by Ritter Ames
Disappointment reigned, and after a week in that kind of atmosphere the time came when I realized I needed to get away for a moment, to reconnect with the world I bought into a decade ago. I chose art history as a major for one reason—I loved art. I didn't pick the discipline because I wanted a job in my grandfather's business; that was just luck. No, I wanted to make some kind of difference in making sure art stayed available and true for the masses.
It was a gray day for a gray mood, and I headed for the National Gallery. I surfaced from the underground, and offered a nod to the monument of Lord Nelson and the stone lions, picking up speed as I hit the middle of Trafalgar Square. Despite the chill in the air, tourists and pigeons were out in force, and I pulled my new trench coat tighter around my body as I wove through the masses. It was probably a football field away. But that was American talk. I needed to start thinking meters instead of yards. I was in charge of the London office, and I had to start thinking Brit.
I passed through the National Gallery's revolving door and crossed the marble floor, moving automatically toward room twenty-nine, the area holding the Peter Paul Rubens collection. I stood before Rubens's first rendering of The Judgment of Paris, still in awe, no matter how many times I viewed the glorious work.
Painted long before the artist had become a world diplomat and established his studio of artists, the work was acquired by the gallery in the mid-1960s. I liked this version for the fact I truly felt Rubens did all the work himself. In later years, the artist too often took more of an overseer position in the works that bore his name. The result wasn't a fake or counterfeit; Rubens always played some role in the final creation. Still, I felt there was something a little off about saying later paintings were "a Rubens," which was why most collections instead noted "from the studio of Rubens."
Coming this day to view his work was not to debate the issue but to revel in the truth he painted on the canvas. I stared at the scene, our hero Paris with the golden apple prize, judging Venus the most beautiful woman there, with Juno and Minerva suddenly also-rans. I felt Juno's palpable anger. I wanted to be the nymph who reclined there on the ground, watching the proceedings and absorbing the moment.
"Does the picture give you a sense of satisfaction? Or rile your feminist tendencies?"
He hadn't really left my thoughts since we parted in France, and now here he was, mysteriously popping up beside me. Again. Looking as good as ever in jeans, a wool jacket and an open-necked blue shirt that lit up his eyes.
"Hello, Jack. No one has wanted to tell me anything about the clean up in Le Puy. And everyone changed the subject when I brought up your name."
"I like to keep a low profile." He smiled, and I couldn't keep from smiling back.
"Who told you I was here? Or are you tracking me with CCTV again?" I moved over to the second version of The Judgment of Paris, the one Rubens finished three decades or so after the first, a work where the mentees in his studio likely played a role in the creation. Jack kept pace with me, stopping to look once or twice across the room at other Rubens paintings.
"No, nothing high tech," he finally said. "I heard you'd been installed in the London office. I stopped in to see you, and your cohort from the V and A was there and pointed me in this direction. Promotion for you, I hope?"
I shrugged. I was still trying to decide exactly what anything meant at this point. Betrayed by Simon. Hoodwinked again by Moran. And now responsible for a physical office, instead of skipping blithely from one art recovery to the next. I felt like a bird with clipped wings, though Max did promise me all of Europe as my gilded cage.
"Cassie and I have had long talks about it. She'd been disappointed about her tenure at the Victoria and Albert Museum ending with no permanent hire, and I had an opening to fill since Martha chose to retire and live with her ailing sister. So Cassie came to work for me. Being able stay here and work for the Beacham Foundation helped assuage her disappointment, and I need someone I can truly trust."
"She seemed happy. Seemed to be reconstructing the office wainscoting."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm never going to break her from being a restorer. I told her I didn't even like wainscoting, and she still persists in trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together."
Jack laughed, and steered me toward the one empty bench. "Would it be so bad to let her put as much as she can back the way it was?"
"Nothing can go back the way it was, Jack. You know that."
"Ah . . . " He took my hand in both of his. "So what are you fighting? The ghost of Simon, or the specter of four walls keeping you trapped every day?"
I looked down at his hands, so warm, so comforting. His being there then wasn't an accident, I was sure of that, but I didn't know what it meant either. "They promised I could just base in London. Leave the day-to-day to Cassie and shoot off with the next assignment. I can live with those terms, even if I will miss the jaunts to Mexico, South America, and Asia."
"So, you'll be primarily Europe?"
"Yes, there's always been enough here and on the Continent to keep one person busy full-time, hence the London location."
"I've heard of worse posts to be left in."
Jack could always make me laugh. "I do sound pretty spoiled, don't I? It's just change. But not enough change to feel like I've had closure from the last case. As mad as I am at Simon, he was right. We humans do appreciate our closure."
He sighed and slipped an arm around me, making it look to all the world like we were enjoying a midday assignation. In reality, the sweet nothings he whispered in my ear were probably state secrets.
"I presume your office grapevine has already informed you Simon is still loose."
I nodded.
"A bomb squad swept the Moran mansion, and the place is still sealed as a crime scene and will likely stay that way. The estate is under constant surveillance in case he returns. And because the villagers know they had a monster in their midst, they're ready to storm the castle if he shows his face again."
"He should be hung just for creating that monstrosity to art. But why wasn't he there the night of the party?"
Jack stood and pulled me to my feet, then steered me to Rubens's rich vision of Samson and Delilah. "Moran sent a representative to act as host for the evening."
I felt the frown in my forehead. "What are you trying to tell me, Jack?"
"His young grandson." Jack avoided looking at me, staring instead at the fallen Samson. "A young man with long hair and an easy smile. Someone who likes to dance with beautiful blondes."
My mouth dropped open. "Rollie! Rollie is Moran's grandson?"
"And the heir apparent."
For a second I couldn't breathe. I thought about Rollie and my conversations before and during the bus ride. His talk about disappointing his grandfather for not yet taking over the business. "No, not Rollie."
Jack nodded.
This put a whole new slant on my ability to be conned and be confident. All the talk about his grandfather being an architect and having a manufacturing facility. Sure, the architect of the greatest art thefts in our century and the perpetrator of manufactured counterfeits and fakes. How could I be in charge of the London office if I couldn't even see when I was being played on the way to a renaissance festival? Worse, how long had he followed me to be sure he was where he needed to be when I arrived? He said he bought his ticket weeks before. Had he done so in preparation, or . . . I thought back to the old man who chased off the motorcyclist. The one who gave me directions which ultimately led to the bus ride. Suddenly, the name of the architectural firm that designed the house hit my memory. PA Designs. Philippe Aubertine, my ass! The sudden revelation made me dizzy.
"You need to tell Interpol I can give them an updated description on Moran, and an alias he employs when in France."
He cocked his head and stared hard at my face. "You got that close to him?"
"I was in the same car, and I had no idea."
"When you got shot—"
"He picked
me up after running off the shooter. A shooter on a motorcycle with a full helmet. I think it was the Amazon."
Suddenly, I was caught up in an embrace so tight I could barely breathe. I think I cried a little, glad I could hide my tears in one of Jack's shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice was thick.
"She hasn't cropped up anywhere, but Interpol dusted Simon's—I mean, your office, before the clean-up and have a pretty good idea which fingerprints are hers."
I pulled back to see his face. "Is she in the system?"
"Her prints are, but we've had no person to attribute them to until now. We think the Amazon is muscle for hire."
"Moran's."
Jack frowned. "I don't think so. There's another player out there. Someone or some new group causing ripples in the power structure. Currently, it's nothing but chatter. If you're right that the old man was Moran, and if it was the Amazon on the cycle, it could mean she recognized him and that's why she ran."
I thought about all the bogus text messages, especially the one that led me away from my meeting in Italy. "Could the Amazon be the one who killed the Greek and the Welshman?"
We pulled out of the embrace, and he shook his head. "They caught a guy who's taking credit for the Greek."
"You don't think he did it?"
Jack shrugged. "Again, hired muscle, and he won't tell who hired him, but admits it wasn't Moran."
"But the Greek was killed around the same time I was following the bogus text message," I said. "Does that mean we can assume he works for this new underground group?"
"That's what I told my boss. I like your thinking." He smiled, and I felt a little warm.
"And the Welshman?" We walked toward the exit.
"He made it, believe it or not. Then disappeared from the hospital before he could be questioned, despite a guard posted at his door." Jack slipped a hand down to the small of my back. It felt comfortable there.
I remembered the lights and sirens when the ambulance raced away from the docks with the Welshman inside. They only did that when the patient was still alive. I'd noticed at the time, but the evidence didn't register. I wondered whether he was a good guy or bad. I also wondered whether Simon was responsible for his disappearance.
"Which means we all continue looking over our shoulders?" I asked. "See if we get lucky?"
He shook his head and grinned. "I don't know that you should keep counting on luck. You have some good self-defense moves, but they're almost as rusty as your French. I think you need some private lessons before anything else happens."
"I'm heading for America tomorrow," I said, shaking my head. "A quick trip, I hope, but I can't take you up on the offer of lessons. I'm booked on a morning flight to Orlando to follow a lead we received on one of Simon's safe deposit boxes and bank accounts. I have to follow up on this, no matter how sketchy the possibility."
Jack stopped just short of the door, and pulled a phone from his pocket. "I had to get a new mobile. Don't know what happened to the last one, but I'm finding I like this little jewel." He swiped the screen a couple of times, and held it up to show me a flight number and seat assignment. "For instance, I get unbelievable clarity when I need to store e-ticket information."
Everything was suddenly absurd, and I walked and laughed, and generally made a fool out of myself on that somber afternoon. Jack plodded patiently beside me, waiting for my lead on what happened next. We finally stopped at Aurora abducting Cephalus, which was appropriate since I felt like my life had been pretty much taken away from me.
"Is this how it's always going to be? Do I not have free will anymore?" I asked, finding I actually wasn't bothered by the feeling. Had I truly given up? Which only proved I really did need the vacation Max had once again swindled away from me.
"Laurel, as important as you are in so many ways this isn't about you at all." Jack put his hands on my shoulders. I thought back to how many times he held me semi-captive in the three days we were together. Three days that packed a magnitude of events and emotions one would normally associate with decades. The thought left me staggered to consider it.
Jack continued, "We still have to determine if the micro drive was truth or fiction. We may still have a major heist on the horizon, and making that determination was my job from the beginning. The sword was a slight detour whose timing meant it may or may not have been connected. Like you, I've been pulled in to finish the job I started. And, quite frankly, having you by my side raises the stakes in both good and bad ways. I'm as confused about whether or not we should work as a team as you are."
That wasn't exactly what I was confused about, and looking in those lovely teal eyes, I felt Jack wasn't being entirely forthcoming either.
So what was new? I wouldn't know how to act if he actually told me the whole truth.
I reached up and took his left hand away from my shoulder. "Come on, Jack, I haven't had lunch. And I do like a good fish, don't you? Maybe I'll even try vinegar this time."
* * *
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About the Author
Ritter Ames lives in a small town in the middle of America, but spends each day globe trotting the art world from her laptop, with her cat riding shotgun and Pandora blasting from the speakers. She has garnered numerous awards for her nonfiction work, and Counterfeit Conspiracies is her first full-length published fiction. She tries to blog regularly at http://ritterames.wordpress.com/ and uses her Pinterest boards at http://www.pinterest.com/ritterames/ to capture great places and ideas she wants to use in her mystery series. Follow her blog and her Pinterest boards to learn more about Ritter and her upcoming books.
BOOKS BY RITTER AMES
Bodies of Art Mysteries:
Counterfeit Conspiracies
Marked Masters (coming in 2014!)
Organized Mysteries:
Organized for Murder (coming January 2014!)
SNEAK PEEK
of the next
Bodies of Art Mystery
by Ritter Ames:
MARKED MASTERS
* * * * *
CHAPTER ONE
Two black-and-whites screamed to the curb, paralleling each other and blocking off any possibility of retreat. Brakes screeched. Sirens blared. My blood pressure ratcheted up a notch. The flashing lights alone set my heart pounding so hard that I could swear the beats showed through my black Lycra.
One step and I bled back into the shadows of the house's side wall.
A simple pick-up on a limited time frame. That's what the job had been. My objective was a medium-sized nude which had reclined over the headboard of a blackmailer's bed for decades. A painting and headboard currently residing inside the townhouse that was the focal point of this Orlando PD team.
"He's been extorting money from my mother since before I was born," Kat Gleeson had explained that afternoon. "The blackmailer picked up the portrait at a sale after the artist died, playing a hunch it would be worth bigger bucks later. Mother received the first demand as soon as my father started in political life. Laurel, you have to help us."
A longtime friend from my Cornell years, and daughter to Senator Gleeson, R-FL, Kat called me, frantic, to meet for lunch after hearing I was in the city. When I'd said my Miami flight was first thing in the morning she'd turned from frantic to panicked, and I promised to be at her favorite cocktail bar in ten minutes time. I'd met her there. Now, twelve hours later, this new dilemma forced me to contemplate an alternate route inside, for the nude painted when Kat's mother was an ingénue and the artist undiscovered. In his later years, before his final drug overdose, the once up-and-coming artist became best known for his erotic subjects and a penchant for the rock-and-roll lifestyle of the 1970s. Now, a single moment captured in brushstrokes kept Kat's mother chronically worried and perpetually broke.
As political pundit-buzz hummed about Senator Gleeson's prospective run for the presi
dency, the hush-money stakes had risen sharply. The next installment had hit a price Mrs. Gleeson couldn't deliver without her husband's knowledge and cooperation.
"She's devastated," Kat had said, as she'd toyed with her second mojito. I'd decided that if my friend's ragged expression in any way resembled her mother's, devastated was probably putting it mildly.
My prep time had been limited, but the facts that had come back were solid—the owner was a Luddite who didn't know a silent alarm from a silent movie. An absolute anachronism today, but the attribute served him well as a blackmailer since the practice left little risk of his digital fingerprint getting lifted anywhere.
What had alerted the cops?
The head-to-toe unrelieved black I wore dovetailed into the shadows and afforded me a bit of invisibility. I contemplated the peripheral shrubbery but waited to see the officers' game plan. A peek at my watch, hidden by the hood of my sleeve, showed less than a half-hour to either accomplish what I came to do or cut and run.
Car doors slammed and voices rose as authoritative tones ordered a blue scramble to search for whatever tipped them off to the location.
Another scan of the back wall showed the basement window I'd initially dismissed as too small for a final escape. But it could get me into the house as long as I sucked in my gut and visualized being very, very small. I also had to maneuver without being seen or heard across the white ribbon obligatory to so many Sunshine State homes: the oyster shell path that ringed the grounds around the house walls like fluorescence in the moon glow.
