by Dana Mentink
Victor hadn’t forgotten. He also knew that the need for revenge fed on itself until it consumed a person. Tuney wasn’t about to be put off the trail anytime soon. “Question. Back during your investigations after the museum theft, did you know that Dean Lock and Donald Ramsey were friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Close enough that Lock visited Donald’s son, Tad?”
Tuney cocked his head. “I didn’t know that. What are you getting at?”
Victor shrugged, not really sure himself. “Struck me as odd, is all.”
“The whole thing is odd, so keep me apprised about the next foray down below,” Tuney said.
“I told you we’re leaving,” Victor said.
Tuney grinned. “You’re not leaving.”
“And how do you know that?” Victor said.
“Because if there’s a chance Colda’s alive, then there’s still a chance you can put your hands on that Tarkenton. You’re not going to walk away from that.”
“You’re wrong,” Victor said.
Tuney left him with an ironic smile. Victor stared after him, thoughts dancing around his mind. Brooke. Colda. Donald. A priceless painting that might lie just yards below his feet.
Stephanie was already on her laptop before Tuney cleared the building.
“Checking on something,” she said. A moment later, she reached for her cell phone.
Victor circled the room, energy surging through him, the same energy that had filled him before they found the Vermeer and the dozen treasures before that. They were close, he was sure. But something hummed through his thoughts that had nothing to do with treasure.
Was Colda alive or dead? Had he left the pawn, and what message was he sending? What they’d mistaken for eccentricity might be flat-out insanity, and insanity could be a very dangerous thing.
Stephanie interrupted his thoughts.
“Left a message for the university president.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “You went right to the top of the food chain. Do you think he’ll return your call?”
“I left Dad’s name. He’ll call.”
“What are you checking on, exactly?”
“It suddenly struck me that maybe Tuney isn’t really employed by the university after all.”
“What would be his motive for lying?”
She held up open palms. “At this point, who could guess?”
Victor nodded. “The whole situation gets murkier by the moment. Is anyone telling the truth in this whole mess?”
Brooke. The name materialized in his mind. Donald was a criminal, but she knew him only as a loving father. That meant she had an enormous blind spot, a blind spot that just might get her killed.
“Finished packing?” Stephanie said innocently.
“Thinking,” he growled.
Stephanie smiled.
* * *
By late afternoon, Brooke and Denise had made their plans. The following morning, Brooke would try to retrace the path she’d taken the day before, hoping to find a route around the collapsed section. Stephanie had given her the map already, and she and Denise pored over it, cobbling together a route to explore.
As they plotted, Brooke told her aunt about the pawn left on her pillow the night before.
Denise’s gray eyes widened in shock. “Here? In this room? Who left it there? Not Colda.”
Brooke shook her head. “I just don’t know. It doesn’t seem to make any sense at all.” She sat back, uneasily. “Another thing is, there’s the possibility that we won’t be allowed to stay to figure any of this out.”
“Lock?”
She nodded. “Victor strong-armed him into cooperating, and since he isn’t going to work with us anymore, Lock may just throw us out on our ear.”
Denise took her hand and Brooke was comforted by the look of strength on her face. “We’ll face it one step at a time, honey, like we’ve done with everything else.”
Brooke felt close to tears again. “I just want everything to be okay, for Dad to have his moment and Tad to come home.”
She gave Brooke a final pat. “We’ll keep pushing forward. That’s all we can do.”
They didn’t have to wait long to find out the dean’s thoughts on the subject. He hobbled up using one crutch for support as they exited the dorm. He looked closer at Denise, who stood a head shorter than Brooke.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you again, too, Jeffrey.”
Brooke looked from the dean to her aunt.
Denise turned to Brooke. “The dean and I go way back. We were college sweethearts, weren’t we?”
An edge in her tone told Brooke the relationship didn’t bring back fond memories for her aunt.
“That was a long time ago,” the dean said, cheeks pink in his pale face. “I thought that was old history.”
“It is, on my part,” Denise said, “but I didn’t think you could leave it all in the past. That’s why I didn’t offer to come with you in the first place, Brooke. I thought the dean would be more cooperative if I wasn’t there to stir up bad memories.”
The dean exhaled loudly. “This situation has nothing to do with what passed between us in the past, Denise.” He focused on Brooke. “Victor tells me they’re finished and going home.”
Brooke swallowed hard. She’d known it, but hearing about his departure caused a fresh pain inside her heart.
It’s better for him to go, Brooke. You’re getting your feelings all confused. Distance would be the best thing.
“You need to do the same,” Lock continued. “For your own safety.”
“That’s very kind of you to think about our well-being,” Denise said. “I wish you had been more inclined to think about our family when you blamed Donald for the museum theft.”
Lock’s lips thinned. “There were two people with the delivery schedule,” he hissed. “Donald and myself. I know I wasn’t behind the heist.”
“I don’t,” Denise said flatly. “I know exactly what kind of man you are, you showed that to me forty years ago. Donald didn’t rob his own museum.”
“You’re implying I did.”
“Not implying,” she said. “Colda mailed a note to the police claiming he was responsible, but he must have gotten the delivery schedule from someone.”
Brooke’s stomach knotted. This was a man they had to placate, and her aunt was succeeding only in throwing gasoline on the fire.
“Can we leave that for the moment?” she said, holding up a calming hand. “We’re here just to find my father’s Tarkenton. We need to explore the tunnel again and examine Colda’s apartment one more time.”
“Without your Treasure Seekers?” the dean said.
Brooke nodded. “Yes.”
“Too dangerous. The university would never allow it.”
Denise cocked her head. “You can allow it. You did before. You can do it again.”
“I could,” he said, leveling a look full of hate at Denise. “But I won’t.”
“Please, Dean Lock,” Brooke said, stepping forward. “We have reason to believe Colda faked his suicide, that he’s still alive and in the tunnels.”
Lock’s eyes widened. “And you still believe Colda may have hidden the painting down there? This Tarkenton your father pretends to have found?”
Denise tensed but Brooke laid a hand on her arm. “Yes.”
“That’s idiocy. I’ve said so from the start, but I indulged you because Mr. Gage is a benefactor of this university. You’ve found absolutely zero evidence so far, only a bad picture painted by Colda, something he dreamed up on his own.”
“It will cost you nothing for us to take a look, and if I’m right, think of the reward, an unknown Tarkenton revealed to the world, found at your university.”
His eyes glistened with the same desire, the near fanaticism that her own father displayed when he spoke about a master painting. For a moment, Brooke felt sick, but she thought that very zeal might just cause him to acquiesce.
>
She was wrong.
“No,” he said curtly. “You’re welcome to check out his apartment again but that’s it. Pack up your things and be out by sunrise tomorrow. You’re not authorized to be on this campus anymore.”
FIFTEEN
Brooke felt numb. All the effort, the worry had come down to a big, fat dead end.
Denise’s expression was anguished. “I’m so sorry, honey. I should have kept my mouth shut, but when I saw him there, it all came out.”
“It’s okay,” Brooke said, forcing an optimistic tone. “At least we can look at Colda’s place one more time. Maybe we’ll see something we missed before.” She puzzled over the earlier text she’d received from Victor.
Pawn belonged to Colda.
Be careful.
Careful. Why would he care about that? Pain surged inside. She shook away images of him as they walked across the nearly dark campus. Brooke tried to think of how to bring up the subject of Denise’s contentious past with Lock. Her aunt spared her the trouble.
“I loved him once. Jeffrey, I mean. We were college freshmen together and he was a budding pianist. Brilliant, too. I loved his passion for music and art. He seemed so much more alive than anyone else I’d ever met.” She smiled sadly. “I made some bad decisions and got pregnant.”
Brooke tried not to show her surprise. “I didn’t know.”
“No one did. I was young and foolish, stubborn, too. A baby was not something Jeffrey pictured in his life. It would strip away his freedom to pursue his ambition. He wanted me to end the pregnancy, but I couldn’t. Instead I dropped out of school, used my college money for the doctor bills and the delivery.” She blinked hard. “The baby was stillborn. I called Jeffrey and told him about it. He said he was sorry and not to call him again.”
Brooke sighed. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Denise.”
She patted Brooke’s shoulder. “I don’t need your pity, honey. After I buried my daughter, I moved on and so did Jeffrey. I just tell you that so you know what kind of man he is. I knew all along. He should have been found guilty of the museum theft, not your father.”
She felt a surge of deep gratitude toward her aunt.
Denise had stepped in and taken up the slack when things in the Ramsey household fell apart after Brooke’s mother left. She felt the surge of anger again at her mother who’d skipped out when she was sixteen, unable to handle a moody husband and a disturbed son.
Your loss, Mom. We’re a good little family, and I’m going to make sure we stay that way.
The urgency to solve the riddle rose ever stronger inside her. She had to get home to her father and Tad, to take responsibility for them again and make everything okay. If she could just find something, any tiny clue that would hint at where Colda had hidden the painting and possibly explain how the stolen sketch wound up with Tad.
They let themselves in using the key Lock provided them.
Denise whistled at the mess. “And I thought your father was untidy.” She examined the reproduction of the Tarkenton closely as Brooke pointed out the misplaced pawns.
“Incredible. I never would have figured that out.”
“I had help.” Her heart squeezed at the thought of Victor. He was undoubtedly gone, ensconced in his office perhaps, researching for the next treasure to find.
She flashed on his face in the tunnel when he could not escape, vulnerable, desperate.
Lord, help him find his way to You, she prayed in spite of the pain that knifed through her.
Denise was riffling through the file cabinets. “Colda must have left some notes, something about the Tarkenton.”
Brooke left her to her digging and went to the small bedroom. The drawers had already been searched, even under the mattress. Heavy drapes covered the windows but she felt the whisper of cool air, evidence of an open window. She pulled them aside, gazing down into the darkness below.
She saw a flicker on the glass.
It was not coming from outside, but rather it was a reflection of movement behind her.
With a scream she started to whirl around as a figure shoved past her, an arm knocking her to the floor. The window was yanked open further and in a moment the man was gone, shimmying down the gutter pipe.
“Stop,” Brooke yelled, scrambling to her feet. She ran back out of the bedroom, nearly plowing into her aunt, who was in the process of running to help her. “A man,” she gasped as she careened by, through the hall and down the front steps.
She stopped there, panting, listening.
A scuffling in the bushes to her left made her take off running again.
Suddenly someone stepped in front of her and she crashed into a set of sturdy shoulders, bringing them both to the ground. She rolled over and found herself nose to nose with a prostrate Victor. She struggled to her knees and he did the same, helping her to her feet in time to see Stephanie trotting out from the tree line.
“Gone,” she said. “Back into the tunnel, the cover wasn’t quite pulled closed.”
Victor brushed the grass from his shirtfront. “Steph and I were walking and we heard a scream. Was that you?”
She nodded, trying to catch her breath.
Denise ran up. “I messaged the police. There was a man in Colda’s place. What did he look like?”
Brooke tried to collect her thoughts. “I don’t know. It was dark and he was moving fast.”
“Stryker? Colda?” Victor demanded.
“Tuney?” Stephanie put in.
Brooke sighed. “I’m not sure. It happened too fast. I think he was hiding under the bed when I came in. I didn’t get a good look.”
“What would someone want in the professor’s house?” Stephanie said. “Nothing there worth anything.”
“Except maybe to the professor,” Victor said.
“Actually, I think there might be something of interest,” Denise said slowly. “Come with me.”
The silence was broken only by the chirping of a cricket somewhere in the grass as they filed back into the professor’s apartment. She still felt Victor’s arms encircling her after she fell, strong and warm.
Denise gestured them to the table and pulled out a torn piece of paper. “It was in one of the files.”
Brooke saw only some nearly illegible scribbles. “Can you tell what that says?”
“Only because I’ve been hanging around with your father for too long,” she said. “‘No gr. shine. Fx indic.’”
“Does that mean something to you?” Stephanie asked.
“Let me expand on it and see if you recognize any of the terms. I think he’s saying, ‘No graphite shine, foxing indicated.’ Ring any bells?”
Victor nodded slowly. “I heard chapter and verse on this when we were searching for the Vermeer.” Excitement shone in his eyes. “Graphite shine refers to the pencil work. If the shine hasn’t oxidized then the work is modern and potentially a fake. Foxing is the brown mildew spots that occur on older work.”
“So these are authentication notes,” Stephanie said.
“The Tarkenton,” Brooke breathed, her skin prickling.
“Maybe,” Victor said. “But it doesn’t indicate that painting specifically.”
Denise put a small object on the table, no bigger than a paper clip. “This was taped to the back. It’s an unusual wood, silvery in color with green undertones. I’ve seen it before.”
Brooke watched a slow smile form on her aunt’s face. “I have, too. It’s a piece of the Tarkenton frame, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Denise said. “He no doubt removed a piece to send it out for infrared spectroscopy.”
“To prove the age of the painting,” Victor said.
Stephanie laughed. “Pretty high-tech. How did we miss that in our search?”
“You might have seen it and not even realized what it was,” Denise said.
Victor grunted. “I don’t like missing things.”
Denise ignored the comment. She looked away, eyes darting back and forth in though
t. “Colda would have started out by doing a provenance analysis, like Donald and I did. Is the piece recorded in reference books? Researching the original owners, searching for letters of authentication. Donald found only a few oblique references to the work, and the people running the estate sale where he bought it had no idea how it even got there. There were only a few vague hints in some archived letters from Tarkenton that the work even existed. Colda would have to go the forensic route. He probably started with a signature analysis.”
“We’ve got some proof now.” Brooke couldn’t contain her excitement. She sprang from the table. “It really is a Tarkenton. Dad is right.”
Denise held up a hand. “It leads us in that direction, but this is still not concrete.”
Brooke walked to the reproduction of The Contemplative Lady. “If he knew or strongly suspected it was the real thing, he should have let my father know.”
“Unless he intended to take it for himself. Sell it, maybe.”
Victor frowned. “It would be incredibly hard to sell a painting like that. You’d have to go black market, and find a collector.”
“Which would take some time,” Stephanie added.
Brooke’s eyes roved the familiar picture. “So you’d need to find a good hiding place in the meanwhile.”
Denise nodded. “Someplace no one would ever think to look.”
Soon they were all four gazing at the picture, the little black pawns advancing across the chessboard. “Maybe even fake your own death,” Victor murmured.
Brooke looked at Victor, who stared steadfastly at the painting. “The dean asked us to leave by morning. He and my aunt are not on good terms.”
Stephanie cocked her head and gave her brother a sidelong glance. “The investigation is over for us, too.”
“But now with this,” Denise said, “you could get Jeffrey to rethink things.”
Victor continued to stare but Brooke saw a glimmer in his eye. “In light of this new information, I think our plans have changed.”
* * *
The dean’s face was suffused with anger, the lines harsh on his face in the office light. They had caught him on his way out, surprised to find him still working at nearly seven o’clock. It was just Victor and Brooke, and Victor had the overwhelming feeling of déjà vu as he sat there. Brooke was trying to go for calm, but he could feel the energy radiating off her. She’d never win a poker game, he thought, hiding a smile. It wouldn’t change things even if they did find the Tarkenton, now that her father was concretely linked to the museum robbery, but for whatever reason, he was glad, at that moment, to be sitting there next to her.
