Abandoned

by Allison Brennan

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said with a slight grin.

  He was flirting with her. She could ignore it and he would probably stop, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to ignore it, not yet anyway. Hadn’t cops always been her downfall? She could certainly do worse than Ryan Maguire. At first glance he wasn’t her type—hair a little too long, attitude a little too relaxed, attire a bit too casual—but he was smart. She had always been attracted to smart cops. And hair aside, he was attractive. Too attractive.

  She hadn’t meant to let the silence extend so long as she contemplated her response. She cleared her throat.

  “There were sixteen postcards in all,” she said. “Seven cards featuring the stolen art you said matched the same MO.”

  Max showed him the last two postcards. “This is a painting by an Italian artist named Caravaggio. There’s one distinct difference between this painting and the other seven.”

  “It hasn’t been stolen.”

  “Is it true that some thefts aren’t reported? For any number of reasons.”

  “Yes, but a piece like this—I think it would have been.”

  Max hesitated. “Well, I think it was stolen, but there’s another big difference. Two differences, but one you wouldn’t know unless I told you, which is that it was postmarked from Paris. But the other difference is the art itself.”

  Ryan looked at the seven postcards and the last. “It’s violent.”

  She smiled. He did see it. “It’s not my mother’s style at all. While she might appreciate the art from a talent perspective, she abhorred anything that wasn’t whimsical or lively. The Degas is full of light and subtle humor; the Renoir is simply beautiful work. But this Caravaggio is dark and religious. Martha detested religious symbolism in art, considered it patriarchal and conformist.”

  “Yet it’s an incredible masterpiece—Caravaggio’s use of light and shadows is original and few artists have come close to capturing his style.”

  “That’s not the question—it’s the darkness and the theme that Martha wouldn’t like. What I’m saying is, this painting was stolen. Either she was involved in some way—maybe because she knew the thief—or she simply knew when she saw it that it was a forgery.”

  Ryan looked at her oddly.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That’s a big leap.”

  “I said it was a theory. It’s like that children’s show with the skit ‘one of these things is not like the other.’ That’s this painting.”

  “When was it sent?”

  “The May before she disappeared. From Paris.”

  “That’s seventeen years ago. I wasn’t an agent then, but I would have heard if it was missing.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know.”

  “How?”

  “What if the thieves replaced the art?”

  “That would be … difficult, expensive, and require someone of immense talent.”

  “And?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  Max waved her hand over the postcards and her notes. “Whoever pulled this off has both money and talent.”

  “It’s not the same MO as the others,” Ryan said simply.

  “Which is?”

  “Each painting was lifted during transport from one exhibit to another. My predecessor determined that at some point between when the paintings were packaged and the transportation company delivered them to the next exhibit or back to their owner, that one or two paintings were replaced with empty boxes. Some of the thefts weren’t discovered for weeks or months because the inventory appeared accurate, but the boxes were empty.”

  “Which also makes it difficult to nail a suspect because you don’t have an exact time frame.”

  “Yes, though we know that the thieves used an inside man.”

  “You couldn’t get anyone to flip?”

  “We haven’t been able to determine who inside. We looked at financials, we interviewed numerous people—particularly the transport companies—and the owners of each painting.”

  “How are these seven different from the others?”

  “That’s a good question, and one I’ve been thinking about since I left here the other night.”

  Ryan sat down at the table and opened his briefcase. “I have to say it, so don’t get mad at me, please. My boss will have my hide if I don’t.”

  “Everything you tell me is off the record.”

  He grinned, and Max wanted to smile back. Max figured Ryan was forty, or close to it, based on the length of his FBI career and his advanced schooling, but he had a youthful, boyish charm that was contagious.

  He took out a laptop and opened it up, typed a long password so fast Max couldn’t have stolen it if she tried, and clicked on a folder.

  “I couldn’t bring my boards—not as extensive as your office, but complete and compact and much easier to store—so I took photos. Plus, I have the file summaries.”

  “I’m impressed.” Max sat next to Ryan as he clicked on two pictures and put them side by side. Each was of a magnetic trifold. One had the seven pieces of art that Martha had sent postcards of to Max, and the other had the remaining eleven pieces.

  The differences between the two groups was striking.

  “When I saw this, that’s when I went to my boss and convinced him to let me talk to you about the case. Use you officially as an expert consultant, just to cover his ass, but he’s giving me a lot of leeway.”

  “Smart man,” Max said. She studied the photos.

  Though all eighteen paintings that had been stolen were from two distinct periods—Realism and late Impressionism—the seven pieces of art that Martha had been interested in were exactly what Max had said her mother liked. They were beautiful, traditional yet innovative, played with light, and warm, or if dark, they had humor. The other pieces were all extremely traditional or religious. Beautiful, with many exceptional examples of the period, but not cutting edge or standing out for the time. Except for one. A Caravaggio, who was unique both during his time and since. No one had truly emulated his work.

  “What are you thinking?” Max asked Ryan. She had some thoughts, but they weren’t well formed.

  “There’s one other clear difference between these paintings.” He clicked on another group of photos. The photos had been slightly rearranged. Four were on one side, the rest were on the other. “These four were recovered or we know what happened to them. Jimmy Truman sold the Toulouse-Lautrec and the other three were found in that storage locker, as I said earlier. None of the others have come on the market. The Renoir, the Boudin, and the Degas. They are certainly the more expensive pieces, and those—other than the Toulouse-Lautrec—would be in great demand on the black market.”

  “You lost me. Why is this important?”

  “Art fencing is a very specialized business. It’s small, everyone knows everyone else, which is why it’s extremely hard to move paintings. Thieves—unless they’re hired for a specific job—will sit on pieces for a long time. Often for years. Their goal is to find a private buyer, or move the art out of the country. But until Jimmy sold the Toulouse-Lautrec ten years ago, we had nothing on any of these pieces. Then, eight years ago, the three in the storage locker practically fell into our laps. We know that Jimmy had that storage locker under the J. J. Sterling alias. It was seized for lack of payment a year after Jimmy sold the Toulouse-Lautrec, the items auctioned off a few months later, and it took the buyer two months before going to the appraiser.”

  “The same thing happened with Martha’s storage under the name Jane Sterling,” Max said. “My partner is in Miami investigating that angle. Maybe the other three paintings were in her locker.”

  “You have a point. I hadn’t thought of that. That would be—well, huge. But after all this time whoever bought the contents of the locker would either know they have original art and haven’t tried to sell it or they don’t realize what they have.”

  He sounded pained at the prospect. He knew that many priceless works
of art had been destroyed or damaged because the people who owned the pieces didn’t recognize their value.

  “Can you imagine the Degas hanging in someone’s guest room?”

  “Or over a fireplace. Ugh.”

  Max contemplated the paintings. “Do you think that Jimmy and Martha stole these seven paintings, rather than your primary suspect? Then sat on them for a few years?”

  “Not exactly. The MO is clear and no way I slice it did a different person steal this Degas than this Monet. I’m thinking in a completely different way now. What if they stole the paintings from the thief?”

  Max let that sink in. “What on earth for?”

  “That’s a question for the FBI behavioral scientists,” Ryan said. “I just call them as I see them.”

  “I have someone I could call.”

  “Is that important?” Ryan didn’t seem wholly impressed with criminal psychology. “It’s the only thing that makes sense—I might be making a jump here, but come with me. I think we can assume that Jimmy and Martha were together during most of this time.”

  Max nodded.

  “What if she sent you those postcards for a specific reason—namely, she had possession of the actual paintings.”

  It was something her mother would do—she loved her games.

  “What’s the time frame? Has your suspect continued?”

  “Yes, but he’s gotten smarter and taken pieces fewer and farther between. And I suspect—though no one on my team agrees with me at this point—that he changed his MO.”

  “How so?”

  “That I don’t know. But most art thieves don’t just stop unless they’re dead or in prison, and I know my suspect is neither. Maybe because he lost these seven. For example, he stole thirteen pieces in a six-year period, then nothing for four years—then five pieces over the last ten years. Though, nothing is recent. We’ve also speculated that we don’t know about all the pieces. Hence, the change in the MO. That maybe he’s found a way to replicate the pieces.”

  “A forgery.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Like the Caravaggio.”

  He tried to look at her sternly, then laughed out loud. “You made your point. I’ll find out about that piece, would that make you happy?”

  She smiled. “I learned something else about the art postcards. Most of them are all from the same book. Maybe that book is important? But I can’t tell from the card what the fine print means. I searched the internet but came up empty.”

  “That is something I can definitely help with. I’ll need to take at least one back with me to Norfolk on Monday.”

  She nodded, then looked at him oddly. “You’re staying all weekend?”

  “I wasn’t sure how long this was going to take, so I got a room in the hotel. I reserved it under my boss’s name because I’m pretty sure Truman has me flagged.”

  She raised her eyebrow and eyed Ryan carefully. He didn’t turn away. In fact, his half smile told him he was going to enjoy this weekend as much as she was.

  “You forgot something,” she said.

  He blinked, confused. “What?”

  “The Caravaggio in Paris. Maybe it was stolen and my mother knew about it. Who was your other suspect?”

  He clicked on his computer and the picture of a very handsome, fiftyish man popped up. “This is the most recent photo I could get of Phillip Colter. It’s about five years old. He used to be far more active in the society world, but he’s been very reclusive of late. He was on our radar for two reasons: he was the only person to have been photographed at six art receptions promoting exhibits that had one or more pieces stolen from it. Not just one city, but cities all over America. My predecessor thought that was far too coincidental, but couldn’t get a warrant. He could, however, continue his investigation and learned through his interviews that Colter’s primary residence in Dallas, Texas, was filled with masterful reproductions of art from the same era that the thief prefers. Still not enough for a warrant, but enough to keep him on our radar.

  “The second primary reason was one I uncovered ten years ago—Colter’s name came up when Truman put the Toulouse-Lautrec on the black market. An informant of mine said Colter wanted the piece in the worst way. I didn’t understand why, until now.”

  “You think Jimmy Truman stole it from him.”

  “I do. And kept it in the storage locker with the others until he needed to sell it for some reason.”

  “And then Jimmy disappeared,” Max said. “Why is this not a murder investigation?”

  “We have no body. Colter didn’t buy the painting—it was sold to a collector in Russia. We know who has it, but can’t get him extradited or the painting returned. That battle is well above my pay grade. But we know that the painting went out through Baltimore; we know Colter was in the area at the time—he’s originally from this area—and we know that Jimmy was here, in Cape Haven, for at least three days before he went to Baltimore … where he disappeared.”

  He stared at the painting Jimmy sold to a Russian.

  “Half my squad thinks Jimmy left the country,” Ryan said. “I don’t think he’s smart enough to disappear for ten years without a peep. But it’s possible.”

  “I think he’s dead,” Max said. “And I think Martha is dead, too.”

  * * *

  Phillip Colter looked at the photos. With each picture, he grew more angry.

  That bitch. Not only had she stolen from him, she had bragged about it to her daughter.

  Phillip had not known everything about Martha Revere when he first met her. He’d known only that she was the estranged daughter of James and Eleanor Revere, a banking family in California. He knew she lived off her trust fund, so he wasn’t overly worried about her sleeping with him for his money. He had learned later that she had a daughter who was being raised by Martha’s parents, and for the longest time he chose to believe that Martha had left him not because of his anger, but because of her daughter. It almost made him love her more.

  Until he learned that she had betrayed him. She’d seduced him and made him love her and stolen from him, laughing about it with that low-life Jimmy Truman. How they pulled one over on Phillip Colter. How they were smarter than him. Fooled him for years.

  One of the pictures crumbled in his hands. Now they were dead and buried, long gone, but not forgotten. Because Phillip was still missing one piece.

  Seventeen years ago, when he learned that Martha had made a fool of him, he considered going after her and forcing Martha to return what was his. It didn’t take Phillip long to learn that there had been no contact between Martha and her family in years. And he knew enough about the Sterling and Revere families that they wouldn’t be party to hiding priceless works of art. He’d walked away from them, considered the seven paintings a loss, until Jimmy Truman put the Toulouse-Lautrec on the market.

  He sold one of Phillip’s paintings! Sold it as if it were his own. Sold it to a braggart and a foreigner. Took what was Phillip’s and degraded it.

  He paid for his crime with his life.

  Phillip wished he could kill Jimmy Truman all over again.

  Yet he still didn’t have the Degas.

  “Mr. Colter?”

  His right hand, Vance DuBois, was right to sound nervous.

  “I want this woman. She knows where the Degas is—look at these pictures! She was in on it with Martha.”

  “If I may?”

  Phillip glared at him. “What?”

  “She was a child when Martha stole from you. I read the postcards, and her emails—I attached the relevant correspondence to the report—and Martha told her nothing about the paintings or where they are or why they’re important. The only reason that reporter is here is because she hired a private investigator and learned that Martha had an alias and her car was abandoned here.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “The information was in her emails, sir.”

  Phillip considered what this all meant. “I need to study th
ese. Keep your eye on her, but don’t tip your hand.”

  “Of course.” Vance nodded and walked briskly out of Phillip’s home office. He was the only one left in Phillip’s circle that he trusted.

  Phillip had a lot of studying to do, but he stared at the photo of Maxine Revere.

  She looked nothing like her mother. Martha was petite, blond, sparkling. Beautiful, to be sure, but cunning. Shrewd, because she looked nothing like the backstabbing thief that she was.

  This woman, Maxine Revere, looked like she could command the world. Serious. Determined. Elegant. Poised. Her eyes—they seemed to be looking right at him. She was downright gorgeous.

  Martha had been beautiful as well, but in a completely different way. It was a classic, girl-next-door, effervescent beauty that had completely drawn Phillip in, hook, line, and sinker.

  His hand fisted, and the photo of Martha’s daughter crumpled.

  Martha took many things from him, but the Degas had been his favorite. And he’d only been able to enjoy it for three months before she stole it out from under his nose.

  Worse, he hadn’t known. She’d made him a fool, flipping the real art with his own perfect forgeries. And he hadn’t seen it. He’d slept under that painting every night without knowing. He made love to women believing it was real.

  And it was fake. Just like Martha Revere.

  He would never have known if his staff hadn’t told him the forgeries weren’t in his storage locker.

  For two years she’d fooled him.

  She and that pitiful Jimmy Truman had tricked him. Deceived him. Probably laughed over champagne and caviar that he hadn’t been able to tell the difference.

  But she had known. She knew which were real and which were fake when no one else could tell the difference.

  He hated her.

  He had loved her.

  Maxine Revere, an investigative reporter no less, would find the Degas. She might not know that she was looking for it, but she would find it. Everything he had learned about this woman over the week, since he’d been informed that she had arrived in Cape Haven, was that she was smart and never gave up.

  He wanted the Degas back. And when Maxine Revere found it, he’d take it out of her cold, dead hands.