Fatal Forgeries

by Ritter Ames

  We had a nice little crowd hemming us into a tight circle, which had been my plan. Nothing like unwanted publicity to make the officer consider whether he wanted to tick off supposed tourists like Jack and me and everyone else. Granted, I wasn’t sure Miguel would be happy with me by the end, since he was gaining far more attention than thieves preferred. When several in the crowd shouted out something I took to mean “search him,” it seemed our luck had shifted for the better.

  Minutes later, Miguel had turned out all his pockets and cuffs. Nothing was found. As the crowd took in the activity, they chanted something Jack whispered meant for Miguel to be released. I smiled. The policeman knew when he was beaten and gave Miguel a shove, pointing and shouting toward the street. We didn’t stop walking until we were down the avenue and well away from the police officer’s vision.

  “Thank you, thank you.” Miguel took my face in his hands and kissed both cheeks. “I had a long night ahead of me if you hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, Laurel. I had no idea you were coming to Barcelona when we last talked.”

  “Neither did I. We actually came here tonight looking for you,” I said, leaning against the light pole. “Do you need to be somewhere, or is there a place nearby where we can talk?”

  Miguel chuckled. “Oh, I am finished for the night. Probably for a week or two.”

  I didn’t know whether to apologize or tell him to get a real job and stop stealing from tourists. Since I needed to stay on his good side I tried a different approach. “I’d be happy to pay you for your time. We came to see if you could tell us anything else about the plans for the auction.”

  Surprise flashed across his face. “The auction?” Jack pulled out his wallet, but Miguel waved a hand. “No, no. If I know anything to help the information is no charge. You saved me tonight.” From looking at the bruising around his chin and forehead, I didn’t doubt we might have saved him a lot of additional injury.

  “Let’s go get a beer,” Jack said. “Get off the street.”

  Miguel knew a place nearby, and in about fifteen minutes we were comfortably seated around a table in a noisy tapas bar that offered the best kind of privacy because we had to lean close to hear each other speak. After an annoyingly short time of repeating myself to each of them whenever I asked about anything, I yelled in Jack’s ear, “I’m going to the ladies’ and see if I can call or text Cassie for an update. You go ahead and ask Miguel anything we need to know. I think he has my number.” I looked toward Miguel and shouted, “Do you have my cell number?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, good.” I stood up and waved a hand between them, bending over the table to add, “You guys talk. I’ll be back.”

  I grabbed my purse and roses, then I headed for the ladies’ room.

  The cacophony followed me down the back hallway, but when I pushed through the heavy door and it thunked closed behind me, the sound lessened a tad. I went ahead and entered one of the stalls first. With the series of wrong turns this night had taken, there was no telling when I’d be around a bathroom again. Two women were at the sink, and I heard the door open twice while I was sequestered in the stall. When I stepped out minutes later, I was alone. Perfect.

  I washed my hands and pulled the roses from where I’d stuck them in my purse, intending to dampen their cloth again. One particular blossom wasn’t faring well under all the excitement of the evening. I was half tempted to toss them in the trash, but we were too early in whatever kind of relationship Jack and I were nurturing to know how he might react if I didn’t return with his romantic gesture.

  I unwrapped the stems and set them along the edge of the sink, planning to wet a couple of paper towels and rewrap them right before I left. I moved next to the window to gain better phone reception. Cassie answered on the first ring.

  “Max just left with the painting,” she said.

  I could hear the glee in her voice. “So you’re off the hook for the rest of the weekend?” I frowned at myself in the mirror. My hair needed work. One blonde curl kept flipping into my eyes.

  “Yes, thank heavens. I’m going to relax and read tonight, then head into the office tomorrow and pick up where I left off.”

  “Do me a favor and stay in your flat this weekend. Find a new corner to rework like it’s the nineteenth century again,” I said. “Until Jack and I get back, I’d prefer you hide out while you’re in London alone.”

  “Max is—”

  “No help at all.” I held the cell to my ear with my shoulder and rummaged through the Prada as I spoke. “If he wants you to come in to play second chair while he schmoozes the legal eagles, tell him he has to send a car service for you. I said so.”

  She sighed. “Actually, hunkering in for the weekend is starting to sound pretty great.”

  “Okay then. Do that. Order food and have it delivered. Play princess of the palace with sandpaper and shellac.”

  “That’s not quite the combo I use, but okay, I get what you’re saying.”

  I ran my wide-tooth comb through my curls. “And keep an eye on the bulletin boards, okay? There hasn’t been anything since this morning—though it seems like days instead of hours.”

  “That’s because you’ve been busy. If you’d had the day I’ve had you’d already have checked the boards countless time. Not that it made any difference, but I can truthfully say Nico hasn’t added any new information.”

  “I hate when things are quiet,” I said, pulling out my travel-size hairspray.

  “At least there’s no distress signal.”

  “Too true. Jack said something similar.”

  “Did you get things straightened out with the bank?” she asked.

  The bank. I sighed and shoved the comb back into my purse. “It seems the money was withdrawn with Max’s PIN code.”

  “That’s impossible—Oh, god, no…”

  “Yeah, I think Nico took it.”

  “So he…”

  “I don’t know yet.” Okay, yes, I probably did. But Cassie needed to digest this information the same way I had and come to her own conclusions. “I told the bank to put a hold on the account until I got back to them. I want to see if something changes later before I raise any alarms.”

  “Shouldn’t we mention it to Max?” she asked.

  No. Yes. Probably. “For the moment, I want to make sure he didn’t borrow it as a means of having money for an escape.”

  “That’s a pretty hefty escape, Laurel.”

  “This is Nico, Cassie.”

  She blew out a long breath. “Yes, and he’s just as capable of draining the main foundation account too.”

  “He could do that anyway. Could have always done it.” I let the conversation hang.

  “Okay, yeah,” she said finally. “I won’t mention anything to Max. You’re right. He could have done this at any time. We can give him a weekend, I guess. But what about the builder invoices?”

  “I texted them already and said we were both traveling today and would process the invoices when we returned,” I said.

  “Got it. That’s a viable excuse,” she said.

  I needed to finish up and get back before Jack decided I needed rescuing. “Look, Cassie, we’ve found Miguel and we’re trying to get information from him. I’ll call you if anything new comes to light.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll do the same. Take care.”

  “You too. Talk to you soon,” I said, then hung up, tossed the phone into the purse, and spritzed my hair with spray.

  The door clunked as someone started to open it, and I stood face to face with the Amazon. I wasn’t sure which of us was the most surprised.

  But I was the one who moved faster.

  I shot her full in the face with hairspray, then scooped up my Prada and grabbed the roses by their blossoms. She moved semi-blindly to grab me. I raked the sharp rose thorns across the top of he
r hand and up her arm. Blood instantly hit the surface of her skin. She yelped and I circled her to reach the exit. She came at me again. I emptied the spray in her face this time. I flicked the stems like two short whips and slashed at her cheeks. She backed off. I opened the door. But as I ran away, she grabbed my hair. My head jerked back. Now I was getting totally pissed off.

  I sawed at her neck with the stems. She let go of my hair, and snatched the stems away from me, stabbing her own palm. She shrieked. I tried to punch her in the neck, but she moved and I grazed her ear instead. When she grabbed the strap of my Prada, I used her move to create a higher base for my body and jumped to kick her in the stomach. She slammed against the wall and let go of my purse strap.

  I ran for the front. Jack and Miguel stood by the table, and I screamed at them to come and help me. Several strangers looked our way, but I raised a hand, palm up, signaling everyone else to not move. We raced back to the hallway, Jack pushing ahead when I said it was the Amazon.

  “Where is she?” He stood in the middle of the empty hall.

  I pointed to a nearby door to the kitchen. “My guess is she went out the back. She went down hard, but it didn’t take her out.”

  Jack pushed the door as if to go after her, but I stopped him.

  “We don’t have a weapon. We have no idea which direction she may have gone either. She could hide and hit us with a rock and leave us for dead, or shoot us if she has a gun,” I said. “We need to wait until we’re on familiar ground before trying to run after her.”

  “Yeah.” He leaned against the wall.

  Miguel took the opportunity to hand me a card. Everything around us was still loud, so he spoke in my ear. “That is my address. I live in the Barri Gòtic. I will find out all I can and call you tonight or early in the morning, but this is my address if you need to find me.” He pointed to the card.

  “Thank you,” I said, figuring he read my lips more than heard me. He nodded and waved, then left back through the public area.

  I turned to Jack. “I think we’ve worn out our welcome here.”

  “Yeah.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “I can’t take you anywhere without you creating a scene.”

  “At least the flower stand lady was right,” I said. “Rose thorns are good luck.”

  SIXTEEN

  A taxi ride and a recommendation from the driver got us to a restaurant right on the water, with a view of the amazing yachts. I stood on the deck while Jack secured us a table. Looking out at the Mediterranean, I could see larger vessels anchored far out and off the coast, away from the noise and ready convenience, yet with civilization and the harbor a few minutes away. A full moon in the dark sky not only lit up the heavens, but bathed the sea in light as well, the rippling waves appearing to bring the luminescence to shore. Jack joined me a few minutes later and pulled me close. I think I could have stayed there forever, in the quiet moment of not feeling danger for the first time in days.

  The hostess called and we were led to a table by the wall of glass. The dark water, the sparkling lights, and the stellar marine scene all framed in the window brought me back around to asking exactly what we were trying to do as just a two-person team. We hadn’t worked this shorthanded before, and it wasn’t something I ever wanted to do again. But as I opened my mouth to voice concerns, our waitress arrived and the moment was gone.

  “The sea bass?” Jack asked and I nodded. He ordered in Catalan. The waitress smiled and left. He’d ordered a bottle of cava too, and she hurried back a few minutes later with the lovely sparkling wine. The champagne of Spain.

  “Are we celebrating?” I asked. “Or just buoying our spirits with the bubbles in the wine?”

  “Well, we did find Miguel. That’s a success. And you escaped the Amazon without any help. That’s toastworthy.”

  “I wouldn’t have managed without my hairspray and your roses. May not have been a lethal combination, but eye-burning chemicals and blood-letting thorns succeeded in throwing her off her game. Anything I contributed has to be credited to Leif’s training.”

  “So no arguments in keeping it up?”

  “What? Until this week I’ve made my daily appointments.” I leaned closer. “Want to test me?”

  “I just want you safe.”

  I sat back and crossed my arms. “You want me wrapped in cotton wool.”

  He shook his head wearily. “Don’t get defensive.”

  “Then don’t say something that gets me started.”

  I played with the candle in the middle of the table, running my fingers back and forth across the flame. “So who was she following? Or why was she in Barcelona?”

  “My guess is she has our credit cards flagged,” he said. “We may have to start working strictly in cash.”

  “No.” I pulled back my hands. “She was surprised to see me in the ladies’ room. When she opened the door, she didn’t expect to see me any more than I expected to see her. I saw it in the expression on her face. In fact, that’s truly what helped me get away, because I recovered from the shock faster than she did. She’s here for something or someone else.”

  Jack rubbed his chin. “I didn’t see anyone else in the bar I recognized. I just assumed…”

  “Yeah, so what else can we assume?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I held up a hand. “Stay with me for a minute.” Ricocheting threads spiraled in my head. “That bar was probably the closest one to the fountain.”

  “Okay.”

  “When we spotted her in Rome, it was at night and at the Trevi Fountain. Who’s to say she wasn’t part of the crowd at the Font Magica?”

  “You think she saw us there and followed us to the bar?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe. No. I don’t know. If that is true, then she’d know I was in the bar, so it wouldn’t have surprised her to run into me.” I caught up a wayward curl and poked it behind my ear, irritated to be bothered by it as I tried to think out loud. “If she didn’t know I was there, she wasn’t following us. If she wasn’t following us, why was she there? Does she have a fountain fetish of some kind? Or are water features her go-to when she stakes out major cities?”

  “Or she was there to meet someone.”

  “Someone who was in the main room with you and Miguel, and who heard me scream for the two of you when I needed help? Or someone who hadn’t arrived yet and heard about the scene later?” I picked up my glass and took a long sip. “So much for us staying under the radar. Now the Amazon and whomever she was with knows we’re in town.”

  “Since she got away,” Jack said. “She would have told her accomplice anyway. Though, you’re right. Even not pre-booking the flight didn’t help.”

  “It may have bought us some time,” I said. “Doing anything differently could have been catastrophic. We barely kept Miguel out of jail as it was. If we’d missed him at the fountain tonight, we’d have missed our chance entirely.”

  “Yeah, small favors.”

  “Did he say anything important while I was in the restroom, before the Amazon showed up?”

  Jack shook his head. “We kept the conversation down to what information you and I needed from him. He’ll get in touch with us when he knows any new details.”

  We had our phones on the table, and mine started vibrating then. I recognized the number as the one Miguel had given me earlier. Jack held out his hand. “Let me have it and I’ll go outside. Less chance of being overheard than in here.”

  “Tell him to be careful, too. Maybe sleep someplace else tonight. We don’t know that the Amazon won’t decide to tag him.”

  “I will.”

  He answered the call, walking toward the door. Our sea bass came soon after, along with a basket of bread. I used my fork to brush some of the roasted garlic cloves off the top of the fish. I loved garlic, but it was too late in the evening for
me to even contemplate so much with my dinner. Not to mention I’d be diving for breath mints for dessert.

  The bass smelled heavenly. I hoped the guys’ conversation ended soon, or I was going to do the unmannerly thing and start on my dinner without waiting for Jack. I buttered a warm slice of bread and stared out at the water while I munched. A waiter came up soundlessly beside me and refilled my wineglass with cava. “Thank you,” I said. He smiled and walked away with the bottle.

  Jack arrived back as I was finishing my bread.

  “The auction is on a yacht out there.” He spoke softly and nodded toward the dark water. “Starting at two in the afternoon tomorrow. He apparently knew that much information before, but said he’s been working since we left to get options for joining the festivities.” He placed his napkin in his lap, then looked at me and realized I hadn’t tasted my food yet. “You didn’t have to wait on me. Go ahead and eat.”

  “I munched, I’m fine.” I picked up my fork and flaked off a good-sized piece of the fish. Jack did the same. “Tomorrow doesn’t give us much time. Did he know the name of the yacht?”

  “Yes, it’s the Faux Foe. Had a devil of a time trying to figure out what he was saying. He finally spelled it out.”

  “What could that even mean?”

  “I long ago gave up the challenge of figuring out why people name their boats the way they do. Especially rich people and yachts.”

  We each reached for our glasses, but while mine was full, Jack’s was still nearly empty. He reached for the bottle in the standing holder beside him. I gasped.

  “What’s wrong? Are you choking?” He started to get up, but I waved him back to his seat.

  Staying calm was difficult when I wanted to whip my head around to see the entire dining room at once. Jack was curious but kept quiet once I raised a finger to signal I needed a minute. I didn’t see the helpful waiter anywhere.

  “A waiter came by and refilled my glass with cava. I didn’t think about it when it happened, but my brain recognized he walked away with the bottle. Except it wasn’t our bottle. You have ours.” I pulled my Prada close, digging to find the small bottle of liquid Jack gave me to use to see if a drink was tainted. I found the bottle and kept my hand hidden in my lap as I painted the end of my longest nail.