Abstract Aliases (A Bodies of Art Mystery Book 3)

by Ritter Ames

  I was almost to the exit when a woman charged out of one of the stalls and plowed into me.

  Seventeen

  The woman was between me and the door. She held tight to the strap on my Fendi and yanked hard at the huge purse, trying to flee.

  At least I assumed it was a woman. The dark glasses, knitted hat, and bulky coat effectively eliminated any ability I had to determine gender or description. We were about the same height, and likely the same build, as our tug of war was a dead heat. Her sneakers, however, had better traction than my leather-soled boots.

  There were only two other women in the restroom. One shrieked, and the other stood stock still. I wasn’t getting any help out of that quarter.

  My boots were worse than barefoot at the moment. She got us almost to the door, and I had an idea she had help on the other side. I was running out of options.

  She pulled with both hands. Apparently she didn’t have a weapon for intimidation. I counted my blessings. There was only one option. I maintained control of the Fendi with one hand and risked letting go with my right to dig into the side of the purse by the strap end I was holding. She took advantage of my one-handed grip to give a mighty tug. Just before the strap broke free from my grip, my hand came out of the purse with the item I kept in the side pocket.

  I hit her square in the face with a blast of travel-sized hairspray.

  Her hands flew to her face. I gave her another shot of spray. She shrieked in pain. Definitely a woman. There was also something…

  My Fendi dangled from one of her arms. I pulled the purse free and pushed out of the restroom, dragging my rolling bag behind.

  “Jack! Help!”

  She came roaring through the door and pulled at my left arm. I hit her hard with my right fist. As I feared, she did have an accomplice. A tall guy with a heavy dark beard moved close and clamped an arm around me. I saw Jack appear from one side.

  “Jack, over here!”

  The accomplice turned and noticed I had reinforcements coming. He shoved me and I fell to the ground. Big Beard tugged my assailant’s arm and pulled her quickly down the terminal with him, going deeper into the crowd.

  “Are you okay?” Jack hurried over and helped me up, but stretched to try to keep them in view.

  “Yeah,” I said, checking both my purse and luggage to make sure nothing had spilled.

  He stepped away. “Stay here, I’m going after them.”

  I hurried and put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Don’t. Nothing was taken, and if it’s more serious than a purse snatching they may be hoping to separate us.”

  “You’re right, I wasn’t thinking.” He ran frustrated fingers through his dark hair. “We do need to report it to security.”

  The next half-hour we spent giving vague descriptions and pointing out the scramble outside the restroom door when the security video was reviewed and stopped at the relevant point. Security filled out forms, recording our names and contact info, and tried to find out how long we’d be in the country—like we had any idea—before sending us on our way with their thanks and a caution to be careful.

  We found lockers for our gear, and as Jack lifted my large bag I teased, “You were longer in the bathroom than I was, Hawkes. I even touched up my makeup.”

  He gave the bag a good shove and closed the door. “The problem with men’s restrooms versus women’s is there are less stalls to accommodate more urinals.” He leaned close and whispered, “When you’re changing clothes and concealing a weapon, it’s always a good thing to wait for a little privacy.”

  “I’m glad it didn’t take any longer. I am doubly glad you have a gun.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  The train station, otherwise known as the Hauptbahnhof, sat right on the plaza called the city center. Everything outside was in the shadow of the great cathedral, and through the station’s huge front windows it was easy to see the historic church and nearby signature shops for retailers like Lacoste and Swarovski, even if the dark store signs showed they were closed.

  It was a quick walk out of the terminal without carrying anything heavier than my Fendi. Which wasn’t a lightweight, by the way, but it usually contained everything I needed. The well-designed outdoor space was well lit for early morning commuters and tourists like ourselves.

  “What do you think?” Jack asked when we finally got a little distance from other people. “Purse snatcher or Laurel snatcher?”

  “I would stick with purse snatcher. Except for one thing.” I stopped and turned to him. “You’re going to laugh.”

  He stared off into the horizon, then looked back at me. “I can’t imagine anything about that experience or this day to make me laugh. Not at you anyway.”

  “She squealed when she screamed. Like Melanie.”

  His expression was one of disbelief. He squinted at me and asked, “Are you saying you think Melanie from The Browning was your purse snatcher?”

  “You asked.”

  The executive director of The Browning in Miami was not my fan, despite the fact the foundation I worked for could do a lot of good for her gallery and artists’ studio. Her hatred of me stemmed from a mean girls incident while we were college students and interning at the same museum. The fact she had a thing for Jack, and he seemed to have a thing for me, didn’t help either.

  With a chuckle, he turned me around and we continued our walk across the plaza.

  “I said you’d laugh.”

  “You certainly did.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Tell me, do you really think Melanie would go to all this trouble? My thought is she would readily hire someone to kill you, but wouldn’t actually do anything herself and risk breaking a nail.”

  “I think I preferred you laughing,” I said. “If it had been Melanie, and she or her accomplice had a gun, we’d be dead.”

  Jack shook his head. “You’d be dead. She would have only wounded me. She likes me.”

  I closed my eyes momentarily. “Ohmigod, I’m partnered with an idiot.”

  “A sexy idiot with a British accent,” he whispered in my ear. “Women love that.”

  “Most women do,” I said. My retort kind of lost its effectiveness when I couldn’t keep from chuckling at our lapse into dark humor.

  The ass just grinned at me.

  Suddenly, I had a thought. “Almost forgot. We need to send a touristy shot—”

  “Oh, the selfie. Right.” Jack scanned the area. “The stone arch would work. Leftover from the Roman years. Can’t get much more touristy.”

  What was left of the stone arch on the city center was originally the north gate of the Roman city that had first graced the location nearly two thousand years ago. We posed where the most light shined on us and our historic backdrop, and used Jack’s longer arms to get the best possible selfie.

  “Think it’s good enough for him to recognize us?” Jack asked.

  “Yes. The arch gets short shrift, but this is all for show,” I attached it to a text message and sent the shot to Ralf’s phone. A few minutes later, we found an open caffe on one of the corners and went inside for breakfast.

  “It’s too early in the States to connect with anyone,” Jack said. “Until I can talk with someone in New York, I’m going to work my mobile on European contacts to get some intel started about your guy in the jewelry box photo. One more thing before I forget. Where exactly was your mother’s accident?”

  The orange cinnamon Danish that had sat on my tongue so lovely a moment before suddenly tasted like ashes. I answered mechanically, “About a mile outside of the Scarsdale city limits.”

  I appreciated him pursuing my mother’s accident when we had extra time. After all, I’d asked him to do so. It was the realization I would have to hear about her death again which disconcerted me, this time in a new and frighteni
ng way. Leaving me a little…well…I guess frightened was enough of a word at this point. I’d faced down diabolical criminals and outsmarted seasoned art thieves, but it took nothing more than the thought of reopening family history to shake me to my core.

  Time to shove the inner child back into the mental playroom, Beacham, and pretend you’re an adult again.

  I should have never kept this secret from him and Nico after the first “gift.” The original photograph hadn’t even actually implicated my mother to the extent this new one did. Yet while I didn’t have answers, I was terrified of asking more questions.

  Past time to start.

  “I need you to email me what you have,” he said. “Are the pictures on your mobile?”

  “Oh, sorry.” I came back to the present, grabbed my phone from the cream-colored tabletop and woke the screen—wishing I could wake myself as easily. “I meant to send everything to you already. Keep getting sidetracked.”

  “It’s not like you’ve been twiddling your thumbs,” Jack said, smiling. “They’ve been too busy most of the time to dance over the little keyboard.”

  “You could have—” I started to ask why he hadn’t gone into my pictures and emailed them while I was asleep and he had my phone, but stopped.

  The old Jack would have done exactly that, and I wasn’t sure how the current Laurel felt with the realization of another change. Equally perplexing, I wasn’t sure why I’d handed my “life in one device” over last night without another thought.

  I’d blame it on exhaustion.

  “What?” he asked when I didn’t finish.

  I shook my head and hit Send to forward the shots. “Never mind. My thoughts are wandering. Let me know if you need pictures with more detail. Or you can see the pieces yourself the next time you’re in London. They’re in the safe in my hotel room.”

  At about eight thirty, sunlight started teasing through the windows. Soon after, we’d completely exhausted our personal information resources.

  “Nothing to do until we meet your friend,” Jack said. “Let’s walk for a bit and discuss things we don’t want overheard.”

  “Agreed.” I stacked our trash to bus the table. We put on coats and I slipped my Fendi onto my shoulder. Our trash went into the bin as we left the shop.

  In my experience, waiting was not something Jack did well. Information gathering can be addicting, but even after the brouhaha in the bathroom he’d quietly sat down to breakfast and worked. Not once had he given any sign of a breakthrough moment or restless attention. The fact he stuck it out in the caffe with coffee and pastries for a couple of hours told me this walk likely had more to do with him finally needing to break free than anything else. To keep himself awake.

  At about ten degrees above freezing, even with the clear sky and sunshine, the walk was the definition of brisk. Jack suggested we start down the pedestrian zone called the Schildergasse. Cologne boasts miles of walkable shopping zones, and any other time I would have gone store to store, probably ending up in the Belgian Quarter to decide between unique accessories and offbeat clothing in the small boutiques.

  My walking buddy, on the other hand, truly wanted to talk.

  “How is the best way to approach your friend?” he asked.

  I stared straight ahead, thinking for a second before replying, “I should be the one who actually talks to him. At least in the beginning—until we see how things go. He was glad I had someone with me for the protection angle, but Ralf is as wary about all of this as we are, and is going to use up his trust stores pretty quickly. We have to remember he’s only meeting with us because his cousin was…”

  A couple of talkative women walkers drew up alongside of us, and by tacit agreement Jack and I stayed silent until they finally quickstepped away.

  “Did you get a chance to review all of Nico’s email attachments?” he asked.

  “Yes. It would be nice if we could get one of the coroners to compare the wounds,” I said. “To see if it was possible to determine whether the same knife was used in any of the deaths.”

  “Good luck. I chatted with Micelli last night. They’ve already turned Roberto’s body over to the family.”

  “They don’t waste time.”

  “It was ruled an anonymous mugging. No one thinks it will be solved.”

  “Of course none of the murders will be solved if they keep burying the evidence with the bodies,” I said. More than a little sarcastically, I’ll admit. “It’s great Nico got us a look at a lot of the official info. And don’t forget you work with us now. If you try to turn him in, I’ll call you a liar.”

  “Down, Mama Bear.” Jack laughed. “I am dazzled and amazed daily over what can be retrieved through unorthodox channels. As long as everyone’s ethics are in the right place, I have no qualms about forgetting where I got necessary intel.”

  “Of course, that’s if you were MI-6,” I said, since he still hadn’t admitted anything.

  He cocked an eyebrow and gave me his damned cheeky grin. “Right. If I was.”

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and stomped a little as I walked away. “Would it really kill you to admit anything?”

  “It might.” A couple of his long strides and he caught up to me. He said, “You realize, however, you wouldn’t be so bloody interested in who I am if you weren’t…interested.”

  “What?” I stopped short, turning to stare at his grinning face. “I’m not interested, Mr. Conceited. I’m curious.”

  His gaze locked on mine. “You’re interested.”

  Suddenly, I was feeling warm. “I think we’ve talked about this long enough.”

  “I don’t think we’ve even begun.”

  Calm, Beacham, keep calm.

  “Look,” I said. “You work with my team. I’m responsible for them. I need to know things—”

  “It isn’t anything more?”

  I caught my lower lip with my teeth. He grinned at my “worry tell,” and my tongue took over with brutal honesty. “Even if it was anything more. It will never be anything more until I learn the rest of your history—preferably from you, rather than your damned dossier. You know all twenty-eight years of my life, but you left out the last decade in yours. Those last ten years’ experience is pretty much what I have to work with every day. If you were MI-6, of course.”

  For several beats, his face stayed a rock and his gaze remained steady. Neither of us blinked.

  “When we return to London, I’ll see what I can do to satisfy your curiosity,” he said finally, putting additional emphasis on the last word. “If we make it out of this alive.”

  “Always the optimist, Hawkes.”

  “Absolutely.”

  A steady wind wound down the Schildergasse. My lovely red wool coat and black gloves were adequate for running from door to cab or Tube, but I was getting downright frozen after my emotional heatwave passed. “Why don’t we head back to the city center? See if we can find someplace around the plaza to get out of the cold.”

  “I didn’t know you were a wimp.”

  “From a long line of wimps, thank you very much.”

  With the moment passed, we grinned at one another and changed direction. I looked at my watch and saw it was opening time for the Museum Ludwig. I’m not a huge fan of expressionist sculpture and pop art, but this museum was a favorite of mine anyway. Plus, if I needed to talk to Ralf about his cousin’s work in forging abstract art, I probably needed to get my mind into twentieth-century works.

  As we neared the building, I said, “How about if we duck into the museum? We should be able to talk quietly in there, and I could use a refresher on contemporary art.”

  “Fine,” he replied. “This is the collection the husband and wife gave to the city, right?”

  “Exactly.” Irene and Peter Ludwig lived a modest lifes
tyle, but chose brilliantly when they purchased modern art. By the time of their deaths, they had amassed a treasure trove of art spanning the last century and all contemporary mediums. The museum had always felt like “fun art” to me, with the largest collection of pop art outside of the U.S. The 1960s may have been the heyday of the movement, but all the icons were represented in the Museum Ludwig.

  We entered through the glass doors. The white walls would have appeared sterile if not for the bright hanging pieces and bohemian sculptures scattered around the rooms. An artist I remembered from The Browning event in October had a monotype exhibit up, and a crew was straightening the chrome frames displaying his provocative work. A photographer shot pictures of the pieces and directed a young man, presumably the artist, to stand in various locations and poses.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I motioned to Jack I was moving into a corner to talk.

  “Superintendent, hello,” I said quietly, after reading Whatley’s name on Caller ID. “What kind of news do you have for us?”

  “I’m afraid your restorer didn’t make it,” he replied. “She never regained consciousness and passed away early this morning. She simply lost too much blood at the time to recover.”

  “Her information died with her,” I said. This was awful. My mind couldn’t reconcile the Nelly I knew with the extra passports and her agitated state the last time I spoke to her. What could have made her get involved in something like this? Was she working with Simon, or did he send his man to kill me and she got him first?

  “Yes, well, we’ll continue pursuing leads,” Whatley said. “If you have any ideas, or get any new information—”

  “We will definitely let you know,” I said.

  “Delivered your assistant safely to Heathrow,” he continued. “Her traveling partner was waiting for her at the departure area.”