The Lost Art: A Romantic Comedy

by Jennifer Griffith

  “You know him personally?” Ava wanted to know everything Ford knew personally, so she couldn’t resist asking.

  “We, uh, have a bit of history.”

  Oh, dear. Kellen had a history with the FBI. Her stomach lurched. She’d kissed him, and he had a history with the FBI. Well, never again.

  Wait, she herself apparently had a history with the FBI, one where they kept a file of unattractive photos of her and monitored her web searches and thought she was planning to steal major works of art. Not awesome. She’d really rather have a future with the FBI. Ava watched Agent Ford as he scrawled notes on a legal pad.

  “Well, that should complete the interview.” He shut her file and stuffed it back in his briefcase, snapping its latches shut.

  Ava deflated. “Well, if there’s any way I can assist in your work, you be sure to let me know, Agent Ford. You’ll call, won’t you?” She knew it was shameless flirtation—she’d seen other women do it time after time before, but Ava had never once tried it herself. It made her feel powerful, and in a burst of rogue confidence, she did something she’d seen once in a movie but would never have done in her “real” life—she reached for his hand and opened his palm flat. From his breast pocket she slid that pen he liked so much and clicked it. “Here’s the number where I can be reached, anytime, day or night, Agent Ford. Do call, won’t you?” She lifted her eyes and looked up into his, the deep brown eyes behind those magnificent lashes. “I’ll be waiting.”

  And then she sashayed out of the room.

  In the hall, it hit her—the painting was gone. This was no time to be a pinheaded flirt. Much larger things were at stake than whether she got a date with a dreamy federal cop, larger even than whether she became Mrs. Agent Ford. Her job was on the line. And a priceless masterpiece was gone. Gone.

  She could dig up her own avenues of investigation, and she’d better get cracking on them. Now.

  Chapter 7

  A blister from the stupid pumps was forming on her right pinky toe, so Ava walked back down the hallway to her cubicle holding one shoe in hand. It made for a strange up-down, up-down in her gait, but she couldn’t help it. Not all of Zoe’s purchases fit perfectly. And pain was where she drew the line.

  “Oh, excuse me.” Nigel nearly ran into Ava while she tried to reapply the shoe before walking into the work area. “Pardon.” His British accent had a bit of a sneer to it, as usual, at least lately. He didn’t used to be so surly.

  “Nigel. I wanted to speak with you.”

  He didn’t slow down, and Ava had to up-down chase after him, feeling ridiculous.

  When she got closer, she saw Nigel’s face dripped with sweat.

  “Oh, dear. Have you been outside? You’ve still got your core thermostat acclimated to British temperatures instead of hot desert, haven’t you, even after all these years.” She pulled a cloth handkerchief from her purse and handed it to him with a gentle smile. It was the best acting she could do—on Nigel’s behalf. And it went a bit against the grain, but less today than it would have a while back. Niceness. Not always easy.

  Nigel snatched it out of her hand and daubed his brow and neck. “You’re too kind.” His mouth said the words, but his visage didn’t. He hurried even faster, and Ava couldn’t keep up as he sped toward the staircase, what with her shoe problem and all. She and Nigel had never been buddy-buddy before. Well, Ava had never been buddy-buddy with anyone at work. But she’d found in the past few days most of her coworkers had warmed up to her the minute she showed any warmth to them. Maybe everyone craved warmth.

  Except Nigel. He was already literally too warm and didn’t need any from her. Clearly. She peered over the edge of the balcony down into the lobby and saw Nigel heading out the door. So he hadn’t just come from the searing heat of the outside when she saw him all molten. Where had he been instead?

  Her watch told her there still remained an hour until doors of the exhibit opened to the public. She made a breeze through the office with a casual gait (her shoe back on again) but a keen eye. What Ava wanted to see, more than who was around, was who wasn’t. Most everyone sat in their normal desks, or talked to cubicle neighbors. She caught snippets of worried conversations about the missing painting.

  “I wasn’t kidding about Riccardo,” Harmony hissed as Ava passed her desk on her way to the Finance Department. “He’s not available.”

  Riccardo? She must mean Agent Ford. Mmm. Riccardo. So Latin and fine.

  “What, is he married?”

  “Just—” An unspoken I hate you hung in the air. Ava let it pop like a soap bubble and dissolve as she continued on her way.

  Down at Finance, she ran into Enzio’s Jerk Friend again.

  “Well, you just couldn’t stay away from me, could you?” He stood up to hedge her path. “Even in the midst of turmoil, you had to get your eyeful of all this.” He backed her into an empty cubicle and spoke lower. “Or is it that my manliness makes you feel safe when danger occurs?” He ran a hand over her shoulder, and Ava wished she’d brought her mace. “Listen, Ava Young. I don’t care about your past. You shouldn’t care about mine. I said things in haste. Let’s just forget all that, and go forward together.”

  Ava had had enough. “Where’s Enzio Valente?” she asked with a dispassionate smile.

  Jerk Friend dropped his hand and took an angry step backward. “That Italian fraud? Do you know his accounting degree isn’t even from an accredited university? Mine’s from Carnegie Mellon, and I’m taking the CPA exam next month. He might have a tan, but I’m the total package.”

  “I’m not interested in your package.” Ava ducked under his arm and marched away, ignoring the pain in her pinky toe, but seething over the annoyance. Did beautiful women have to put up with this all the time? Was it better to get sexually harassed or to be called a robot with breasts? Moments like this made her doubt her choice. It had all looked so rosy from the other side of the fence, the getting attention, the dates and the closer ties to people around her. But after a display like that, she missed the anonymity and the safety of being a total frump.

  Back at her desk, Ava replied to emails from minor sponsors of the exhibit, putting their fears to rest about the remaining parts of the collection. Apparently reports of the missing painting had already hit the local news. While major aspects of the theft made her sick to her stomach, a silver lining gleamed blindingly bright at her—it would add intrigue and interest among the public, who would show up in droves now to see the empty space on the wall where Niagara should hang. They couldn’t pay for publicity like that. A short walk to the window overlooking the plaza confirmed her guess. At least a thousand people lined up in the maze of velvet rope to enter as soon as doors opened in a few minutes.

  She scanned the crowd below for suspicious patrons. If it were true that the crook always returned to the scene of the crime, chances were he lingered in that crowd to see evidence of his overnight handiwork.

  But the crowd consisted largely of school children and teachers, plus a smattering of elderly people who didn’t have enough money to go as snowbirds to Montana during the summer but did have enough to be season passholders at the museum. She knew a lot of their faces by heart.

  Besides, it would be lame of the crook to show up immediately. He’d wait, and when he came he’d be a nervous wreck. She’d be able to see it in his trembling hand and his darting eyes and his sweating brow.

  Ava stopped, and she dropped her pen which she’d been involuntarily tapping against her palm. She whipped out her phone.

  “Agent Ford?” she said after her fingers flew over the numbers to dial him. “I know it’s soon, but I might have an idea on a lead in the theft.” Her words tumbled breathlessly.

  “Ah, yes ma’am? Er, miss?” Agent Ford cleared his throat, like he wanted to avoid saying her name aloud. It was probably FBI protocol. “I’m in an interview now with staff and have several urgent testimonies lined up thereafter. Is it something you can say over the phone?”

&nbs
p; Ava lowered her voice. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Meet me at noon then at this address.” He gave an address. Back at her desk she Googled it and found it was for a restaurant nearby. He was taking her to lunch!

  * * *

  Ava entered the restaurant at noon sharp and spotted Agent Ford already at a booth in a corner. The place smelled like a deep fryer, and Ava inhaled the comfort food scent. It’d been weeks since she’d eaten anything fried. A glance down at her mint green knit dress made her hesitate, though. The eighteen pounds hadn’t been fun to lose.

  “Miss Young.”

  “Call me Ava, would you? It’s so much warmer.” Ava pressed her hand over his where he rested it on the table with that pen. He glanced up and looked into her eye with a slight spark but double-blinked himself back into professional mode before saying anything. Instead he pressed a glass of orange juice toward her.

  “I ordered you something to drink.”

  “Ooh. Delicious.” She took the drink and sipped it while looking over the rim at his face. His features were balanced, dark, and strong. The dark eyebrows made his face brooding and intelligent. And the haircut made her swoon. When all this stolen Niagara nonsense was over, she needed to remember to send Dwight Huggins at the Glastonbury a muffin basket of thanks for requesting Agent Ford for this case. “Delicious. I love that we have fresh oranges in Arizona, don’t you?”

  All this frivolous chit-chat, she hoped, masked the nerves she felt. She’d never given the FBI a tip before, and turning in one of her own long-time coworkers felt both disloyal and dangerous. But with the painting gone missing, no lead was too small to chase.

  “About why you called, Miss Young.”

  “Ava.” She knew she was pressing her luck here, and she decided to dial down all flirtation now. It had crossed the line into the ridiculous earlier. She had a job to do, and the painting was still missing. “Oh, listen. Thank you for meeting with me.” She got serious. “First, can I ask whether you met with one of my colleagues this morning, Nigel?”

  “The Brit?”

  “Yes. That’s the one. Did you have a chance to interview him first thing?”

  “I didn’t, but a member of my team did.”

  “Did anything unusual turn up? Because when I saw him, he was a mess.” Ava went on to describe the encounter. “Now, Nigel and I weren’t ever close, but he’s been very strange all month.”

  Agent Ford nodded, thinking, as Ava could see by the way his eyebrows dipped slightly in the middle. “Go on.”

  “I brought in cinnamon rolls a while ago and he wouldn’t take one.”

  “That is strange.”

  “No, honestly, it is. No one says no to my mom’s recipe for cinnamon rolls. Even when they’re on a Paleo diet. They call it their cheat day. Believe me, I’ve seen this time and again.”

  More nodding from Ford, er, Riccardo, as Harmony Billows had called him. Did he look like a Riccardo? Totally. She almost wished she didn’t know his first name because it might slip out accidentally. Even if he didn’t believe her about her cinnamon rolls. That was a tiny demerit in his column.

  “And this has to do with the theft because…?”

  “Because it’s suspicious behavior. Period.” Now that she was saying it aloud, it didn’t have the gravity it had had in her mind. Maybe her blonde side was gaining dominance. Geez. Nigel had definitely been acting very strange today, nervous, disconnected. But there wasn’t anything as concrete in today’s behavior she could point to as the cinnamon roll refusal. She smiled in an attempt to cover her stupidity.

  “Tell me something, Miss Young.”

  “Ava.”

  “When did you bring the cinnamon rolls? Was it close to the time you decided to shed your WitSec guise?” He reached over and took her empty juice glass.

  Very funny. She frowned. “It’s not nice of you to say that. I do not look that different. What are you doing?”

  He had pulled a piece of clear tape from his briefcase and was pressing it across the side of the glass where Ava had held it.

  “You’re taking my fingerprints?” Ava’s jaw dropped. “I’d have just given them to you if you’d asked. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Or do you? I think you might.”

  “Please!” Ava huffed in exasperation. “I am telling you, the former me is the same as the current me, but I’d just decided to step up my appearance. And maybe some of my personality—warm it up, I mean. As an experiment. I’m a bit of a librarian and a psychology nut. It’s a way to study how different people react to a woman in different packaging. Nothing more. And I don’t appreciate your prying this out of me so unkindly. What do you have to gain from this, self-satisfaction?”

  “Let’s just say I’m doing it for a friend.”

  “Harmony Billows.” Ava raised an eyebrow.

  “How did you know?” Now it was Agent Ford’s turn to turn a suspicious eye.

  “Let’s just say she refers to you as Riccardo when you’re not listening.” Ava crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her toe. “What is between you and Ms. Billows, anyway?”

  Riccardo frowned. “She’s been unconvinced you are who you say you are. I’m doing her a favor by confirming your identity. She gave me dates marking your ‘transformation.’ I started asking you about this to see whether they lined up with Nigel’s sudden change of demeanor toward you.”

  Ava thought back. Nigel had been pretty neutral toward her prior to her transformation. In fact, he’d barely spoken to her. When she dolled up, he’d positively avoided her. But she didn’t like to think it had anything to do with her, but rather with guilt he felt at hiding some kind of dishonesty or subversive behavior.

  “What could a bottle of hydrogen peroxide have to do with Nigel getting a personality transplant?” Not that it had been that dramatic. He was always holier than the rest of them. “And you didn’t answer me about Harmony Billows.”

  “Clearly you have little or no understanding of men. Or their physiognomy.” When she stared at him nonplussed, he explained further. “He’s a scholar. Your attractiveness made him nervous.”

  Ava rolled her eyes. “It’s much more likely that there was some jealousy involved. I do happen to be his inferior coworker, and about that same time Mr. Phelps assigned me to head up the exhibit.” Wait. Riccardo called her attractive?

  “Fine. Maybe there was some of that.” Ford scrawled something on his legal pad and inserted her fingerprint sample in a small white envelope, which he labeled. “Look, I appreciate your help. You definitely have a vested interest in finding the thief. If anything else comes up, you’ll call me, right?” He stood to go.

  Ava nodded, and to her great surprise, Ford snatched up her hand, opened her palm flat, and wrote a few hen scratches right in the center. Then he closed her hand into a fist as she looked up at him and gulped.

  Agent Ford dropped a few dollars on the table and left her sitting in the booth, tingling.

  When she heard the door jingle shut, she opened her hand to read his number. But it wasn’t his number.

  Be very careful, Ava. And he signed it with an X.

  Chapter 8

  Ava kept glancing at her palm all afternoon despite the five hundred detail-oriented tasks she plowed through. That X. It discombobulated her. Did X mean what it meant in a series of XOXOX? Like, as in kiss?

  She didn’t care that she should focus more on the warning. The kiss intrigued her ever so much more. Her mind toyed with the idea of how it would feel to have that five o’clock shadow graze up against her cheek, on whether it would give her upper lip a kind of carpet burn if it spent too much time in close contact.

  No. He wasn’t for her. He didn’t believe her about the cinnamon rolls. Of course, he hadn’t eaten them. She’d have to remedy that someday. But he also referred to Harmony Billows as his friend. Another reason to try to scale back her crush. Oh, but that hair, that skin, those dark brooding eyes.

  It was hard to concentrate on the vi
tally important tasks at hand when she let herself get so distracted. She’d kissed Kellen McMullen, and it had been sheer electricity jolting through her. But she could imagine that a good long session with Riccardo would be more like pure intelligence pouring into her soul.

  Mmm.

  Her phone rang. She answered without looking.

  “Ava, honey.” Kellen’s drawl washed over her, and she couldn’t help pulling a little smile. He did possess a sort of boyish charm. “I’m kersplatted by all this.”

  “You’ve heard, then.” She really should have called him herself, as soon as she learned of the theft. After all, the whole thing was “Brought to You by Kellen McMullen.” He did deserve to know. “We’re all kersplatted, Kellen.”

  “And you used to call me Kell. I liked that. So what are we going to do?”

  “The FBI is on the case. They’re interviewing the staff today, and they’ll go through the list of VIPs who attended last night. Surely they will turn up some kind of lead.” Ava had given them Nigel’s name, whether they took it seriously or not. Leads they would have, lots of them.

  “Naw, not about that. I mean us. What are we going to do?”

  “What do you mean? I thought you’d be devastated by the loss of the Niagara painting. It was your favorite, after all.”

  “Absolutely. I’m broken in a kabillion pieces over it. For sure.” He didn’t sound broken in a kabillion pieces. “I was going to throw together a picnic and sit in front of it after hours with you, pretending we were really at the falls. I planned to rig up a misting system so we could sit in the fake spray of the water and just admire and bask. You like grapes, right? I was going to feed you grapes on the picnic blanket.”

  Ava closed her eyes and shook her head with a smile. He was not to be deterred, was he? “But what about goldfish crackers, Kell. We’d be admiring water. Don’t you think goldfish crackers would be appropriate?”

  “You’re just a doll, you know that?” The timbre of his voice changed, and she was hearing it in stereo all of a sudden. And when she looked up from her cubicle, Kellen McMullen loomed over her. He was so tall. And how had she never really noticed how broad his shoulders were before now? He wore a dress shirt and skinny tie, and his hair was slicked back, like he belonged on Madison Avenue in the 1950s.