by Kate James
“What is the—”
Whatever Mrs. Sinclair was going to ask went unsaid at the sound of the doorbell.
“Would you mind getting that for me, dear?” she asked instead.
Chelsea nodded and rose.
The shock of seeing Sam standing at Mrs. Sinclair’s door with a man and woman she’d never seen before but would’ve recognized as law enforcement from a mile away caused a hard knot to form in her stomach. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to ask.
If his furrowed brow and downturned lips were any indication, Sam was surprised to see her, too, but not in a happy way. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to have Mrs. Sinclair sign some papers. What about you?” she challenged, feeling disconcerted.
The man standing behind Sam stepped forward. “Do we have a problem?” he asked in an officious voice.
“Special Agent Ferguson, this is Chelsea Owens. Chelsea, Agent Ferguson is with the FBI. So is Special Agent Angela Wilson.”
Chelsea felt her heart thud heavily. The FBI? What were they doing here? With wide eyes, she stared at Sam and tried to ignore the agents. Resting her hand—suddenly cold and clammy—on Sam’s forearm, she asked, “Am I in trouble?”
Sam’s expression softened, and he touched her hand and squeezed it before subtly moving it off his arm. “No, Chelsea. We’re here to see Nadine Sinclair.”
“Is everything okay, Chelsea?” Mrs. Sinclair called from the living room.
Sam glanced at Ferguson.
“We’d appreciate it if you’d ask her to come to the door,” he said to Chelsea.
She looked back at Sam, trying to read anything in his eyes that might hint at what was going on.
Sam’s nod was nearly imperceptible. “Do as he asked, please,” he said quietly.
Walking back into the living room, Chelsea said to Mrs. Sinclair, “There are some people at the door to see you.”
“Who are they?” she inquired, her tone imperious. “I’m not expecting anyone.”
“I think you’d better go see for yourself,” Chelsea responded and nearly flinched at Mrs. Sinclair’s furious look. Her headache must be getting worse, Chelsea rationalized, as she guided her to the front door.
“Yes, may I help you?” Mrs. Sinclair asked, as her gaze skipped from one face to the next, resting on Sam.
Ferguson stepped forward again, introduced himself and his partner, and showed her his badge.
It wasn’t bafflement or annoyance that Chelsea read on Mrs. Sinclair’s features, but something darker. She also saw resignation.
“We have a warrant to search your home,” Ferguson continued, handing her the paper. “Detective Eldridge will stay with you while we execute it.”
What are they doing? Chelsea wondered. She tried to attract Sam’s attention, but he was focused on the FBI agents. “There has to be a mistake here!” she interjected, frowning at Sam. “Mrs. Sinclair is not well today. Can we take this into the living room? You can explain what it’s all about, and we’ll sort it out.” With an arm around Mrs. Sinclair’s shoulders, Chelsea started to lead her away.
Sam grasped Chelsea’s elbow firmly and held her back. “Chelsea, let the agents do their job.”
“Mrs. Sinclair has a right to know what this is about,” she stated with conviction. “She—”
“Just a minute!” Mrs. Sinclair cut them off. “Don’t talk around me as if I wasn’t here or, worse yet, as if I was daft. I do have a right to know.”
Ferguson nodded. “Yes, you do. We have a warrant to search your home for a painting called The Tempest on the Ocean, and for other possible stolen paintings.”
Chelsea couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but Mrs. Sinclair shook off her comforting hand. “This is ridiculous! I want to call my lawyer.”
“By all means,” Ferguson responded. “We’ll wait.”
Chelsea watched Mrs. Sinclair shoot the FBI agents a haughty look as she walked back to her office, accompanied by Agent Wilson, to make the call. Alone with Sam and Agent Ferguson, Chelsea shifted confused eyes from one man to the other. “You really believe Mrs. Sinclair has the Rembrandt?”
“Yes, we do,” Sam responded.
“But...but...”
Sam turned to Ferguson, who nodded. “Might as well. She’ll know soon enough.”
“Chelsea,” Sam began. “I interviewed Adam Rochester this morning. He’s been working for Mrs. Sinclair to make money to support a drug habit. He’s been the one using the warehouse for illicit purposes, but under Mrs. Sinclair’s direction.”
“I don’t understand. Why would Mrs. Sinclair, who’s so highly regarded in the art world, loving art as much as she does, be involved in something like this?”
“We don’t have the answer to that right now,” Ferguson interjected. “But we hope to find out.”
Dazed, Chelsea nodded.
When Mrs. Sinclair and Agent Wilson returned, they sat the old lady down in the living room. She and Sam waited with her while the special agents executed the warrant.
The special agents were moving around upstairs, and Chelsea could occasionally hear furniture being shifted. When they made their way back down the stairs, she noticed the slight shake of Ferguson’s head directed at Sam. She assumed that meant they hadn’t found anything.
Chelsea wanted to jump up and yell that she could have told them Mrs. Sinclair was innocent. For Mrs. Sinclair’s sake, Chelsea hoped they wouldn’t find anything anywhere in the house. That it would turn out Adam had lied to Sam, and Mrs. Sinclair was innocent of the alleged acts. Whenever she glanced at the older woman, both her expression and demeanor were enigmatic.
Finished searching the first floor as well, the special agents had just taken the stairs to the basement when the front door burst open.
Sam rose immediately and hurried to the door. Chelsea could see it was Joel, and Sam was blocking his path.
Next to her, Mrs. Sinclair sighed. “Oh, dear God.” For the first time since they’d begun the search of her home, she showed emotion and dropped her head into her hands.
While Sam and Joel had a heated conversation, Chelsea inched closer to Mrs. Sinclair. “What’s going on? Has Joel done something?” she asked, incapable of believing that this kind old lady had.
Mrs. Sinclair shook her head. “No, he hasn’t. My lawyer must have called him. My lawyer’s on his way, too, to help sort all this out.”
“Sort what out, Mrs. Sinclair? Do you know anything about the Rembrandt?”
Before Mrs. Sinclair could respond, Joel rushed into the room, followed by a frowning Sam. He sat down on the other side of his grandmother and took her hands in his. He obviously knew not to ask questions under Sam’s intense scrutiny, so he simply confirmed that the lawyer would be arriving soon.
Chelsea got up and went to stand beside Sam. She had countless questions swirling in her mind, but she knew Sam couldn’t answer them, so she stood silently next to him.
Hearing someone coming up the basement stairs at a quick pace, they all turned to the stairwell. Ferguson’s face was grim when he entered the living room. Wilson followed him, an equally stern expression on her face.
“Who’s this?” Ferguson asked Sam, looking pointedly at Joel.
They had a brief exchange, and Joel confirmed that it had been his grandmother’s lawyer who’d called him.
Ferguson stepped closer to address Mrs. Sinclair. “We need you to provide us with access to the locked room downstairs.”
Chelsea saw Joel’s shocked look, but his grandmother didn’t seem to notice. Her complexion had gone sallow, except for two bright pink splotches high on her cheeks. She nodded at Ferguson and rose. When she faltered, Joel sprang to his feet to steady her and help her move forward.
Ferguson held up h
is hand. “Only Mrs. Sinclair comes downstairs. Detective, if you can join us, Agent Wilson will stay here with Mr. Sinclair and Ms. Owens.”
Chelsea sat in an armchair, while Joel remained on the sofa. Neither of them dared say anything in the presence of Agent Wilson, but Chelsea could see the concern and confusion in Joel’s eyes.
A few minutes later, Sam escorted Mrs. Sinclair back into the living room.
She looked a decade older than she had earlier that morning. With hunched shoulders and trembling hands, she sat next to Joel but avoided making eye contact with him, as much as he tried.
When the doorbell sounded, Agent Wilson indicated for Joel to go ahead and open the door while she stood in the hallway so she could see both the front entry and the living room, where Chelsea and Mrs. Sinclair remained seated. A moment later Joel led a short, portly man in a steel-gray suit into the room. Since he hurried over to Mrs. Sinclair, Chelsea assumed he was the lawyer.
Agent Wilson moved back to the entry leading to the hall to allow the lawyer and his client an opportunity to speak privately. But even where Chelsea sat, not too far away, she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She couldn’t miss, however, that the lawyer was getting agitated, as was Joel, who sat closer and was likely within hearing range. At one point, the lawyer demanded to see the search warrant. After scrutinizing it, he handed it back to Agent Wilson.
For the life of her, Chelsea couldn’t figure out what was going on.
It felt as if an eternity had passed before Sam came back up the stairs. The lawyer shot to his feet, but Sam silenced him with a gesture. Instead, he turned to Chelsea. “Please come downstairs with me.”
Chelsea looked at Mrs. Sinclair, then at Joel and even the lawyer. Mrs. Sinclair’s head hung, her eyes closed and hands clenched. Joel’s expression was pained and the lawyer’s stoic. Wilson’s face was inscrutable. Chelsea wasn’t getting any indication of what was going on from any of them.
When she joined Sam, his countenance was gentle and maybe a little amused. She appreciated the light touch of his hand on her lower back as he escorted her to the stairs. “You’re going to be making history here,” he whispered as they started down the steps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHELSEA HAD BEEN in Mrs. Sinclair’s basement before, but she’d always assumed it was a partial basement. What she hadn’t known was that at the back of the small storage space under the stairs was a door. A door with some sort of electronic detection plate.
“It’s a retinal scan access panel,” Sam explained.
Retinal scan? Chelsea had seen those in movies. More recently, she knew, they’d started using them at airports for the “Trusted Traveler” program.
The doorway was short, to fit under the stairway. Sam had to duck to enter, although she could walk through upright...barely.
Sam stepped out of her way and she gasped when she saw the inside of the room.
No. Not a room. Vault was a better word for it.
The goose bumps on her arms weren’t just because of what she saw. The cool air skimmed her exposed skin. The room was climate-controlled. She didn’t have to check the control panel on the wall to know that the temperature would be between sixty-eight and seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and humidity between 45 and 55 percent, ideal for preserving fine art.
There were no windows or any other points of access or egress. Just the low door through which they had entered. The walls were a warm white, the floor marble, to prevent the collection of dust, and polished to a bright sheen. But it was the paintings on the walls that made her legs go rubbery.
She groped for Sam’s hand. “You do know what we’re looking at, don’t you?” she said breathlessly, disbelievingly. Reverently.
He squeezed her hand. “Even a neophyte like me would know. And if I didn’t—” He jerked his head toward Ferguson, already examining and photographing the paintings. “His actions would be a definite giveaway.”
Chelsea let out a laugh as her gaze rested on The Tempest on the Ocean, hung in the most prominent location. But the Rembrandt wasn’t the only priceless work of art in the room.
Sam cautioned her not to touch anything in the room to avoid leaving fingerprints. Not to interrupt the special agent. But just being there! For this momentous occasion. To be able to see these masterpieces, some of which hadn’t been seen in public for over a quarter of a century!
She felt a little light-headed and was grateful for Sam’s continued grasp of her hand.
As Sam had said, she was part of history.
Her eyes stung and she focused on breathing to keep from hyperventilating.
She took a few steps closer to The Tempest on the Ocean to better admire it. She could hardly believe she’d actually touched it when it was in the warehouse.
“Ms. Owens?”
Chelsea nearly jumped at the sound of Ferguson calling her name. “We’ve ID’d two more paintings that belonged to the Thompson Museum.” Yes, Chelsea could see them now. Another work by Rembrandt, and one by Manet, which Mrs. Sinclair had a replica of on display in her living room.
Chelsea’s heart raced and she felt light-headed again.
“Ms. Owens, can you identify any of the other pieces in this room?”
Taking a slow walk around, she studied all the paintings. There were a couple of pieces that had been at the gallery for a time before they’d sold. Her assumption was that, like the Babineux, the originals had been swapped for duplicates, and the forgeries were what had gone to the purchasers.
She was glad that Sam held her hand the entire time. They stayed three feet back from the walls, as Ferguson had instructed, but she was allowed to take as long as she wanted.
In total, including The Tempest on the Ocean, five of the paintings missing from the Thompson Museum were there. She knew them by sight. She identified as many of the other works as she could, but several of them stumped her.
As it occurred to her that she could never have her fill of admiring the paintings, another thought struck her. She took a slow turn around the room. All this beautiful art...locked away in this vault. Not to be shared, but for the pleasure of Mrs. Sinclair only. It made her feel unbearably sad. With a heavy heart, she thanked the special agent.
“No, thank you for your assistance, Ms. Owens,” Ferguson said.
With a final look around the room, trying to permanently commit it all to memory, Chelsea walked out with Sam.
“This is so wrong,” she murmured to him.
“I agree. She never should have stolen those paintings.”
Chelsea stopped in the hallway and gazed up at him. “Yes, of course, that’s wrong, but it’s not what I meant. It’s such a shame—so selfish—to have those beautiful paintings locked away all these years so that no one other than Mrs. Sinclair can appreciate them.”
Sam nodded thoughtfully. “I see your point.”
As they mounted the steps, she realized that they hadn’t really needed her assistance downstairs. It must have been something Sam had arranged. She was eternally grateful to him for having pulled whatever strings he had for her to be in that room. He might not have appreciated art or loved it the way she did. But for him to understand how much this had meant to her? Well, if that wasn’t a sure sign of love, she didn’t know what was.
Of love?
She looked at him with shrewd eyes. Was it possible that he loved her?
As they reentered the living room, Chelsea’s gaze was drawn to Mrs. Sinclair. Joel sat next to his grandmother, his arm around her.
All the years that Chelsea had liked and respected Mrs. Sinclair couldn’t be negated by the discovery of what she’d been involved in...likely the entire time she’d known her. Chelsea touched Sam’s arm. “What will happen to her?”
“She’ll be interrogated, with her lawyer present, and c
harged. I expect she’ll be released on bail, but it’s in the hands of the FBI now.” His eyes searched Chelsea’s face. “It’s serious, though. She’ll do time.”
Sympathy warred with outrage in Chelsea’s heart.
Sympathy won out.
Feeling the sting of tears, she walked over to the sofa and crouched down in front of Mrs. Sinclair. She hadn’t known what she intended to do and found herself apologizing to the old woman. After all, she was responsible in a way for what had just taken place.
Mrs. Sinclair’s eyes met hers. “It isn’t your fault, my dear. It was a middle-aged woman’s folly and an old woman’s greed that led me here.”
Not understanding what Mrs. Sinclair meant, other than that she didn’t hold Chelsea responsible, she shifted her gaze to Joel. Had he known what his grandmother was involved in? Had he been part of it? Could that have caused the preoccupation that she’d sensed in him that had contributed to the breakdown of their relationship?
The pain and horror etched on his face suggested that he hadn’t known.
“Ms. Owens,” someone called.
She glanced toward the sound of the voice and saw a tall, handsome, dark-skinned man, wearing a sharp suit, standing next to Special Agent Wilson. She’d been so focused on Mrs. Sinclair that she hadn’t noticed the stranger when she’d returned to the room.
A quick look at Sam told her he didn’t know who the man was, either.
Chelsea went to stand beside Sam, wanting to take strength and comfort from him.
The stranger joined them and introduced himself. “I’m Alan Lancaster, a representative of the Thompson Museum.”
“We contacted Alan, once we knew we were onto something,” Special Agent Wilson explained.
“It’s a great pleasure to meet you both,” Alan said. “I understand you’re responsible for our being here today,” he added, turning intense coal-black eyes on Chelsea.
She thought again about what would happen to Mrs. Sinclair—whether she deserved it or not—and her own part in it. She found it difficult to feel good about what was going on. “I suppose,” she acknowledged in a subdued voice.
