Agent Markham, my brother’s long dead. He can’t help your case from the grave.”

  “No, but perhaps you can. May I come in, Ms. Curtis?”

  “Mrs. Curtis,” she corrected him, stepping aside.

  Blake followed her into a small living room. Out of force of habit, he scanned his surroundings. The prints on the wall; the bottle of wine on the coffee table; the family photos on the mantelpiece above the faux fireplace.

  Annabelle was either an excellent actress or she really was unaware that her brother had survived the car crash that had supposedly killed him all those years ago. They’d been close, according to Penny Hoskins. If Duarte had survived and deliberately chosen not to stay in touch with his sister, how would she take it?

  For the first time since the beginning of this investigation, Blake felt a twinge of—not guilt exactly or even shame. But he was certainly not going to be proud of himself for the can of worms he was about to open.

  “What leads are you following?”

  The sound of her voice startled him. She pointed to the couch.
<
br />   “You told me you were following some fresh leads. I imagine you had some reason for wanting to share them with me.” Her smile was gentle, not warm, but certainly not unfriendly.

  Blake sat down. They were days when he really hated his work. His instincts told him she knew nothing, but he needed something more concrete than that.

  “We received a tip that the Vermeer stolen from the Gardner and the bronze finial have both turned up in Paso Robles. While the items haven’t been recovered yet, our investigator”— Grayson didn’t deserve to be exalted with that title, but there was no way Blake was going to admit to a civilian that the FBI had sent in a CI to investigate a lead—“did report something unusual.”

  He paused, trying to read the expression on her face. But Annabelle merely looked mildly curious. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Yes?” she prompted him.

  “Our investigator reported making contact with your brother—Simon Duarte.”

  “Is this some kind of joke, Special Agent Markham?” Annabelle didn’t have an especially expressive face, but the fury written in her features was unmistakable.

  Blake waited for her anger to subside. “We were as startled to hear of this development as you are—”

  “Did it occur to any of you that your investigator might have been mistaken? That the man he spoke with may have been lying? Simon and Earl were brutally killed years ago—so badly burned their remains couldn’t be identified. No one bothered to investigate.”

  “It was an accident, ma’am. An unfortunate incident. Their car ran off a cliff.”

  “And how do you think it ran off, Special Agent Markham?”

  “You’re saying there was a second car?” It was the first he’d heard of it. He didn’t recall seeing any mention of it in the reports of the accident.

  “Whoever robbed the museum killed my brother and his friend, Special Agent Markham. I tried telling the police that. No one was willing to listen.”

  Blake sat back. “Tell me what you know,” he said. “I’m here. I’m willing to listen.”

  “Dirck and Earl loved that museum.” Annabelle looked down at her folded hands and swallowed. “Like everyone who worked at that place, they were concerned about security.”

  “Or the lack thereof,” Blake said.

  She nodded. “Someone—I don’t know who—came up with a plan to force the trustees to take notice. Dirck and Earl had a small part to play. But it went horribly wrong. It was all very wrong. That’s what they kept saying over and over.”

  “That it was all wrong,” Blake repeated softly.

  Annabelle nodded again. “They wanted out, but they were threatened. They had to go along with the plan.” She looked up at him, her eyes haunted. “And they knew they were going to die. Those poor boys knew.”

  She clenched her lips. Blake waited.

  “A few days after they were killed, a friend of theirs came to see me.”

  “Simon Underwood?” Blake said, voicing it as a question, although he already knew the answer. Underwood had worked with Duarte and Bramer on those Vermeer forgeries that had taken the BU art world by storm and resulted in their professor losing his reputation and most of his grant money.

  Underwood had kept in touch with his undergraduate friends even after the affair.

  “He brought a letter with him,” Annabelle said. “My Simon had set his affairs in order. There was a little bit of money he’d saved. He wanted me to have it—a college fund for Bryan, my son.”

  She raised her eyes. “All those years ago, the police wanted to know what evidence I had that Simon and Earl were killed. Well, that envelope and that money were the evidence.”

  “Where had he kept the money?” Blake wanted to know. That part of the story could be easily verified.

  “At the First Street Credit Union. They’ve never had very many branches, but they have good rates for students.”

  “I’ll check it out,” he promised. His gaze circled the living room. “You’ve kept in touch with Simon, I see.”

  A couple of the prints showed the Mechelen Winery vineyards. The wine on the coffee table was a Mechelen product as well.

  Blake’s eyes returned to Annabelle’s face. He wanted to see her reaction.

  “My brother was twelve years younger than I, Special Agent Markham. When he died, it was like losing a son. I think Simon understood that. Those gifts of wine remind me of what my Simon could’ve done with his life. Earl and Simon and I grew up in a farming community, you see. Our families owned apple orchards.

  “The boys were fascinated with art, but they soon realized they’d never be able to make a career of it. The job at the Gardner sparked a passion in them. They talked about owning farmland, growing peaches and plums or maybe even grapes.”

  Annabelle sighed. “John Mechelen and Dirck Thins nurtured their vineyard and built their winery from scratch. It’s nice to hear of two Boston boys fulfilling a dream like that.”

  “I see,” Blake said. John Mechelen had accomplished what Duarte might have had he remained alive.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The evening gloom had deepened by the time Blake emerged from Annabelle Curtis’s house. The sound of an engine starting caused him to glance up. The UPS van parked up the street was pulling out of its parking spot.

  It was rounding the corner when Blake pulled away from the curb. He followed the van around the corner, up a driveway, and into a garage. The white garage door slid down into position behind Blake seconds after he pulled in.

  A lanky, uniformed individual with a handlebar mustache and a nerdy expression jumped down from the van.

  “All set, Trevor?” Blake poked his head out of his car.

  Trevor gave him a thumbs-up sign and grinned. “She took the bait, and it’s working like a charm, bro.”

  Following a rushed court order to wiretap Annabelle’s cell phone, Trevor had spoofed a call to Annabelle. Pretending to be a representative from her phone company, he’d persuaded her to make a few security updates on her phone.

  The updates had resulted in Annabelle downloading LSS spyware capable of listening in on both her phone calls as well as any conversation she had within earshot of the device. Blake’s call to Annabelle requesting an interview had served to activate the spyware.

  “Stayed behind to test it,” Trevor explained. “Heard you guys in there loud and clear.”

  “Great!”

  “You think it’s gonna work?” Trevor asked as Blake stretched his legs out of his car.

  “It better,” Blake replied. It had taken all his persuasive powers to show probable cause. If Duarte was still alive and Annabelle was aware of it, Blake’s visit would prompt an immediate phone call to Duarte.

  Even if Annabelle wasn’t aware of Duarte’s immediate location, Blake felt sure she’d call Underwood. And who knew what calls that might trigger?

  Yes, they were finally getting somewhere. And with Mailand’s upcoming raid on the San Luis Obispo address where Grayson had holed up—keeping tabs on his prepaid credit card had yielded rich dividend—Blake Markham hoped all the pieces of his case would fall into place.

  A minor crackling from the van put both men on high alert. Their target was making a call. They rushed into the van, putting on their headphones in time to hear a phone stop ringing.

  “Simon?” Annabelle said.

  “Bella, what a pleasant surprise.”

  “Simon, someone from the FBI was here.”

  Concealed in a Revere, Massachusetts residential garage, Blake and Trevor heard Simon Underwood sigh.

  “This have something to do with the Gardner Museum heist?”

  “Yes, how did you guess?” Annabelle said.

  Blake couldn’t hear Simon’s response. Annabelle was talking over him.

  “They’ve traced the art to Paso Robles. The Vermeer and the finial, at any rate. That’s what they say.”

  “An FBI agent was here as well. Same story. They think—” Simon cut himself shor
t. “I have some terrible news, Bella.”

  A short pause. Underwood must have been waiting for Annabelle to respond, but she said nothing.

  “Dirck Thins—”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I’m afraid not, Bella. Dirck’s dead.”

  “Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that, Simon. I had no idea he was ill? What was it? A heart attack?”

  “No.” Simon’s voice was so soft Blake had to strain his ears to hear him. “He was killed.”

  “Good God!” Annabelle gasped. “I’m so sorry. What you must be going through! And here I am calling, imposing on you.”

  “There’s nothing you or I could’ve done about it, Bella. Besides, it’s nice to hear your voice. Takes my mind off things. Tell me, what can I do for you?”

  “Simon, the special agent who came here, Blake Markham, said his investigator reported seeing—” Annabelle hesitated. “It seems so crazy. But the investigator reported seeing my brother. In Paso Robles!”

  “Oh, Bella!” Underwood sighed. “I’m so sorry—Simon never meant . . .”

  “I told Special Agent Markham his investigator had been lied to. But who would do such a thing? It was such a cruel joke to play!”

  “Bella, I need to—”

  An unidentified noise interrupted the conversation.

  “There’s someone at the door, Bella,” Simon said. “Can I call you back?”

  Tell her I’m sorry.

  Dirck’s words played repeatedly in Celine’s mind. But what was he sorry for?

  Killing Simon Duarte and Earl Bramer!

  The thought flashed behind Celine’s closed eyes. She was awake, the dream still fresh in her mind. Dirck’s words still rang in her ears. He’d known Duarte and Bramer.

  Had he killed them?

  Dear God, no! Celine’s eyes flew open. Sunlight streamed in through the cottage window. A faint breeze carried with it the distant chirping and chattering of birds.

  This wasn’t her cottage! Where was she?

  A jumbled assortment of memories flooded Celine’s mind.