Brad toyed with his gold tie bar. “Not really. No details anyway. Of course, that’s way above my pay grade. The feds and international authorities are dealing with it now.”
“I’m sure we’ll hear all about it eventually.” Sunny rolled her eyes and tugged on Brad’s arm. “Come on, enough work stuff. Let’s dance.”
He grunted but followed her out into the swirling crowd of dancers.
“Deep waters,” Richard observed as he sipped his champagne and watched Brad lead Sunny in a very respectable foxtrot.
“He’s always surprising me,” I agreed as I noticed Richard tapping his foot in time to the music. “Listen, I must run to the ladies’ room, so why don’t you go and ask Aunt Lydia for a spin around the floor? Or even steal Sunny from Brad? I know you’re itching to dance.”
He looked down at me with a warm smile. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“Then go. Here, give me your glass and I’ll drop it off on one of those tables they’ve set up in the hall.”
Richard gave me his champagne flute and a kiss before dancing his way into the crowd. I watched him tap Hugh on the back and take Aunt Lydia into his arms before I left the room.
As I exited the bathroom at the end of the main hall, I noticed a light fixture flicker on at the top of the back stairs. Looking up, I spied Kurt Kendrick standing with his back against the balustrade. He appeared to be staring at a painting on the wall of the upper hall.
I squinted as I examined the painting. I couldn’t make out any details, but something about the frame sparked a memory.
Climbing the stairs, I kept my gaze focused on the painting. There was something so familiar about it …
I gripped the handrail and swayed for a second before taking another step. That frame—doesn’t it match the one on Uncle Andrew’s missing still life?
Except that this frame was dark wood, not gold. I sprinted up the remainder of the stairs to reach Kendrick’s side.
“Hello, Amy,” he said without looking at me. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I stared at the painting for a moment, noticing a few flecks of gold paint still clinging to one of the deeper grooves in the frame. Then my eyes focused on the canvas itself and I gasped and grabbed the arm of Kendrick’s white tuxedo jacket.
“It’s another lost Van Gogh,” I said in a whisper.
“Yes. Hidden under one of Andrew’s canvases. I guessed that something else was in that frame when I held it at the library and remembered a visit Andrew had made to my Georgetown gallery not long before he died. Neither one of us ended up totally sober that evening, so at the time I dismissed his ramblings. But later, when I found out about the forgeries, I remembered him blurting out something about hiding two paintings that were worth a fortune.” Kendrick covered my hand with his gnarled fingers. “I didn’t know one was this painting, of course, but I was sure he’d hidden something valuable, especially after recalling he’d also babbled about the possibility of making money off of forgery.”
“So you took it.” I stared at the image of a man in a straw hat striding down a golden-yellow path with two trees in the background. The Painter on His Way to Tarascon, which had been stored in some German salt mine for protection during the war but lost in 1945. I shot a sharp glance up at Kendrick from beneath my lowered lashes. “You stole it.”
“I did.” There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in his smooth voice.
“How?”
He stroked the frame with his thumb. “I simply shoved a small folded handkerchief in the library’s back door so that the lock didn’t quite catch. Then, when you’d gone back out front, I reentered the building, and when your volunteer left the desk to help some patrons, I took it. Easy as pie,” he added with a grin. “Although pie really isn’t that easy to make, is it?”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted it, of course.” Kendrick released my arm and turned to face me. “Never fear—I didn’t trash Andrew’s painting. It’s been carefully preserved and reframed and now hangs in my bedroom.”
“You can’t just keep this,” I said, waving my hand at the lost masterpiece. “It isn’t yours.”
“It is now.”
“But…” I met Kendrick’s unflinching, icy, gaze. “I don’t see how you think you can get away with this.”
“It won’t be hard. The world believes this work is lost forever, and I will allow everyone to continue to think so. Oh, perhaps some expert may see it one day and question me, but I can always claim it is a forgery created by my dear, departed friend Andrew Talbot, and I doubt they will press me further. And perhaps”—he lifted his broad shoulders and dropped them again—“someday I will change my mind and return it to the world, claiming it mysteriously turned up in a collection of paintings I discovered in some dusty Parisian garret. One never knows.”
“You really are the most twisted individual.”
“Am I?” Kendrick tilted his head and studied me with interest. “Now the question is—will Amy Webber keep my secret or will she turn me over to the authorities?”
“I should.”
“Of course.”
We locked gazes. There was something in his eyes—a flicker of despair that caught me off guard. “Why do you want this one painting so much? Because it’s a Van Gogh?”
“My dear, I own other Van Goghs.” Kendrick looked away, staring back at the painting. “No, that isn’t the reason. The thing is, I know that Andrew looked at this painting. Studied it. Held it. So when I stand here and gaze at it, it’s like…”
“He’s standing beside you,” I said softly.
Kendrick simply bowed his head.
I touched his arm. “You really did love him.”
“I still do,” he said, touching the edge of the frame with his fingertips.
Footsteps on the stairs made us both turn.
“There you are,” Richard said, pausing at the top of the staircase. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Oh hello, Kurt. Everything okay?”
“Just fine,” Kendrick said, shooting me a significant look. “I think.”
“Yes, everything’s good,” I replied, catching Kendrick’s eye and giving him a little smile before I turned to Richard. “We were just chatting about our love of … art.”
“Sounds great, but you still owe me that dance.” Richard held up his hand.
I walked over to him and clasped his outstretched fingers. “I said later.”
Richard grinned and pulled me close. “I must say, Kurt, you certainly have surrounded yourself with masterpieces. And I’m including Andrew Talbot’s paintings in that comment.”
“As you should,” Kendrick replied, his brilliant blue eyes fixed on me. “But I think you possess the most priceless object in this house.”
Richard, following the older man’s gaze, grinned and tightened his hold on me. “I agree, but I would never claim that I possess her. She has chosen to be with me of her own free will, which is the way I want it. I don’t want to own her—I just want to share my life with her. As long as she’ll let me,” he added, lifting one of my hands to his lips.
I pulled my hand free and flung my arms around his neck and kissed him with all the passion that had welled up in me. “So that’s forever, then?” I asked when I pulled away.
His gray eyes sparkled with delight. “If you wish.” He glanced over my shoulder at Kendrick. “Now if you will excuse us, we have a date with a waltz. Right, Amy?”
“Right.” I clutched his hand, casting a smile over my shoulder as we made our way down the stairs.
Kurt Kendrick didn’t see my smile. He was gazing back at the Van Gogh. His treasure. A rare thing, once thought lost forever.
Now found, perhaps, I thought, as Richard and I weaved through the crowd at the edge of the living room and walked onto the dance floor.
Richard swept me into his arms as the last note of a jazz riff faded away and the strains of a waltz mysteriously materialized.
And we danced.
Also avail
able from Victoria Gilbert
A Murder for the Books
Author Biography
Victoria Gilbert, raised in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, turned her early obsession with reading into a dual career as an author and librarian. Victoria has worked as a reference librarian, research librarian, and a library director. When not writing or reading, she likes to spend her time watching films, gardening, or traveling. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and International Thriller Writers and lives in North Carolina.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Vicki Lemp Weavil.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-595-7
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-596-4
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-597-1
Cover illustration by Cheryl Martucci.
Book design by Jennifer Canzone.
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: July 2018
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Shelved Under Murder Page 28
