The Collector

by Nora Roberts

  Sometime during the endless interlude of wait, comfort, wait, they’d taken Vinnie and the other body away.

  “She’ll have to see him the way I saw Oliver,” he said when Fine came back. “On a slab, covered by a sheet. Through the glass. She’ll never erase that memory, no matter how many others they made over the years. She’ll never erase that single one.”

  “Come with me.” She carried a laptop and a sealed evidence bag holding a CD. “Does Mrs. Tartelli have a minister, a priest, a rabbi?”

  “They weren’t especially religious.”

  “I can give you the names of a couple of grief counselors.”

  “Yes.” He latched onto that. “Yes, thank you.”

  They made their way back, through chairs, tables, displays and shelves.

  Lila sat with Waterstone at a pedestal dining table with Lila listening intently as Waterstone talked.

  Waterstone glanced up, and a faint flush rose up his neck. Clearing his throat, he sat back.

  “I’m going to have them look at the surveillance footage,” Fine announced.

  Waterstone’s eyebrows drew together. Ash thought he started to speak, likely to object or question, then perhaps reading some silent signal from his partner, he shrugged.

  “I’m going to start it when Mr. Tartelli was alone in the shop with an as-yet-unidentified female.”

  “A woman?” Lila watched Fine open the laptop, turn it on. “A woman did this? That’s a stupid thing to be surprised about,” she said immediately. “Women do terrible things just as men do.” She reached over, touched Ash’s hand when he stepped beside her chair. “Angie.”

  “They let her go home. Her family’s there.”

  Fine inserted the CD, cued it.

  Ash watched Vinnie offer wine to a woman in a floaty summer dress and heels. Short, dark hair, sleekly muscled arms, great legs. She turned, and he caught the full profile. Asian, he noted. Full, sculpted lips, angular cheek, almond eyes, a thick fringe of bangs.

  “You’ll see she doesn’t worry about the cameras—and she knows they’re there. Earlier footage shows her going through the shop, floor by floor, with the victim. She touches a number of things, so she’s not concerned with prints either.”

  “I can’t really see her face,” Lila said.

  “You will.”

  But Ash could. His artist’s eye only needed that profile to put the rest together. Exotic, stunning, with features beautifully chiseled and balanced.

  He’d have painted her as a Siren, one who called men to their deaths.

  On the laptop screen, she smiled, turned.

  “Wait. Can you— Wait. Can you stop it, just go back a few seconds and stop it?” Lips pressed together, Lila leaned closer. “I’ve seen her. I’ve seen her somewhere, but . . . The market! The market between the bank and the apartment I was sitting. But her hair was long. She was in the market. I spoke to her.”

  “You spoke to her?” Fine demanded.

  “Yes. I was leaving, with my bags, and she was standing there. I told her I liked her shoes. They were great shoes. She said she liked mine, but she didn’t. They were just my walking sandals.”

  “Are you sure it’s the same woman?” Waterstone asked her.

  “Look at that face. It’s amazing. How many women have a face that fabulous?”

  “Did she have an accent?” Fine asked.

  “No, not at all. She was wearing a dress—shorter than the one there, and sexier. More skin, and these high wedge sandals. She looked a little surprised when I spoke to her, but people often do when you just blurt something out to a stranger. But she was polite. She had gorgeous skin, like gold dust over porcelain.”

  “Where’s the market?”

  Waterstone noted it down when Lila told him.

  “And you? Do you recognize her?”

  “No.” Ash shook his head. “I’d remember that face. She’s tall. Vinnie’s about six feet, and in the heels they’re eye level. She’s got about an inch on him. So she’s about five-nine. Slim, but ripped. I’d know her if I saw her again. She’s playing client with a rich husband, major sale coming up.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Janis told Angie, Angie told me. Vinnie stayed after closing to wait for the husband.”

  Saying nothing, Fine continued the feed.

  Vinnie shared wine with his killer, Ash thought, then walked to the door to let the accomplice in.

  Then everything changed. Fear came into Vinnie’s eyes. He held up his hands, a gesture of surrender, of cooperation, before he was forced at gunpoint into the office. And the screen showed only the empty shop.

  “Did you recognize the man?” Fine asked Lila.

  “No. No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him. He didn’t look familiar at all. Just her.”

  Fine ejected the CD, resealed it, re-marked it. “They came here for something. The way it looks, the unidentified male tried to beat the information out of the victim. Approximately thirty minutes after they went into the office, the female came out, made a phone call. She talked for several minutes, seemed satisfied, and reentered the office. About four minutes later, she exited alone. She did not look satisfied, but annoyed. She went upstairs, where those cameras show her taking a decorative box off a shelf, padding it with bubble wrap. She came back down, boxed it, even tied it with a ribbon. She took another item, a cigarette case, from a display behind the counter—like an afterthought. She put both in a shopping bag and exited by the front door.”

  “The clerk identified the case as some Austrian thing.” Waterstone took over. “Turn of the twentieth century, value about three grand. The box was a Fabergé bonbonniere, a lot more valuable—she estimated about two hundred grand retail. What do you know about that box?”

  “Nothing. I don’t even know what it is.”

  “It’s a box made to hold candy or sweets,” Lila put in. “Antique bonbonnieres can be very valuable. I used one in a book,” she explained. “I didn’t sell the book, but I used a bonbonniere to deliver poisoned truffles. Fabergé,” she repeated. “Ash.”

  He nodded. “I don’t know anything about the box. Maybe she took the case as a souvenir—like she did Julie’s shoes and perfume. The box must be a gift, or why tie it in a bow? But she took a Fabergé piece, and that’s probably not an accident. They came here looking for a different Fabergé piece, one worth a hell of a lot more than that box. Worth millions. One of the lost Imperial eggs. The Cherub with Chariot.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Oliver. The best I can put together is he acquired it at an estate sale—a legitimate sale where he represented Vinnie’s business. But he bought the egg under the table. He didn’t tell Vinnie. Vinnie didn’t know about it until I told him Thursday evening.”

  “You didn’t bother to tell us,” Waterstone snapped.

  “I didn’t know about it until the day before, when I checked my post office box. Oliver sent me a package. Covering his bases, or counting on me to cover them for him.”

  “He sent you a Fabergé egg worth millions through the mail?”

  “No. He sent me a key—safe-deposit box—and a note asking me to hold it for him until he got in touch.”

  “I was with him.” For better or worse, Lila thought, it was time for details. “That’s when I saw the woman in the market. Ash went to the bank to see what Oliver had put away, and I went into the market.”

  “I contacted Vinnie when I realized what it was. I made copies of the documents with it—most in Russian—and a bill of sale between Oliver and a Miranda Swanson, Sutton Place, but for her father’s estate in Long Island. Vinnie confirmed that was one of the estates Oliver handled. Just a few weeks ago. Vinnie had a contact who could translate the documents. I didn’t ask him who.”

  “Where’s the egg?” Fine demanded.

  “Safe.”

  He didn’t speak to Lila, didn’t so much as glance at her, but she clearly got the message. This detail wouldn’t be shared.
>
  “It’s where it’s going to stay until you find this woman and lock her up,” Ash added.

  “It’s evidence, Mr. Archer.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, however unethical the deal, it was my brother’s. He had a bill of sale, signed, dated, witnessed. And if I turn it over to you, I lose any leverage I have if this bitch comes after me or mine. So it stays safe.”

  He reached into his inside breast pocket, drew out a photo. “That’s it. If you can use them, I’ll make a copy of all the documents, but the egg stays just where it is. You can try to push it,” he added, “and I’ll call out the lawyers. I’d rather avoid that—and I think you’d rather avoid it even more.”

  Waterstone sat back, tapped his blunt fingertips on the exquisite table. “Let’s go back over the details and the timing, right back to the night of your brother’s murder. This time don’t leave anything out.”

  “I never did,” Ash reminded him. “You can’t leave out what you don’t know.”

  Thirteen

  Lila answered questions, filled in with her perspective, and literally let out a whoosh of relief when the police told them they could go.

  For now.

  “I feel like I should friend them on Facebook.”

  Distracted, Ash glanced down at her as he grabbed her hand to pull her to the corner.

  “Fine and Waterstone. I’ve been spending so much time with them, I feel like we should stay connected. Or not. Ash, I’m so sorry about Vinnie.”

  “So am I.” He stepped to the curb, held up a hand to hail a cab.

  “I can’t even imagine all you have to deal with. I’m just going to take the subway to Julie’s. I’m staying there tonight before I start the new job. If you need anything, just call me.”

  “What? No. Yes, I have a lot to deal with. You’re part of it.” He snagged a cab, all but bundled her inside it, then gave the driver his address. “We’ll go to my place.”

  She considered the circumstances, swallowed down the instinct to object to being told rather than asked. “Okay, then. I should call Julie, let her know what’s going on. She’ll be expecting me.”

  “I texted Luke. He’s with her. They know.”

  “Well, you’ve got it all lined up.”

  He either ignored or missed the sarcasm and only shrugged. “What were you and Waterstone talking about—when Fine brought me down?”

  “Oh, his son. Brennon’s sixteen and driving Waterstone crazy. He dyed his hair orange, like a carrot, decided he’s a vegan—except for cheese pizza and milkshakes. He’s playing bass in a garage band and says he wants to quit school and pursue his music career.”

  Ash said nothing for a moment. “He told you all that?”

  “All that, and we were just getting to his daughter. Josie’s thirteen and spends too much time texting the friends she just left in real life ten minutes before. It must be an experience, having two teenagers in the house.”

  “I thought he was interrogating you.”

  “He did—I mean he questioned me, but I didn’t really have that much to say. I asked if he had a family. It has to be hard being a cop, especially in New York, and trying to balance a family life. And getting him to talk about his kids took my mind off where we were. Plus it was nice knowing he loves his kids, he’s just currently baffled by them.”

  “Now why didn’t I think to ask Fine if she had a family?”

  “She’s divorced, no kids.” Absently, Lila shoved a loose pin back in her chignon—and realized she was way past ready to let it down again. “But she’s seeing somebody pretty seriously right now. Waterstone told me.”

  “I’m taking you to every cocktail party, and police interrogation, I have to deal with for the rest of my life.”

  “Let’s try to cut back on the police interrogations.” She wanted to ask what he intended to do about the egg, but didn’t think the back of a cab was the right place.

  “Did you really take a helicopter from Connecticut?”

  “It was the quickest way to get Angie back, and there’s a pad behind the tennis courts.”

  “Of course there is.”

  “I need to call her,” he added, pulling out his wallet when the driver swung to the curb in front of his loft. “And my mother. I’ll only have to explain things once to my mother, and she’ll tell everyone else who needs to know.”

  “Are you going to tell her about . . . everything?”

  “No.” He paid the driver, held the door open for Lila. “Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “I told Vinnie, and now he’s dead.”

  “That’s not your fault. It’s not,” she insisted. “Oliver acquired the egg, Oliver worked for Vinnie. Oliver acquired the egg while working for Vinnie. Do you really believe this woman wouldn’t have . . . done what she did whether or not you told Vinnie? She had no way of knowing what you told him, but I bet she knew Oliver worked for him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Not maybe, fact. It’s just logical. If you take away the emotion, which is hard to do, you get to the logical.”

  “You want a beer?” he asked when they went inside.

  “Sure, a beer, why not?” She trailed after him into the kitchen. “Ash, here’s the logic, and I probably got there first because I didn’t know Oliver or Vinnie.” She paused as he took two bottles of Corona out of the fridge. “Do you want to hear my theory?”

  “Sure, a theory, why not?”

  “You get a pass for smart-ass, considering. All right, logic says this woman knew Oliver—he or Sage probably let them into the apartment that night. The police said there was no forced entry. He wrote you he had a client—she’s the client. Maybe he met her through Sage, because it seems like Sage was the main target. The dead thug had to be the one I saw hitting her. But she couldn’t tell him where the egg was, because Oliver didn’t tell her. How’s that so far?”

  He handed her the opened beer. “Logical.”

  “It is. The thug went too far, and Sage went out the window. Now they’ve got a mess on their hands, have to act fast. Oliver was half out of it anyway because they drugged him—which also points to them thinking Sage had the information, plus she’d be easier to get the information from. They have to get out, can’t take Oliver with them, so they fake his suicide. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s done. Keep going.”

  “I think they stayed fairly close, watched. Maybe they checked Oliver’s phone, saw he’d called you a few days before. Aha, they think, maybe the brother knows something.”

  Despite a dragging fatigue, he smiled a little. “Aha?”

  “Or words to that effect. They follow you to the police station, see you with me, see us talking. I’m the witness, what did I see—or could I be more involved? Anyway, they—probably just she—goes to Julie’s, where she thinks I live, but there’s nothing there. She takes her souvenirs, and thinks about it. Then I come here to see you, and the logic from her side is something’s going on. She follows us—then me into the market, where I comment on her shoes. She had to see us go into the Kilderbrands’ building.”

  “And figuring that gave her time, doubled back here, broke in, looked around.”

  “But you didn’t have the egg, or anything about it, here. She may wonder why you went into the bank, but from all appearances you came out with what you went in with. Very likely she still thinks you—or we—are involved, but the next stop is Vinnie.”

  “And if she saw him come here, that cemented it.”

  “All right, yes, but she’d have gotten to him either way. The Fabergé piece she took makes me think she may have asked him about Fabergé eggs, just testing the waters. Don’t you think she would?”

  “If I were pretending to be a rich customer, yeah, I’d have asked about Fabergé.”

  “Logical,” Lila confirmed. “She brings in the thug, who again takes things too far, but this time she gets rid of him.”

  He took a slug of beer, watched—interested and stirred—as Lila pull
ed pins from her hair. “Temper or cool blood?”

  “It can be both. He was a thug, but she’s a predator.”

  Intrigued, as he’d had the same image, he took another, slower sip of his beer. “Why do you say that?”