Forger of Light

by Nupur Tustin

  He glanced at his phone. “I guess we’ll know in a few seconds.”

  “Sofia wants to leave,” Celine said. “She’s coming to the hotel with us. Is that okay?”

  He nodded. “Sure. I should’ve told her myself she was free to go. She’s not a suspect in this thing.”

  While they’d been speaking, Reynolds had made an appearance. He stood next to Blake, although the agent didn’t seem aware of having a spirit by his side.

  Reynolds gave Celine a smile. Tell Sofia Bev’s fine, okay? He glanced at Blake. She knows we’ll be avenged.

  Was he expressing confidence in Blake’s abilities as an investigator? Or predicting the future?

  We will be avenged, Celine, Reynolds repeated before fading away.

  Her heart lighter, Celine turned to Blake. “You’ll find him. You’ll find Standish.”

  He looked at her. “You think so?”

  She bobbed her head emphatically. “I know so.”

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  The car—a sleek black van—had been provided by Tevah Security. The company’s name was painted in gold block letters on either side of the van. The windows, which the driver instructed them to keep rolled up, were made of bulletproof glass, the sides reinforced with armor plate.

  “Impressive!” Julia emitted a low whistle when they got to the garage.

  “Overkill,” Sofia said. She slid into one of the bench seats inside the van. “Typical of my father.” Celine and Julia climbed in after her, sitting together on the plush leather bench seat facing Sofia.

  Thick glass separated the passenger section from the driver’s section. Sofia rapped on it, signaling the uniformed driver they were ready to go, when they’d all buckled themselves in.

  “Does your father know Hugh Norton well?” Celine asked as they emerged from the cavernous gloom of the parking lot out into the bright sun. She kept her tone easy, conversational.

  “They’re business associates.” Sofia stared blankly out the tinted windows, still in shock. “She was alive this morning. Now she’s gone. I can’t believe it.”

  Celine bit her lip. There was nothing to say to that. No words that could assuage the depths of Sofia’s grief. Celine reached out and took hold of the older woman’s hand.

  There’s a time for words, Sister Mary Catherine said. And a time for silence.

  This was a time for silence.

  “Is your father in insurance, too?” Julia broke the quiet that enshrouded them. “I understand Hugh Norton is an art insurer.”

  It seemed more like an attempt at casual conversation than the quest for information it really was. Sofia seemed to appreciate Julia’s effort to engage her in distracting conversation.

  She turned to face the former fed. “He’s in real estate, and a few other things. Mainly real estate. Rose Antiques is his business, too.”

  Bits and pieces of Sofia’s life began to shuffle into Celine’s brain—like images from a jigsaw puzzle.

  “He gave the store to your mother to run,” she said.

  “When my father—” Sofia swallowed and glanced quickly away. “She didn’t want a handout. She didn’t want to be dependent on anyone.”

  Julia frowned; Celine guessed what was running through her mind. Was Sofia’s birth the result of an affair on the side?

  She shook her head, warning Julia off from putting the question to Sofia. Besides, it wasn’t the truth.

  “He’s your uncle, isn’t he? Your biological father’s brother?”

  “Yes.” Tears spilled down Sofia’s face.

  An image knocked insistently on Celine’s mental screen. A red inhaler—the sign for cyanide—crossed out with a large red X. Then she saw a face—a man with emaciated cheeks and sadness permeating his eyes.

  “He didn’t do it, Sofia,” she said. “Whatever your father was accused of, he didn’t do it.”

  Sofia’s face turned sharply toward her.

  “He was framed.”

  And killed.

  But Celine kept that fact to herself. Sofia wasn’t ready to hear it.

  “You see him?” The yearning in Sofia’s voice was reflected in her face and the depths of her eyes.

  Celine nodded.

  “He was such a gentle man. So patient. He’d read to me every day, spend time with me, listen to my ramblings. It was so hard to believe—”

  The memory that had drifted into Sofia’s mind filtered into Celine’s. She saw a child peeping into a living room. A woman—a tired, fragile version of Sofia—wept in the presence of a bear-shaped individual. Sofia’s uncle, Dom Wozniak. He’d adopted her, made provisions for her.

  “Your father has a message for you, Sofia,” Celine said.

  Sofia raised her red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes.

  “Be careful. Stay away from Hugh Norton. And his friends.”

  She’d framed the warning as delicately as she could. In time, Sofia would figure it out.

  Celine was aware of Julia’s gaze on her. The former fed threw her a look of utter incomprehension.

  “What was that all about?” she hissed—out of earshot of Sofia—when they were walking into the hotel lobby.

  “Her uncle had her father killed—his own brother,” Celine hissed back. “She’s safe for now. Dom Wozniak brooks no threats to his family. But she may not be for much longer.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “If she probes, if she gets too close—”

  “Too close to what?”

  “I don’t know.” Celine picked up pace as Sofia turned, looking for them from beyond the elevator doors.

  They’d been in their suite for about a half-hour when there was a knock on the door.

  “That’ll be room service with our lunch,” Celine said, although the firm rat-a-tat-tat at the door was far louder and more assertive than they’d come to expect from the hotel staff.

  She gave Sofia a reassuring smile before going to the door.

  “Jonah!” she exclaimed when she saw who it was. “Weren’t you supposed to be at the Gardner?”

  She stepped back to let him in.

  “I was.” Jonah adjusted his glasses as he entered the room, his shoulders stooped from the backpack he was carrying. A ballpoint pen peeked out from the pocket of his red-checked shirt. He clutched a black notebook in his left hand.

  “Then I heard about what went down at the Pru.” He sat down, acknowledging Julia and Sofia with a brief nod. “My God, that must’ve been awful. You guys look shaken.”

  He surveyed them.

  “You were with them?” he asked Sofia.

  Celine introduced them.

  “Rose Antiques?” Jonah wrinkled his nose. “On Newbury, right? You’re not far from the Pru.”

  “You know it?” Celine glanced at Julia, unsure why she found Jonah’s knowledge of Rose Antiques and its location so unsettling. He was a Boston native, after all, and the Prudential Center was an important landmark in the area.

  Jonah smiled broadly. “Of course I do,” he said easily. “I’m on the art beat. Why wouldn’t I know the place?” He turned to Sofia. “I’m really sorry about your friend.”

  Sofia accepted the remark without comment. But Julia’s eyes narrowed.

  She leaned forward, her body tense.

  “How did you find out about that?” she demanded.

  As far as they knew no journalists had been informed.

  Jonah shrugged. “A pal on the crime beat. The mall was closed pretty early in the day. That gets people talking. Then when you hear sirens, see Boston PD rushing in, it’s not exactly hard to figure out what’s going on.”

  For some inexplicable reason, an image of Paso Robles entered Celine’s mind. The sun bathing the yellow stucco of the Mechelen’s buildings in a warm glow. Tony Reynolds standing in front of the Tasting Room, face-to-face with an unknown adversary.

  She gripped the padded armrests of the chair she was sitting on. Someone was watching their every move. She felt threatened by it.

&n
bsp; She sat frozen in her chair until Sister Mary Catherine’s voice shook her out of her stupor.

  Tony wants you to know he’s been avenged, Celine. He and Bev have been avenged.

  “He’s dead,” Celine announced, looking at Sofia and Julia.

  “Who?” It was Jonah who asked the question.

  “Pete Standish,” Celine replied. “Fussy Phil. He’s dead.”

  Chapter Eighty

  “I know,” Blake spoke into his phone.

  His eyes were riveted on the yellow cab and the passenger whose head lolled back on the seat inside it. To all appearances, the dark-haired man—a little over medium height, with well-formed, almost delicate features—was fast asleep.

  It was only when you peered into the vehicle that you saw the bullet holes—one in the head, two in the chest—that told the rest of the tale. Pete Standish, the man in the cab, was a corpse. A gun lay in his lap—the same weapon he’d used to kill his wife.

  But the bullets that had killed Standish were of a different caliber.

  “Boston PD found the cab with Standish in it in an abandoned parking lot in East Boston.”

  The lot overlooked the Boston Harbor. Turning his head, he caught a glimpse of the harbor’s glittering waters through the wire fence that surrounded the perimeter of the property and the scrubby trees that edged it.

  The closest building was a two-story warehouse that hid behind a high brick wall. No one had seen anything. No one had heard anything.

  Soldi stood in the confined pocket of shade afforded by one of the trees, conferring with a Boston PD detective. Bev’s killing at the Pru fell under Boston PD’s jurisdiction. But Standish’s prints matched those found in Reynolds’ apartment and the key to the sculptor’s warehouse had been discovered in the dead man’s pocket.

  That gave Soldi and ADA Campari dibs on the case as well.

  “We’re back to square one, Julia,” Blake said. “Our best chance of linking this to Norton is dead. We’re at a dead end.”

  “Not really. Standish was working for someone,” Julia’s voice buzzed indistinctly through the phone. “That much is obvious. This wasn’t a guy so hell-bent on avoiding alimony that he was going to kill his ex.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Blake drew a deep breath. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was acting on behalf of a client. Ella has his firm’s official client list. She might even be able to dig up information on anyone under the radar . . .” His voice faded into silence.

  But would that be enough?

  There had to be a way of tying this to Norton.

  “There might still be,” Julia said when he broached his concerns.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  He listened carefully, asked a few questions.

  “Fine,” he said when he was satisfied the plan had a chance of working. “Get the ball rolling.”

  He hung up.

  He was about to walk over to Soldi when his phone rang again. He pulled it out of its holster and glanced at the screen.

  Ella.

  “Hey,” he greeted her.

  “Listen, I’ve found something.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “A few familiar names who were all using Standish’s accounting services.”

  “Go on.”

  “Hugh Norton for one.”

  “That confirms Sofia’s statement. They’re connected.” Didn’t prove a damn thing, but they were getting closer. “Who else?”

  “Dom Wozniak, Sofia’s father.”

  “Foster father, according to Celine,” Blake said. “And murderer.”

  He briefly recounted what Julia had told him.

  “Guy probably had the hots for Sofia’s mom.” Ella clearly didn’t see any significance in the details. Blake wasn’t sure he did either. “If Sofia’s anything to go by, her mom must have been quite the looker.”

  “Okay back to Standish’s clients. Any other familiar names? Walsh?” Blake lowered his voice. “What about Soldi?”

  “Neither one of them is on the list. But you’ll never guess who is. Your latest pal, ADA Mariah Campari.”

  “Oh!” It was all he could think to say. But why, he wondered, would a humble assistant district attorney for the state need the services of a shady accountant?

  “I did some digging, and ADA Campari owns works of art that are insured by Morgana Insurance—that’s Norton’s art insurance company.”

  “So they know each other.” The gears were spinning in Blake’s mind. Had Campari been Norton’s inside source, supplying him with details of the meeting at the Pru?

  It sure seemed that way.

  “There’s more, Blake,” Ella interrupted his speculations. “Campari lives in the same building as Reynolds. She has the apartment above his.”

  “You sure about this? She never mentioned it. That’s odd. Really odd.”

  “The insurance policy Norton’s firm drew up for her and Standish’s records both list the same address,” Ella said. But Blake wasn’t listening.

  His mind whirled, recalling bits and pieces of Celine’s insights from Reynolds’ apartment. There’d been a second woman—someone who’d turned the place upside down searching for what they now knew to be the Gardner’s Rembrandt etching.

  “She wasn’t wearing gloves,” he exclaimed.

  “Who?”

  “The second woman in Reynolds’ apartment. She wasn’t wearing gloves.”

  “You’re thinking it was Campari?”

  Blake didn’t bother to confirm. “Get hold of her fingerprints, will you? I’ll have Soldi fax over a copy of the prints his guys found in the apartment.”

  Chapter Eighty-One

  The news of Standish’s murder didn’t seem to provide any comfort to Sofia. Nothing, Celine realized, would. She’d experienced enough death to know that.

  “He’s escaped justice.” Sofia turned from Julia to Celine, lips tightly compressed in a face that was beginning to look gaunt and pale. “What good does that do?”

  Raw pain and misery were etched into her face. Celine was close to tears herself. What could anyone say or do to ease that kind of pain?

  Julia clicked her phone shut and sat down. Jonah’s gaze was riveted on his palms. For once, he had nothing glib to offer.

  “You’d have preferred to see him arrested,” Celine said gently. “To see human justice served?” She emphasized the words human justice.

  That hadn’t been served, it was true. But a higher justice had. More justice than her parents had received when they’d been murdered, Celine reflected. More than most victims received. She kept that thought to herself; it would’ve been insensitive to voice it.

  Standish had been struck down by a force far greater and more effective than the human hands that wielded the legal justice system.

  But Sofia didn’t understand. Frowning, she said, “Naturally.”

  It would’ve been futile to tell her that Reynolds—and Bev, too—didn’t see it that way. Standish had been betrayed by the very people he’d trusted, the ones he’d been working for, the ones whose wrath he’d hoped to avoid by turning on his friend and ex-wife. It was a fitting end.

  But arrested and sent to prison, the maximum sentence he’d have served in Massachusetts was life without parole.

  All that assuming the prosecution didn’t lose the case on some technicality.

  He deserved to die, Reynolds said. A life for a life. Tell her that.

  “Human justice is imperfect,” Celine said. “Divine justice is not.”

  “She’s right,” Julia added quietly. “You have no idea how long it takes. It doesn’t end with an arrest. It can be years before you get your day in court. And even then, a competent defense can get the worst offender off with little more than a slap on the wrist.”

  She thinks Daddy’s contacts would hasten the process, Reynolds scoffed. It wouldn’t. Tell her that.

  “It’s better this way,” Celine pressed on. “Pete Standish paid for the lives he took with his own.�
��

  Sofia turned to her, furious. “Pete was killed by the men he was working for. The ones who hired him to murder Tony and Bev. And you call that divine justice?”

  She stood up. “I know you’re only trying to help, but . . .” She shook her head. “I’d like to go home now. I need to be alone.”

  “Of course.” Julia nodded. “But it would be best if one of us went with you.”

  “Allow me.” Jonah rose eagerly to his feet and directed what was meant to be a charming, flirtatious grin at Sofia.

  Celine winced. The smile and his manner were completely inappropriate, but at least his words were not. Fortunately, it didn’t look as though Sofia had noticed.

  “I think Celine should go,” Julia cut in firmly.

  She indicated the couch with her forefinger.

  “Sit down, Jonah. You and I have a story to discuss.” She glanced up at the reporter, who stood stock-still before her, his expression blank. “Assuming you’re still interested in that scoop you’ve been pestering us about.”

  “Scoop?” Jonah’s eyes glittered. He sank back onto the couch, Sofia forgotten. “Yeah, sure.”

  Celine suppressed an amused smile. Julia knew exactly how to handle the reporter. And he hadn’t even realized he’d been played.

  She walked toward the door and opened it.

  “Let’s go.”

  Reynolds climbed into the armored van with them, sitting across from Celine and Sofia.

  I have to go now, he said. Tell her it’s all right.

  “Tony is here,” Celine said to Sofia. “He’s at peace. He’s leaving now. He wants to say goodbye.”

  Sofia nodded. Celine saw the glint of barely suppressed tears in her eyes as she turned her face away.

  “Is there anything you’d like to say to him?”

  “Tell him I’m sorry.” Sofia kept her head averted.

  “You should tell him yourself. He can hear your voice.”

  Sofia turned, misery writ large on her features. “Oh, Tony!” Her face crumpled and she began sobbing. “I should’ve trusted you, stood by you.”

  Tell her, I understand. There were things I couldn’t tell her then. Things that would’ve helped her understand.