by Nancy Warren
As he’d hoped, his loud pronouncement flushed Eric from a back room. “I thought that was your voice,” Alex’s former cousin-in-law said with false pleasure, putting out a hand to shake. “First time in the store?”
“Yes,” Duncan lied. It was the first time during office hours. He’d had a good snoop late one night and found nothing more interesting than a large commercial safe which contained a few hundred in cash and the smaller, expensive pieces that were displayed for sale during opening hours, such as an ancient burial mask from the Salish tribe, some sterling, and the best of the estate jewelry.
The art on the walls was decent, priced a little on the high side. He suspected that Franklin Forrest had picked up most of the works on display. He saw some of the same artists the man had displayed in his own home.
“We don’t have much to tempt an art professor,” said Eric with his glossy politician’s smile, “but I’m proud of this one. I bought it as part of an estate.”
He led Duncan to a small landscape. “What do you think?”
Duncan obligingly leaned closer and spent a minute contemplating the painting as though he’d never seen it before. If the price weren’t so inflated, and he didn’t hold an aversion to Eric, he might have been interested. “Anna Hills. Looks to be from the twenties, painted in California en plein air style. I love her work.”
The oil wasn’t large, measuring about twelve by fourteen inches, but the colors drew him, and the stylized trees against the water. “Very nice.”
“We’re open to offers,” Eric said cheerfully, sending a wink to the mousy assistant who’d followed them.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Duncan. “I love the American Impressionists, though I really prefer the Europeans. Gauguin, Monet—have any of those lying around?”
The three of them shared a polite laugh.
“My true favorite is Van Gogh.”
Was it his imagination or did Eric’s politico grin morph into a shark’s grimace? “We don’t get many of those around here.”
Duncan let a beat pass. “You never know when a buried treasure will turn up.”
There was a moment of absolute silence when he could hear the sonorous ticking of a two-century-old grandfather clock, almost feel the dust motes suspended in the suddenly thick atmosphere. Then Eric said, “Well, the Hills isn’t going anywhere. Come on back anytime.”
“I’ll do that,” said Duncan, and turning to the woman who’d first helped him, he said, “and while I’m here, I’d like to buy a small gift for a woman I’m seeing. I thought I saw a display case over there with some jewelry?”
He didn’t look at Eric, but he’d delivered his second message. In case Eric was in any doubt, he wanted it known that Duncan and Alex were more than librarian and patron.
He already knew what he wanted to buy her. He’d seen the platinum and onyx art deco earrings before. Sleek, geometric, and, like Alex, they managed to be both wild and elegant.
He followed the assistant—Sheri, according to her name tag—to a locked display case of assorted watches, jewelry, and pricey little knickknacks.
“The deco earrings,” he said, pointing.
She unlocked the case and passed them to him. He studied them in the light and nodded.
As he was paying, Eric walked behind the counter. “I’ll wrap them for you,” he said to his assistant. From her glance of surprise, this wasn’t his usual behavior.
“They’ll look beautiful on Alex,” Eric said as he wrapped the box in gold paper. “And are a better choice for her than, say, a heavy necklace.” His gaze flicked to Duncan’s.
“You wouldn’t want anything to disguise that fantastic beauty mark.” He didn’t mention the word breast in front of Sheri, but he passed his fingers over his left chest, exactly in the location of Alex’s mole.
Duncan didn’t think of himself as the jealous type. But at the words—and worse, the sly expression that accompanied them—he experienced a burning urge to knock this man’s too-white teeth down his throat.
He hung on to his composure while Eric tied gold ribbon into a bow and slipped the package into a brown paper bag with the store’s logo printed on it.
The man was scum and trying to cause trouble, Duncan told himself. But even as he sauntered out the door as though his blood weren’t pounding against his temples, he knew he’d also been sent an unwelcome message. That Eric had seen Alex’s naked breasts. There was no way that mole would be revealed by clothing, not even the skimpiest bathing suit.
At the thought of that dickhead with his hands on Alex’s naked body, Duncan wanted to go kick something. Hard.
The bell tinkled once more as he left as though laughing at him. As he strode down the sidewalk, he tried to convince himself that the Alex he knew wouldn’t sleep with her cousin’s husband, not even once they’d broken up. For all her wild clothes, and even wilder sex drive, he sensed she had a strong moral core.
Unlike Eric.
He’d probably seen pictures of the two as little girls in the bathtub together in Gill’s photo albums, that’s how he knew about the mole.
Since Duncan had dropped hints as subtle as a meteor shower, Eric was scrambling to fight back.
Well, Duncan wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of causing trouble between Alex and him. He wouldn’t say a word to her.
Since she’d let him know she’d be out tonight at a Friday night birthday dinner with some women friends, he’d agreed to meet her at her place around midnight.
He grabbed some takeout and once home, decided to use the anger burning his gut for something useful. He pulled out one of his enlarged photocopies of the black-and-white photo of the missing Van Gogh.
He tacked the blurry photocopy to the wall above the table which was his temporary desk and rapidly prepared paints, brush, and easel. He dove in with enough emotional intensity for any tortured artist.
The black-and-white photo taunted him with its lifelessness. Van Gogh would have hated the idea of his colorful paintings being reduced to shades of gray. A line from one of the anguished artist’s letters popped into Duncan’s mind. Trying to render intense color and not a gray harmony, he’d written to his brother Theo.
Ironically, all that remained of Olive Trees and Farmhouse was this gray corpse of a photograph. But Duncan imagined those flowers there would be yellow, the bright, pitiless yellow the painter loved so much. And the tree in the foreground a sun-scorched, muted sage.
Duncan would never be an artist—he’d accepted that. He had technical proficiency but no elusive spark of genius, but he could draw and he’d learned a great deal about art by mimicking the best. At first his dad had held out hope he’d become a forger, but he’d let the family down again, using his talent only to help him recreate the colors of stolen pictures.
This painting had been done in the late summer of 1889 in the south of France. The light would be heavy and golden.
While he worked, he hoped his subconscious mind would also get to work. It wasn’t simply a search anymore. Since Plotnik had been left in the library like a sordid bookmark, it seemed the search for the Van Gogh was also a race. Accepting the unspoken challenge only sharpened his competitive drive.
He was interrupted once, by the phone. He grabbed his cell quickly but saw it wasn’t Alex’s number. A local one, though. “Forbes,” he said.
“It’s Tom Perkins.”
“Sergeant.”
“It’s Tom when I’m not on duty. Listen, tomorrow’s forecast is for dry weather and sunny skies. What say we climb?”
Even as he agreed he didn’t think for one second that Sergeant Tom wasn’t on duty.
He painted until almost eleven, then cleaned up and took a shower.
It was time to check in with one of his unwilling partners in this mission. He picked up the phone, calculated time differences. Friday night in Swiftcurrent, Oregon was Saturday morning in London. He placed a call to a London suburb crawling with row houses, factories, and Uncle Simon.
“Simon?” He said loud and cheerfully when an old man’s grumpy voice answered. “It’s Duncan Forbes.”
“What in bloody hell time do you call this then?” the crotchety voice complained.
He grinned, pleased with his timing. Early enough to wake the old buzzard and before he got going on the booze or out bookmaking for the horse races. “Sorry, I must have miscalculated. How are you?”
“My back’s bent like a bleedin’ corkscrew, I’ve got bunions, and my head aches. What do you want?”
Simon and Duncan’s dad had been business associates for years. Neither had yet recovered from the fact that Duncan had gone straight. To add insult to injury, he’d developed a fascination for art and antiques at his father’s knee, and now spent his life getting back the very treasures that men like his dad and Simon stole.
But, somehow, they’d developed a grudging respect for each other. Duncan would no more turn his father and uncle or their friends over to the law than he’d saw off his own leg. But the balance to that equation was that he was given information when he asked for it. And Simon, the fence, had worldwide connections.
His daily business was carried out in a jumble stall in Petticoat Lane, where it was famously known one could lose a wallet at the beginning of the lane and buy it back at the end. Simon sold a lot of second-string antiques and collectibles to tourists. His undeclared, and far more lucrative, income came from fencing the goods that men like Duncan’s father stole. Simon was one of the best.
While he was less than thrilled when Duncan got involved in recovering recent thefts, Uncle Simon never minded getting a cut of the finder’s fee.
He was also paranoid about getting caught and imprisoned, so Duncan had learned to be circumspect in their communications. “Heard any more about our friend Vinny?” he asked his Uncle.
“No, lad, not since the last time he wrote.”
“I’m out here at the address you gave me, and some of his friends from L.A. dropped by.”
“I heard. Sorry to hear one passed on. They’re no friends of Vinny’s or yours,” Simon warned.
“Do you think Vinny’s moved? Maybe there’s a new address?”
“Dunno. That’s the last I heard of him. The old bloke had been in touch.”
“Well, the old bloke died. No one else has Vinny’s address.”
“If the fellows from Los Angeles are there, you leave it to them. They’ll find him, all right.” In other words, back off.
Duncan was frustrated, but not surprised. There were no new rumors about the Van Gogh. Nobody looking to sell, and Mendes was still on the trail.
“You’ve got my number. I’ll be here a couple of months. Call me if you hear anything.”
“You take my advice. Pack up and go on home. Or come home and visit the family. I’ve got a nice Chagall etching you might like.”
“Did it come in the front door?”
A heavy sigh. “Of course.”
“Hang on to it for me. I can’t leave yet. There’s a woman involved.”
A long suffering sigh. “Isn’t there always? You watch your back, son.”
“I will. Say hello to Dad.”
Ending the call, he grabbed the earrings he’d bought Alex and headed out. It had been sixteen hours or so since he’d last heard her crying out beneath his thrusting body. It seemed like a century.
As he’d promised, he was at her place by five to midnight. He saw her light and knew she was home. Eric’s snide insinuation wormed its way into his brain and he forced it out.
She sounded breathless when she answered the intercom.
“Hi,” he said, feeling breathless himself. “What are you wearing?”
“The dress I wore to dinner.”
“That’s a problem.” A chilly breeze brushed the back of his hair as he stood outside talking on the intercom phone.
“Why is it a problem?”
“I bought you something to wear. I guess you’ll have to get naked.”
A beat passed. He felt her excitement, imagined the expression on her face. “Take the stairs instead of the elevator. I’ll be ready when you get here.”
He took the stairs, all right, but he ran, a shade embarrassed at his eagerness. He’d had lots of sex with lots of women, but no one had ever made him so absurdly eager before.
He knocked on her door and heard the deadbolt click back and then the door opened half an inch. “Duncan?” she whispered through the opening.
“Are you naked?” he whispered back, pressing his mouth to the crack in the door.
For answer, she pulled the door the rest of the way open, hiding herself behind it.
He entered her apartment, the small package from the antique store clutched behind his back. It was dim inside, with only a small lamp from the living room lighting the place.
He eyed her naked body. “How is it that every time I see you, you’re more beautiful?” Her shoulders were so creamy, the arms so finely muscled, and her breasts would make a sculptor weep. Round and full, the tips rosy and tight, growing tighter as he stood staring at her, so her beauty mark stood out in relief, taunting him.
He transferred his gaze to the key she always wore on a chain around her neck.
When he finally tore his gaze away from her chest and let it slide down, he saw the belly he loved to stroke, the sparkle of diamond in her navel, the triangle of dark hair he loved to part to reveal her secrets, and her long, sexy legs.
“You know, your feet were the very first part of you I ever saw. You have great feet” Tonight the polish on her toes was paler, a deep pink rather than the crimson she’d worn that first day.
“You said you brought me something to wear,” she reminded him, her voice already sounding thick and smokey with anticipation.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She narrowed them first, then complied.
He stepped toward her slowly, letting his eyes drink her in as she stood there naked before him. He could see them playing this scene over and over; he’d float a silk negligee over her head, or kneel before her to slip on a silver toe ring.
When he stood before her, he said, “Are your eyes shut tight?”
“Yes.”
He ran his lips up her jaw and lifted her sleek black hair, tucking it behind her ear. Whatever earrings she’d had on earlier, she’d already taken off. He saw the tiny, dark hole in her lobe.
He ran his tongue around the shell of her ear and breathed softly onto the damp flesh. She shivered but didn’t open her eyes.
Paper rustled as he ripped open the package and drew out the earrings. He wasn’t anywhere near brave enough to poke the metal shaft into her ear, so he slipped the hook over her ear instead. She grinned when she realized what he’d done.
“Earrings? That’s what you bought me to wear?”
He balanced the the second one. “You can open your eyes now.”
She ran to the full-length mirror in her bedroom. “Oh, Duncan, they’re gorgeous.” She turned this way and that, tilting her head so they caught the light. “I love art deco.”
He nodded, pleased. “The look suits you.”
Her gray eyes glittered like the platinum. “And I had to be naked to get earrings?”
“They would have clashed with your outfit.”
“You don’t know what I was wearing.” She reached forward and with the ease of long practice, slipped the earrings into the holes in her ears.
He rested his hands on her shoulders, watching her in the mirror. “They look great, exactly like this.” Holding her gaze in the mirror, he removed his clothes and kicked them aside, then he kissed her nape and they both watched his hands cup her breasts. His fingers played with her nipples until they swelled to hard, blushing points.
All he could see was the black beauty mark.
He rubbed his finger over it. “I’m crazy about this. I bet every man who’s ever seen you naked loves it”
He kissed her neck, but his eyes stayed steady on he
r face in the mirror.
“Probably,” she said lightly, but she’d caught something in his tone, and stared back at him, puzzled.
He stroked her belly, grazed her pubis, which made her tremble, and traced back up to cup her breasts. Let it go, but Eric had planted his barb well. Softly, he said, “Did your cousin-in-law like it when he saw you naked?”
She wrenched away and turned to face him, an angry flush climbing her cheeks. “What is this about?”
Damn it all to hell. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this. But he’d started now and some demon gnawed at him. He had to know. “Your cousin’s husband and you. Did you sleep with him?”
“What do you care?” she yelled. “Our relationship is all fun and games, remember? No commitments. We enjoy each other while you’re in town and then you’re back to teaching on the other side of the country.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Go to hell. I hate jealous men. You have no right. Have I ever asked you one single thing about other women in your life?”
Anger shimmered all around her. Her eyes darted fire, the earrings glittered, her chain seemed to glow with it. The diamond in her navel winked at him like a warning beacon. She was so gorgeous he could hardly stop himself from reaching for her. And he was such a moron he couldn’t believe his own actions. But for some reason he couldn’t back off.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know about every woman I’ve ever known.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear about them, thank you very much.” She stomped, naked, to her closet, pulled out a robe, and yanked it on. “I think you’d better leave.”
He grabbed his clothes up off the floor and walked to the door.
Two sharp pains hit his naked butt.
“Ow!” He turned his head to see her earrings bounce off his flesh and hit the floor behind him.
“Take them,” she said.
If her voice hadn’t wavered, he would have kept on going, slamming the door behind him.
Instead, he turned all the way to face her, feeling like a fool with his bundle of clothes held in front his crotch.
This wasn’t like him. He never acted this way with women. He was the cool one, always free and easy. No ties, no commitments, no recriminations.
