Sloane shrugged, polishing off her shrimp in black bean sauce. “Maybe having you answer the phone caught him off guard. It is a little awkward, talking to a live-in boyfriend you’ve never met.”
“Maybe. Although artists are usually the most open-minded people in the world.” Derek’s gaze was steady, and there was no longer any banter in his tone. “So there’s no other reason I’d make him uncomfortable?”
“None that I can think of. Unless you made an aura joke. That would offend him. He takes his craft very seriously.”
“Nope. No aura jokes. Just Special Agent Derek Parker, being himself.”
The comment was too pointed for Sloane to ignore.
She raised her head and met his gaze. “Is there something you wanted to ask me?”
“Dozens of somethings. But I respect your position. So I’ll get my own answers—for now.”
“What kind of answers?” Sloane demanded. “And why are you grilling me about Leo?”
“You’re way too intelligent not to have figured that out.”
Sloane sucked in her breath. “If you honestly believe this is part of a bigger picture…”
“I do.”
“And if that bigger picture causes you to worry about my safety…”
“It does.”
“Then don’t I deserve some kind of explanation—some forewarning?”
“Yes—unless you plan on sharing it with your father.”
A weighty pause.
“I won’t,” Sloane replied at last. “Not unless it puts him at risk, either legally or physically.”
“Ah. Therein lies the rub. I can’t promise you that unless you tell me what you know. And you can’t tell me what you know unless I promise you that. A catch-22, if ever there was one.”
“Dammit, Derek.” Sloane raked a hand through her hair. “You know my hands are tied. I’ve told you my father’s innocent of any major crime that you or your friend on the Art Crime Team could be investigating. That’s all the wiggle room I have. You have a lot more latitude on your end about what you can or can’t say.”
“You’re right. And, for the record, I’ve spoken to Tony. I’m the lead case agent on the C-6 investigation that I’m concerned might be tied to your father. I think Tony might ease up on the need-to-know directive where it comes to you. But not if there’s a blatant conflict of interests. You’re representing your father. That’s both a legal and a personal conflict. I’m not sure how to get past it. But I’m trying.”
Sloane nodded. “I appreciate that. And, for the record, at my end, I’ve pushed my father to opt for full disclosure. I’m still hopeful that will happen. But you’re not the only one who worries about me. He does, too.”
“I realize that. I also realize that worry is reciprocated. Since the break-in, you’ve hired round-the-clock security on both your parents.”
Grim lines tightened around Sloane’s mouth. “So you know about the bodyguards. Did you share that information with Tony?”
Derek had no intention of lying. “Yes.”
“And, from that, you both deduced there’s a big conspiracy going on. How about deducing that the security stems from precaution, not from my father’s potential guilt?”
“Doesn’t fly. Uncharacteristically overreactive on your part. That is, if the burglary at your parents’ apartment was really just a simple burglary. Which we both know it wasn’t.”
Sloane didn’t avert her gaze. “Don’t put me in this position.”
“I don’t want to. But when it comes down to a question of your safety or your father’s freedom, there’s no choice to make.”
Xiao Long received the telephone call that night. It came in on his throwaway cell phone.
He was being summoned. All the necessary arrangements had been made.
He had only to pack a bag. A car would be waiting to take him to the airport.
The morning after next, he’d be in Hong Kong to see the sunrise.
CHAPTER NINE
Something was bugging Rich Williams.
The past two days, from dusk till dawn, he’d been buried in meetings and exchanging phone calls with Interpol, with the Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA—the German federal police—and with the regional headquarters of the Bundespolizei in Munich. There was no doubt that the heist at the Kunsthalle München fit the same pattern as the others. It was a trademark performance of the Black Eagles, a brutal gang from Lezhë, Albania. Interpol had been hunting them down since their early days as gunrunners to Kosovo. By now they’d grown in size and strength, evolving into a major art-theft ring. Violent and ruthless, they operated without a shred of remorse or emotion.
They’d do anything, kill anyone, for money.
A plan was being formulated to break them up. At the drop of a hat, Rich might be required to go undercover and fly to Europe.
Coordinating strategies posed by various international government agencies had dominated his life these past few days. But those discussions weren’t what was bugging him now.
After a hectic forty-eight hours of work, he’d been too wound up to sleep. And since his mind was now free to focus on other things, it kept flitting back to Derek’s certainty that Matthew Burbank’s involvement in the Rothberg sale went deeper than just an innocent transaction.
Rich had known Derek since he was a NAT—a new agent in training. He’d spotted Derek’s sharp instincts from their first conversation. And, given he was like a dog with a bone on this one, maybe it did warrant a closer look. Not to mention, Rich had given him his word.
The Field Office was quiet as the first rays of sunlight rose over Manhattan. Rich went out, bought himself an extra-large cup of coffee and a bacon-and-egg sandwich. He munched on breakfast and drank his coffee at his desk. At the same time, he carefully reread each of the interviews he’d conducted with the five members of Burbank’s art group.
Phil Leary’s accounting records were in perfect order. The purchase of Dead or Alive for $125,000 at a reputed Manhattan art gallery in 1990 had been confirmed by the gallery owner, and Leary’s bookkeeping entries coincided with the date and amount on the original receipt. Matthew Burbank had produced that original receipt, along with catalog photos of the painting and written correspondence between Wallace Johnson and the gallery owner arranging for the transaction. Johnson had been shrewd enough to recognize Rothberg’s genius when he was still a relative unknown. Three years later, that same painting would have sold for twice the price.
It had sold five years later for even more.
Leary’s records on the sale of Dead or Alive were as meticulous as those on the buy. Cai Wen, a wealthy Hong Kong art dealer, had snatched up the painting, willingly paying $375,000 for what he recognized as a prime investment.
The financial records were precise, right down to the last date and dollar.
So what was bugging Rich?
He turned his attention back to the interview with Leary, rereading it sentence by sentence. The arrangements. The transactions. The records. The files.
That was it. The files were the inconsistency.
In his nervous recounting, Leary had explained the way their group worked. Leary was the numbers guy. Johnson was the art connoisseur, with the knowledge and the means to spot the high-value paintings, and to bid on them. Fox and Martino were the local guys. Fox was an interior designer, making him an artist in his own right. He had an eye for budding talent. Martino had a clothing manufacturing business, with dozens of contacts who knew, or were related to, struggling artists just looking for a break.
And Burbank was the art dealer, the one who negotiated deals full-time, and the glue that held them all together.
As precise as Leary’s financial records were, that’s how thorough Burbank’s files were. He kept every item of provenance available on the paintings—from photos to newspaper clippings to certificates of authenticity. He also kept duplicate receipts—not just on the buys but also on the sales.
He’d produced all that with regard to the Rothber
g purchase. What he hadn’t produced was a duplicate receipt for the sale. In fact, he’d produced nothing on the sale whatsoever, allowing Leary’s financial records to stand alone as proof.
Normally, that would be fine, since the buyer would have all the original paperwork. But if what Leary said was true, the absence of a thick file—or any file—on the sale was an anomaly for Burbank. Add to that the fact that their buyer had turned up murdered the day after the transaction, and all sorts of new questions were raised.
Was it possible that Burbank’s group had switched the genuine Rothberg for a fake, and then, when Cai Wen figured it out and confronted them, they’d killed him? Nope. Despite the gaping holes in the provenance of both the genuine and the fake Rothberg, the paper trail of the fake didn’t begin until 1997, when it was sold at an absurdly low price by an amateur collector—now nowhere to be found—to a gallery in Macao. In contrast, Burbank’s art investment group had conducted their transaction with Cai Wen in October 1995.
The next potential scenario was that Burbank, Fox, and Leary had tried to screw Cai Wen, or vice versa, and they’d wound up killing him.
Anything was possible, but if those three men were murderers, then Rich would eat his hat. Aside from Ben Martino’s misdemeanor DWI, none of them had a police record. None of them had brought a lawyer to the interview—not even Matthew Burbank, who had Sloane as free legal counsel. None of them was shrewd enough to realize that having total recall and providing near-identical details of a sale that happened fourteen years ago screamed rehearsed. And none of them was the hotheaded type.
They’d been total wrecks about being questioned by the FBI over a case of art fraud. If they’d killed a man, they would have passed out at Rich’s feet.
Still, there was that discrepancy over Burbank not producing a file on the Rothberg sale.
Rich pulled out his paperwork on Burbank’s interview to double-check. Yup. Memory had served him correctly. Not only hadn’t Burbank produced the comprehensive file Leary had alluded to, he’d never mentioned, much less emphasized, his thorough file-keeping system. And he’d certainly never broached the subject of a duplicate receipt.
This warranted further investigation—along with the proper venue and the element of surprise. It was the only way to catch Burbank off guard, throw him into a panic, and corner him into producing his other files.
Rich picked up the phone and dialed Derek’s number.
It was Derek’s second call of the morning.
Both calls had sucked.
The first one came before dawn, when Jeff called to report that something weird was going on with Xiao Long. He hadn’t been seen in Chinatown for the past two nights, nor had C-6 reported any comings or goings from his house in Long Island or his hangouts in the city. He hadn’t made or received any phone calls. It was as if he’d dropped out of sight. And that couldn’t mean anything good.
Derek’s stomach had clenched as he closed his cell and glanced at Sloane sleeping next to him. The timing of Xiao Long’s disappearance sucked. It made Derek only more suspicious that whatever was going on was somehow linked to the Bureau’s investigation of a connection between Xiao Long and Matthew Burbank.
So much for phone call one.
Derek had just finished his morning workout, during which he’d managed to convince himself that Xiao Long could just as easily be sick in bed as he could be hiding out, planning something sinister or letting the heat die down, when Rich’s call came in.
Afterward, Derek wrapped a towel around his neck and sank down on the bed. He had to think—and he didn’t have a lot of time to do it in. Sloane was out running with the hounds. She’d be back in a few minutes. And by the time she walked in, Derek had to have a plan to keep her busy and out of contact with her parents—at least for the morning.
In other words, he had to manipulate her.
With a muttered oath, Derek tossed the towel into the hamper and went to take a quick shower.
It took very little arm-twisting to persuade Leo Fox to push up their original appointment next week and to drive out to the cottage that morning. He seemed to be chomping at the bit to transform the place into the perfect love nest for Derek and Sloane. As for Sloane, her morning schedule was light, and after the intensity of the last two nights, Derek had no trouble convincing her that he did want to leave his mark on what was now their home—or why. Getting Leo there ASAP seemed like the most natural reaction in the world.
And Derek felt like the biggest SOB arranging it.
Leo arrived armed with stacks of fabric samples, decorating catalogs, and a burst of fanfare.
He was an average-size man with a long, thin face, a sallow complexion, and a shock of black hair. He reminded Derek of Bert from Sesame Street, except more expensively dressed and without the scowl. Leo was all smiles, carrying in his wares, tentatively greeting the hounds—although he drew the line at letting them sniff his samples—and pumping Derek’s hand when Sloane introduced them.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, scrutinizing Derek as subtly as he could—but not so subtly as to escape Derek’s notice. “Let me start out by telling you what a lucky man you are. I’ve known Sloane since she was a precocious little girl who climbed trees and roughhoused with the boys because the girls didn’t play hard enough. She was, and is, beautiful, smart, and afraid of nothing. I hope you can keep up.”
Derek found himself grinning as he pictured a miniature Sloane beating the crap out of the boys. “I can try.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Sloane rolled her eyes. “Derek is a former Army Ranger, Leo. He’s been an FBI agent for a dozen years, and he’s worked every kind of grisly violent crime you can imagine. Believe me, he can keep up. His morning workouts alone would kill me.”
“And your Krav Maga?” Leo inquired politely.
Sloane’s lips twitched. “That would kill him.”
“So you’re evenly matched.” The decorator beamed.
“We think so.” Derek looped an arm around Sloane’s shoulders. “As for knowing how lucky I am, I do. That’s why I’m so eager to get settled. I want to solidify what I’ve got.”
“Excellent. Then let’s get right to it.” Leo glanced around the hallway. “Where shall I set up?” he asked, indicating everything he’d brought along, which was currently perched on the hall table.
“How about the living room?” Sloane suggested. “There’s lots of room there to spread out.”
Leo glanced in the direction she indicated. “Perfect.” He was already halfway to his destination. Forget Bert. This guy was more like Road Runner, except as tightly wound as Wile E. Coyote right before he inevitably went over the cliff.
“I’ll leave all this in here while we take our walk-through,” Leo was continuing. “Sloane, give me a tour of the cottage as you’ve decorated it. Derek, I’ll ask you some questions as we walk. By the time we sit down, I’ll have a very good idea of what to show you.”
And I’ll have a very good idea of what you’re about, Derek thought. Because there’s a lot more to this visit than a decorating consultation.
Fred Miller had been working security for twenty years. He was a pro. He’d familiarized himself with every detail of Rosalyn Burbank’s routine. He also checked in with her twice a day to ensure she kept him apprised of her schedule.
This morning, she had a business breakfast to attend. He’d be picking her up outside her apartment in his navy Ford Explorer.
He arrived half an hour early, as always. And, as always, he checked to make sure his counterpart, Matthew Burbank’s security guard, was posted outside the building. Yup. Jake Lambert was right there. Jake handled the night shift, which meant that Tom O’Hara would be arriving soon to relieve him.
As Fred pulled up to the building, he and Jake exchanged impersonal nods. The doorman spotted Fred immediately, and gestured that, per instructions, he could leave his car right out front.
That done, Fred walked over to the Starbucks on East Eigh
tieth and York to get a cup of coffee.
The pedestrian traffic was typically congested on a weekday morning. Fred bought his coffee and stepped outside, nudging his way through the crowd to cross over and head back to his car. He stopped at the corner, waiting on the sidewalk for the light to change. He didn’t notice the stocky Asian man who came up behind him. His mind was running through the day’s schedule.
The light changed. The pedestrians began to cross.
That’s when Fred felt the searing pain of the switchblade as it plunged straight into his back.
The rest happened quickly. The Asian man moved before Fred could cry out, before his legs buckled under him, before the blood soaked through his suit. He grabbed Fred’s arm and shoved him into a waiting sedan, his motions that of a colleague who was helping his associate grab his ride before the driver was forced to move on or be pounded by traffic.
The sedan pulled away and drove off.
No one noticed the incident, or thought it anything but business as usual.
No one knew that Fred Miller bled to death in the sedan, or that his lifeless body was dumped in the East River.
CHAPTER TEN
Rosalyn was in a hurry. Business tote in one hand, file folder in the other, she was skimming through her notes as she left her apartment and made her way over to the Explorer. As usual, her mind was in a dozen places at once. She didn’t wait for Fred to come around and help her in. She never did. She was far too impatient. She simply yanked open the back door, placed her tote on the seat, and slid in after it.
“Good morning, Fred,” she greeted him, never glancing up as she shut the door and continued reading her notes. “Please find a way to get around this traffic. I’ve got to be in midtown in twenty minutes, rush hour or not.”
Her driver muttered a good morning along with a grunt of acknowledgment, and pressed the button that activated the automatic door locks. Then, he pulled into the stream of traffic.
It wasn’t until a chunk of time had passed that Rosalyn got the niggling feeling they’d been driving for way too long. Her head came up, and she blinked when she saw where they were.