To Catch a Thief--A High Stakes Romantic Suspense

by Sloane Steele

  Then she realized she was happy about becoming a quality liar and something about that didn’t sit right with her.

  She tucked the paperwork and the magnets into her purse to take to Nikki and Audrey as soon as she wrapped up meetings for the day. They’d been at this for less than two months, but she couldn’t remember what it was like to only work her museum job. She felt like she was constantly running—and running behind.

  She barely got settled behind her desk when Anya rapped on her door. Without waiting for a response, she stuck her head in. “I saw you just got back. Do you have a minute?”

  Mia waved her in.

  “It’s about Farm Girl Dreams.”

  “I thought I told you to drop it.”

  “I was going to, but I couldn’t help myself. I picked up sightings of it in the late ’60s when it appeared in a traveling exhibit. The trail goes cold again after that, but I have the name of the family who loaned it to the exhibit.”

  Mia had gotten that far in her own research, but she let Anya have the win. “That’s above and beyond what I asked for. Thank you.”

  “No problem. I loved it. Like I said, it feels like a treasure hunt. And here’s a little tidbit: I think the reason it went quiet is that it was pulled from the exhibit before the tour was done. There were rumors of falsified provenance.” She handed a piece of paper to Mia. “I haven’t tracked down current family members or made any calls. I didn’t know how far you wanted to take this.”

  Mia stared at the paper. “This is more than enough. Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  Mia’s afternoon just became booked.

  “You’re welcome.” Anya flashed her a bright smile, and for the first time, Mia felt it was genuine.

  “Do you have the information on the pieces you’d like to include in the Crime and Punishment exhibit?”

  “I’ll have it on your desk first thing in the morning.”

  “I look forward to it. If you’ve put half the effort into curating a valuable experience there as you have in this research, I’m sure it will be amazing.”

  Anya looked damn near giddy as she left Mia’s office. Since Mia had some time before her last meeting of the day, she researched the information Anya had gotten. Even though this exercise had started as a means to test whether Logan was lying to her, it had become something she wanted to see through. She wanted to find this painting for his family. Mia made the last of her calls and left the museum around dinnertime. She let Nikki and Audrey know she had the magnet alarms, but they only had them for the night, so they needed to work fast.

  * * *

  Logan paced the conference room, waiting for Stokes. She got waylaid by an agent on another case, which was good for him. He was still processing what Small had told him.

  Stokes finally came in juggling a legal pad and two coffees. “Figured we’d need this.”

  “Thanks. What’d you get from McNamara’s?” He took a seat across from her.

  She flipped her pad to the right page. “They’re locked on. If there’s something shady happening there, we’d have a hard time proving it. They have a total system from pickup to drop-off. Once on-site, the crate is on camera until it’s taken to the lab for inspection. No cameras in the lab rooms, but all over the hall. No one is walking out with the painting undetected. I talked to the delivery crew. They said the crate was completely sealed and didn’t appear to have been tampered with.”

  “So no help.”

  “How’d it go with Small?”

  “More of the same. He supervised the crate up, and it was sitting in his dining room overnight waiting for pickup. Wife is out of town. No breach in the security system. He’s pissed. He thinks someone screwed up somewhere. Definitely the kind of guy who will sue the fuck out of Atlas if he can.”

  “Can they all be that good at acting?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If they’re all playing a game, trying to sell forgeries, is it possible for them to all be so good at faking outrage?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I doubt it. We’re four forgeries deep. We’ve talked to each of these men and we haven’t seen any cracks. No slips.”

  “You think someone is fucking with them. They either bought a forgery, and the Atlas rep was in on it, or someone replaced the original.” As soon as he said the words, he thought of Mia again.

  But he’d been with her when she looked at Bishop’s painting. They’d been together all night. Except when she went to the bathroom. There hadn’t been enough time for her to switch the painting, and he definitely would’ve noticed her leaving with one. And Small said he’d been with her in his house. She couldn’t be behind this.

  “These are rich, powerful men,” Logan said. “I’m sure they all have their fair share of enemies. I think we need to start looking for who they have in common.”

  “They all work in different fields. How is that possible?”

  “Hell if I know. Let’s start at the top.”

  She started shuffling papers on the table and pulling together information on each man.

  Before they were able to dig into anything, Logan’s phone rang. “Another call from Atlas? This can’t be good.” He accepted the call and immediately put it on speaker. “Hi, Greg. You’re on speaker. I’m here with Agent Stokes. Please don’t tell me there’s another forgery already.”

  “No, thank God. I’m calling because I just received word from McNamara’s about an estate sale they’re handling. One of our clients, Jerome Bauer, died last week. His wife is selling everything in the house, including a Hardison painting we insure.”

  Stokes flipped through the files and grabbed the information they had on Bauer.

  “When is the estate sale happening?”

  “Thursday.”

  “That’s fast. What’s the rush?”

  Greg cleared his throat. “I don’t want to gossip about clients, but Mrs. Bauer has already moved out of state and just wants to get rid of everything.”

  “Sounds like she’s not too distraught over her husband’s death. What can we do?”

  “McNamara’s has people working almost around the clock appraising items and preparing them for sale. They’ve already removed the items they felt they couldn’t sell and donated them. They called us to make us aware of the impending sale. Mrs. Bauer didn’t provide them with provenance and she hoped we would have a copy.”

  “Have they authenticated it?”

  “No. It’s not something Mrs. Bauer wanted to pay for. I’m sending our expert there on Wednesday. It’s the earliest McNamara’s would give us access.”

  “It would be better to have access immediately. Do they have a security system set up?”

  “The Bauers have one, of course. McNamara’s is adding alarms to individual pieces.”

  “Do they have monitoring?”

  “Only on the main system.”

  “Do we have any reason to suspect that the painting in the house is a forgery?”

  “Nothing specific.”

  “Did Bauer plan to sell the Hardison?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. His wife would probably know.”

  “All right. We’ll be in touch.” Logan disconnected and looked at Stokes. “What do you think?”

  She was already pulling up information on her laptop. “Bauer’s death was a car accident, so this sale probably wasn’t planned. If we go with the theory that when the sale is announced, someone trades the original for a forgery, it might not have happened yet.”

  “The man died days ago. Anything is possible.”

  “The wife kept it quiet. Not a secret, but no big service. No half-page obit. She had McNamara’s move in fast. You want to ask Mia Benson to take a look at it?”

  Logan thought for a moment. He couldn’t risk bringing her in if she played a role
in the forgeries. He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility, especially in light of her being at Small’s house Friday night. “I don’t think it’s in our best interest to bring her in again. She’s not a certified appraiser, so regardless of what she says, it won’t really hold up. McNamara’s has no reason to listen to her.”

  “I guess you have a point. You pulled it off once with Bishop. I’m not sure it would work again. I think we should sit on the house and see who shows up.”

  “We have to ask Taggert to authorize overtime.”

  “I’ll check with him. It’s only two days. You prefer day or night?”

  “I have something I need to take care of tonight, so if you can do tonight, I’ll relieve you first thing in the morning.”

  “Sure. In that case, I’ll talk to Taggert and head home for a bit. Can you notify McNamara’s that we’ll be around? I’d hate for them to call the local cops on me.”

  “No problem. Get some rest.”

  After she was gone, Logan reviewed their notes, this time looking at Mia as a suspect. She knew all of the victims—but based on how he’d heard her talk about them, she wouldn’t consider them victims. She had the art knowledge to know what to go after. Hell, she might have the knowledge to create a passable forgery.

  He logged into his computer and searched Mia’s financials. He was bending the rules to access the information, but he didn’t want this to be official. At least not yet. Right now, he just needed to know who he was dealing with.

  * * *

  That evening, Mia handed Audrey the specs for the alarms as soon as she walked into the apartment. Then she sat at the table with Nikki to explain how they worked. “This sensor connects with a magnet. The sensor gets stuck to the wall behind a painting, and the magnet’s on the back of the painting or the frame. Once engaged, the painting can’t be moved more than a few inches at most without setting off the alarm.”

  She set the sensor and the magnet close together and engaged them. Then she shifted the magnet away until it triggered the alarm.

  “Does it matter how close they are when they’re engaged?” Nikki asked. “Or is it a standard three inches or whatever they can be moved?”

  Mia turned to Audrey. “I think it’s a little of both, correct?”

  “Yeah,” Audrey responded without looking up. “It’s a range of two to six inches, but environmental factors play a role.”

  Nikki picked up the small magnet and moved it away from the sensor. An inch and the alarm went off. Mia showed her how to reset it. “You push them within that six-inch distance to make a connection. The light goes on to show they’re connected. My hope is that Audrey can rig something to interrupt the signal without making it think it’s been interrupted.”

  “What if I take the magnet and the base together? Like rip them from the wall?”

  Mia shook her head. “If they’re removed from the premises, where the system is located, the alarm will trigger.”

  “Fuck.” Nikki got up and paced. “So I need to be able to reach my hand behind the painting, pull the magnet off, but hold it in place, remove the painting, replace the new one, and attach the alarm. I’ll need like three extra hands.”

  Audrey joined them at the table holding the papers with the alarm specs. “We’ll figure this out. We always do.” She held up a screwdriver and grabbed the sensor.

  Mia held up a hand. “You cannot destroy these. They’re on loan from the museum.”

  “You use these?” Nikki asked.

  “No, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “I don’t shit where I eat. If you get fired, I lose this gig.”

  Mia cringed. “I didn’t need to hear that. These were given to our security department as samples, but I’m expected to return them.”

  “You’ll be able to bring them back. And they’ll even look like they haven’t been tampered with. I’ll do my best not to really screw them up.” Audrey popped open the sensor and inspected the tiny wires. “They use RF signals. According to the specs, some ferrous metals can interfere. I just need to figure out what we can introduce to the room to make it go haywire.”

  “How does that help?” Mia asked.

  “Kind of like what we did to Darren Turner,” Nikki said. “Make the system go crazy, and they’ll turn it off.”

  “Exactly,” Audrey agreed. “My signal jammer might work for this. It’s a pretty simple design.” She snapped the cover back on the sensor and made a connection with the magnet again. “See? Still works.”

  Then she crossed the room and dug around through the piles of stuff on the desk. Once she found her jammer, she pressed the button. Nikki slid the magnet along the table, away from the sensor, and the alarm went off. They reset it, Audrey stepped closer, and they tried again. It still didn’t work.

  “Maybe it’s not as simple as you think,” Mia said.

  “It’s also not that complicated. I just need the right frequency and the right distance.”

  After about ten more trials, it worked. Mia blinked as she stared at the sensor. “Wait a minute. Try it again.”

  Nikki reset the sensor and they stared at the red light. Audrey hit her jammer, the light turned off, and Nikki slid the magnet away.

  Audrey executed a fist pump.

  “Don’t get too excited,” Mia told them. “You’re a foot away. If Nikki is standing there, jamming the signal, it might send a message to the system. Bare minimum, it notifies the owner, in this case McNamara’s, via phone call or text.”

  “What if someone goes in and tests it?” Nikki asked.

  “How?” Something told Mia she wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “If you go in and use the jammer, you’ll know immediately if they’re notified. If they are, they’ll need to do a reset, which means the painting comes off the wall. You’ll be able to see the placement and let me know. If you leave the jammer tucked somewhere, it will keep interfering until they think they have a bad sensor. Then I swoop in, make the swap, and leave before they come back with a new sensor.”

  Mia’s head spun. “You think that will work?”

  Nikki shrugged. “It’s worth a try. We’ve done crazier things. The real question is, can you get in? The estate sale starts Thursday.”

  “I don’t know. I can try.”

  “Let’s do it tomorrow afternoon,” Nikki said.

  “All right.” Mia stood and picked up the sensor and magnet. Looking at the specs, she asked Audrey, “Are you done with these?”

  Audrey pulled out her phone and took a few photos. “For reference.”

  “I’ll call you when I’m leaving work and heading to the Bauer house.” Mia left the apartment wondering how the hell she’d just gotten roped into playing yet another role in these heists.

  When the car pulled up to her building, Logan was standing in the lobby again. She checked her phone. She hadn’t missed any calls or texts. A sinking feeling settled in her chest.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Logan thought all afternoon about how to approach Mia. He cared for her and he wanted to try to make their relationship work, but not if it was based on lies. If she was involved in the forgeries, he couldn’t stay with her. He would have no choice but to arrest her.

  Asking her about her visit to Small was all he had to go on, and he hoped it would be enough to put his concerns to rest. When she strode through the door of the building, he took one look at her and hoped he would hold on to his resolve.

  “Logan. What are you doing here?”

  “I hope it’s okay that I just showed up. I needed to see you.”

  “Of course it’s all right. Have you been waiting long?”

  Quite a while, since I went to the museum first and you were already gone. “Not too long.” He bent and kissed her cheek.

  “Have you eaten dinner?” she asked
as they stepped on the elevator.

  “Not yet.”

  “Good. I’m starving. I’ll cook us something.”

  “You cook?”

  She angled her head and looked up at him. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “You were shocked when I offered to cook. I thought that was because you don’t. You strike me as the kind of woman who would rather order in than make a mess cooking.”

  The elevator dinged at her floor and they stepped off. “It’s not messy if you know what you’re doing.”

  “If you say so.”

  She unlocked her door and set her purse on the table. “Come on in and make yourself comfortable. How does a salad and pasta sound?”

  “Anything would be good. I’m hungry. Had a busy day at work.”

  She disappeared around the corner to her kitchen, but her voice still carried. “Really? Any ideas on where the forgeries are coming from?”

  He stepped into the kitchen and leaned against her island to watch her work. She already had water on the stove for pasta and was chopping vegetables. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Wash and cut the lettuce.” She pointed at it with her knife.

  He rolled up his sleeves and went to work. It felt very homey, and he liked it in ways he shouldn’t. Right now, he could be making dinner with a suspect. He kept telling himself that she wasn’t a person of interest, but his doubts were growing. They worked side by side in silence for a while.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” She turned away from him and added salt to her boiling water. She put the pasta in the pot and began creating a sauce. The smell of garlic and tomato filled the kitchen.

  “It will keep until we’re sitting to eat.” He needed to be able to see her face, look into her eyes. He was good at reading people. He was sure he could read her. “How was work for you?”

  “The Crime and Punishment exhibit that I told you about is moving quickly. Unfortunately, that means that my days are filled with meetings and emails and conference calls to make it all happen.”