Forger of Light

by Nupur Tustin

  He said as much.

  “No, it’s not,” Celine agreed.

  “I can go check in the Pilot,” she offered.

  Blake heard the soft, rhythmic sound of her breath and her bare feet slapping on the floor as she padded out to her car. More sounds of rummaging.

  “Not here either,” she reported. “Where exactly did Reynolds say he left it?”

  “With the chocolates. He wasn’t any more specific than that.”

  “Could’ve been next to the box instead of on it,” she mused. “In which case, it might still be in the Tasting Room office.”

  “Would you mind . . .?” He hated making the request after what she’d been through.

  “No, of course not. Call you back in a few.”

  Back in her kitchen, Celine took a hurried sip of her rapidly cooling tea—a fruit-flavored black Annabelle had recommended to her. She’d just finished brewing it when Blake had called.

  The fragrant fluid rolled over her tongue and down her throat. She savored the taste, then reluctantly set her blue ceramic mug down. This was a tea meant to be enjoyed, not gulped down. She’d reheat it when she returned from the Tasting Room.

  Killing two birds with one stone. The words she’d heard over and over in her head during Blake’s call repeated themselves in her mind. What did they mean?

  She didn’t know.

  She dropped her keys into her blue shoulder bag and set out.

  The warm July sun caressed her bare shoulders and arms, a cool breeze making the heat bearable. Visitors wandered through the Mechelen’s ornamental gardens, admiring the flowering plants and the fountain.

  Celine walked briskly past, tossing a quick smile here, a greeting there, until she reached the Tasting Room. She sprinted up the steps and through the double doors of the Tasting Room. Julia was inside, chatting with a couple, when Celine came in.

  “Thought you were resting.” Julia’s broad face was wreathed in concern as she approached Celine. She flicked her ponytail—a bush of silvery-white hair—back. “What brings you here? Annabelle’s doing fine, by the way. Bryan’s with her.”

  Celine smiled a greeting at the couple Julia had been entertaining, then drew her friend toward the office.

  “Blake called.” She recounted the details as they walked in.

  The thick drapes of floral-patterned silk that hung over the floor-to-ceiling window shielded the room from sunlight. A stack of mail was in the mail tray—payments, invoices, wine orders, and applications to the Mechelen wine club.

  Celine dropped them on the desk—she’d sort through them later—and began searching for the note Reynolds had claimed to have received. There was nothing on the desk, under it, or in the wastebasket that was placed on its right.

  “It’s not here.” Celine searched under the keyboard, the mouse, the leather notebook, and the stacks of paper and mail on the desk.

  “Were you expecting it to be?” Julia asked, watching her closely.

  “Based on my dream last night, yes.” She looked up at her friend. “It was odd.” She recounted it.

  “You heard yourself calling him?” Julia frowned.

  “What if it wasn’t me in the dream? I might have been inhabiting the consciousness of whoever it was who approached Reynolds.”

  Psychic visions of a crime were always partial—experienced either from the perspective of the victim or of the criminal.

  Celine tended to view crime scenes from the criminal’s perspective. It gave her an insight into the emotions and motives of the perpetrator but denied her a glimpse of the criminal’s features.

  “And the male voice you heard—that would fit with Reynolds’ claim of being approached by a man.” Julia leaned against the desk—a sturdy figure in a knee-length navy skirt and a pink blouse that brought out the intense blue of her eyes and suffused her cheeks with radiance.

  “Anything else?”

  “Killing two birds with one stone. I keep hearing those words.”

  “Meaning what?” Julia straightened up. “That Reynolds had another motive for coming in here?”

  “Could he have planted something? A bug?” Blake asked when he heard. “I thought I hit a nerve when I mentioned that we knew what he’d left there. I was sure we had him.”

  “We’ve searched the place thoroughly,” Celine informed him, exchanging a glance with Julia. She’d put Blake on speaker so the former fed could hear as well. “There’s nothing here. Nothing that shouldn’t be or that wasn’t here before.”

  Julia bent her head toward the phone. “But you didn’t get a reaction when you mentioned chocolates or poison?”

  “Nope. And I think I would have if he’d known anything about it. He doesn’t seem to be a brazen liar.”

  “But you say he was cagey throughout?”

  “Paranoid.”

  “Could someone be framing him?” Julia asked. They were still standing by the desk in the office.

  “He doesn’t have much time left,” Celine murmured, repeating the words that passed across her mental screen.

  “That’s exactly what he said,” Blake replied. “Before he abruptly ended the interview and left. Now I understand his show opens this evening—“

  “There’s something he needs to do; he doesn’t have much time left,” Celine said again.

  “What does he need to do, Celine?” Julia’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.

  “What the General wants him to do.”

  “Jesus Christ! Sounds like he’s going to make another attempt.” Blake sounded agitated. “Don’t let her out of your sight, Julia.”

  He hung up, glanced at his watch, and gathered up his car keys. He wasn’t due to relieve Guy Shepherd for another couple of hours, but he was going to do it anyway.

  “And I need another agent out there in Guy’s position,” he called to Ella as he left.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Outside Anthony Reynolds’ apartment, Blake marked his patience in a steady rhythm on his brake pedal and wheel. The tap-tap-tap of his foot and forefinger kept at bay a growing sense that something was off.

  He’d stationed himself on a short stretch of private road between Grove Avenue and Waverly Street. It was well over an hour now that he’d sat—window down, air conditioner off—waiting for Reynolds to make an appearance.

  Blake shifted his butt, his tailbone beginning to feel sore, his legs cramped and stiff.

  “Any sign of him?” he inquired quietly into his mouthpiece.

  The sculptor’s exhibition at the Gardner was due to open in twenty minutes, but Reynolds had yet to emerge from his building. The silver Ford pickup he drove—an F-250—stood in its parking space in front of 60 Grove.

  “Nope,” Ted Ridgeway, the agent who’d pulled surveillance duty along with Blake, responded. “Just walked the perimeter. No sign of anybody.”

  Not one to leave anything to chance, Ridgeway had been circling the block—from Allston where he was parked to Sidney, to Putnam, and back to Grove—every fifteen minutes. It had been his idea—just in case Blake, sitting with a clear view of 60 Grove Avenue, missed the guy.

  “Just spoke with the doorman. He confirms our guy’s still at home.”

  Blake appreciated the agent going the extra mile. More so given that technically Ridgeway was still on leave. He’d just got into town and still had about twelve hours of his week-long vacation left. Nevertheless, the man had made no bones about coming out tonight.

  “No visitors?” Blake had seen none. Every single person he’d watched entering the building had possessed a key—meaning they were residents.

  “Nope.”

  Damn. What was Reynolds doing up there? Jerking off? Entertaining some hottie—Blake had seen at least two go into that building. God, he hoped it was nothing more than that.

  “Wanna go in?”

  Blake hesitated. Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones. But other than that, they had no reason to go thundering up to Reynolds’ third-fl
oor apartment.

  “Let’s give it another ten,” he decided. “Then we go up.”

  He was staring at his phone, counting the minutes, when it rang.

  “Penny?”

  “Blake, I’m worried. Tony Reynolds isn’t here”—

  No shit, he thought. The guy hadn’t budged—

  “He was supposed to be at the museum forty minutes ago. The show starts in twenty.”

  “Couldn’t he be running late?”

  It was a lame excuse, and he knew it. But he wanted to give it an entire ten minutes. It had only been five since he and Ridgeway had spoken.

  “No, Blake, he could not,” Penny snapped.

  Something in her voice snagged his attention.

  “This isn’t just about the show, is it, Penny?”

  He could almost see her lips pressed tightly against each other, determined not to talk.

  “Is it?” he asked again.

  He remembered Guy Shepherd’s report from the morning. Reynolds had been out just the one time that day.

  “He saw you this morning, right?”

  “No, he didn’t, Blake. I missed him. There’s been so much to do. I haven’t been in my office all day.” She sounded frazzled.

  “But you had an appointment with him?”

  “Yes . . . no. He knew I’d be available an hour before the show. My assistant told him that. But, Blake, I’ve been trying to call him since I returned to my office. He isn’t picking up. Something’s happened to him, I’m sure of it.”

  “Because he wanted to speak with you?” The subtext of Penny’s remarks wasn’t lost on Blake. “Why?”

  He pushed the car door open, phone clamped to his ear.

  He sensed her hesitation. “Penny, what did Reynolds want to speak with you about?”

  She exhaled heavily.

  “He said he had information. Something he felt I needed to know . . .”

  She hesitated again, reluctant to speak. But Blake had already guessed the truth.

  Goddammit. He drove his fist into his palm. Godf—indammit. He slammed the door shut.

  “Stay put. I’ll call you back in a few.” He hung up and spoke into his mouthpiece. “Ted? We’re going in now. Circle the block one more time, then meet me upstairs. Got it?”

  His feet clattered on the marble steps as he sprinted up, sounding alarmingly loud. Huffing and puffing, the doorman, a grizzled, unshaven guy with a beer belly, followed on his heels.

  Reynolds’ was the only apartment on the third floor. The hallway was clear, the terrace at the end of it, accessible through glass double doors, reassuringly empty.

  Blake returned to the apartment door. He raised his hand and glanced over his shoulder. “If he doesn’t respond, I’m going in,” he informed the doorman.

  But the door fell open with the first blow his fist rained upon it.

  “Stay behind me,” he said tersely. He pulled his gun out, carefully pushed open the door, keeping an eye out for armed intruders. Or an armed sculptor.

  “Reynolds?” he called. “It’s Special Agent Blake—Jesus F-in’ Christ!”

  Blake stepped back, not wanting the doorman to see the dead body splayed on the living room floor.

  “Call 911.”—

  “But . . .?”—

  “Do it now!” Blake snapped. Ridgeway sprinted up just as the doorman began to retreat, his eyes wide with fear.

  Too late Blake realized he hadn’t told the doorman why 911 needed to be called. Dispatch would want to know. He gave Ridgeway the information, instructing him to follow the doorman, and pulled out his cell phone.

  Visiting hours at the Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton were officially over. But the head nurse was willing to make an exception for Celine and Julia.

  “I wasn’t going to intrude with her family there, Gloria,” Celine explained over the phone. “But I have a feeling this’ll be the last opportunity we’ll get before—”

  “Mrs. Curtis is doing remarkably well,” Gloria interjected. “But if you feel you need to see her, I won’t stand in your way.” Word about Celine’s psychic abilities had spread.

  Once she’d been able to talk, Annabelle had attributed her own remarkable comeback from cyanide poisoning to Celine’s gifts.

  The head nurse hesitated. “And just to set your mind at rest, her son isn’t here at the moment.” The comment made Celine smile; Gloria in her own way was an intuitive as well. “He returned to his hotel. Bit of an abrasive fellow, but his heart’s in the right place.”

  The visitor parking lot on Las Tablas Road was empty when Celine—Julia seated beside her—pulled into it. They’d just parked when Julia’s phone rang.

  “It’s Blake.” Julia’s voice sounded ominous in the subdued illumination provided by the Pilot’s dome light.

  “Reynolds?” Celine turned to her, one hand still on the wheel, foot dangling out of the half-open driver’s side door.

  He’s gone, Celine. Sister Mary Catherine’s voice was soft. His time was up.

  Julia confirmed the fact. “Murdered,” she mouthed, putting Blake on speaker so Celine could hear.

  “Looks like the General got to him.” Blake paused. “Wonder if Reynolds knew the General was after him, that his time was up.”

  Meaning that they—she—had misinterpreted the message she’d received earlier: he doesn’t have much time left.

  Celine winced, biting down on her lower lip. Blake had too much class to point out that she’d dropped the ball on this one. And grateful as she was for that, she was acutely aware she didn’t deserve his consideration.

  She was the psychic. If she’d gotten it right, Reynolds wouldn’t be dead.

  No, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine countered her thoughts. His time had come. You weren’t told, the nun whispered, because it wasn’t for you to know or to prevent what was meant to be.

  “He was trying to get a message to Penny,” Blake went on.

  “About?” Julia asked.

  “What else?” Blake released a pent-up sigh of frustration. “The Gardner heist.”

  The connection to the General, Celine thought. Of course, Reynolds had information about the heist. But she hadn’t realized he’d been willing to share it.

  “Unfortunately, he wasn’t any more specific than that. He was supposed to meet with Penny this evening, but”—Blake’s tone was resigned—“obviously he never made it.”

  Thoughts and sensations flashed through Celine’s mind followed by a characteristic knowing.

  “There was something the General wanted him to do.” She sorted through her impressions. “Reynolds didn’t want to go along. He had a decision to make. He could either do what he was asked to and live . . . or not. I guess he made his choice.”

  “Any idea what he wanted Penny to know?” Blake asked when Julia had relayed her message to him.

  He’s already given it to you, Celine. Sister Mary Catherine’s voice again.

  But what information had Reynolds given her? During his brief time at the winery, he’d closed his mind to her entirely. “You’re psychic, aren’t you?” he’d thought more than once.

  If he’d expected her to read his mind, he hadn’t made it easy.

  “I don’t know. But whatever it is, the General’s had no success getting it out of Reynolds.” Celine brushed back her long red hair. “That means I’m not a target anymore.”

  Until she discovered Reynolds’ secret.

  Then she’d have outlived her usefulness.

  She left that part out, however. Blake and Julia were stressed out enough with this development. She didn’t want to get them any more strung out than they already were. Her psychic defense shield would have to suffice.

  I encircle myself in the white light of God’s love and divine protection.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  His call ended, Blake re-entered the apartment. He made sure there was no one lurking in any part of the single-bedroom unit, then he returned to the living room.
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br />   Reynolds lay on the floor, face swollen and red. The hemorrhaging in the whites of his eyes was visible from where Blake stood. Petechial hemorrhaging. The sculptor’s green irises were glazed and had rolled back.

  Blake’s gaze moved down. A closer look confirmed his initial impressions. A jagged red gash encircled Reynolds’ neck. He’d been garroted—just like Dirck Thins a few months back in Paso Robles. This was the General’s work, no doubt about it.

  He bent down and checked Reynolds’ pulse. More out of force of habit than any expectation that the sculptor had survived the attack. Even as a member of the FBI’s art squad, Blake had seen enough corpses to recognize death when he saw it.

  When he straightened up, he turned his attention to his surroundings. The apartment was in disarray. Either Reynolds had struggled with his killer. Or, more likely, someone had ransacked the apartment.

  Blake slid his phone out of its holster and snapped a few quick pictures. Cambridge Police would be taking over the crime scene. Not that he had any objection to their taking care of the routine drudgework.

  But if Reynolds’ death had anything to do with what he knew about the heist—which Blake was almost certain it did—having detailed photos of the crime scene as he’d found it would be enormously helpful.

  He walked through the apartment once more, pointing his phone camera and clicking. The bedroom and studio had been searched as well, albeit not as haphazardly as the living room.

  What bothered Blake was that someone had managed to get into the building despite the doorman’s presence and the two FBI vehicles stationed outside. Despite Ridgeway’s rounds around the block. How was that possible?

  Unless—

  His stomach sank at the thought.

  Unless Reynolds had been killed while Guy was still on duty.

  Guy hadn’t been asked to do anything more than keep an eye on the sculptor’s car and his comings and goings. They’d been more worried about Reynolds leaving the place than about anyone entering it.

  Shortsighted, in view of the current situation.