Master of Illusion

by Nupur Tustin

  Blake sighed. He was tempted to suggest that the repairs be charged to the FBI, but that would be a surefire way of drawing unwanted attention to the fact that his CI was AWOL. Not something he wanted to do.

  “Fine. Put it on my account.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, drew a credit card from it, and read out the number. He tried not to balk at the figure the clerk quoted. Five hundred dollars to fix a broken door at some two-bit motel! Seriously?

  But something else the clerk had said stirred in his memory. “How can you be so sure it was my friend who returned? I thought you said no security cameras were covering the exterior of the motel.”

  “Who else would be interested in a duffel bag stuffed with his clothes—mostly dirty—or a toothbrush he’d been using. Then there’s the tube of toothpaste, razor, shaving cream, a bottle of cologne. The cleaning staff can confirm it’s all his.”

  It took a minute for Blake to absorb the significance of this information. “You mean the items are still in his room? He didn’t take them after all?”

  There was silence on the other hand. Blake couldn’t even hear the sound of the desk clerk’s breathing. He figured the clerk had come to the same conclusion he had. Grayson hadn’t returned to the motel room. Why would he, only to leave his belongings behind?

  “Yes, but the damage,” the clerk huffed.

  “You can still charge it to me.” But for five hundred dollars, he wanted more.

  “Call me if someone comes looking for my friend in the next day or two.” He paused a fraction of a second. “And if I were you, I’d wait on fixing that door.”

  He hung up and paced the floor. Either Grayson hadn’t left Paso Robles, which meant he might still return. Or whoever was looking for him would, to see if Grayson had stuck around. Most likely, though, Grayson had split, leaving his belongings as a decoy for whoever was after him.

  Blake massaged his forehead, pushing his fingers deep into his brow. If Grayson was a fugitive, who was he running from? The FBI? Simon Duarte? Or Dirck Thins’ killer?

  Blake reviewed the facts. Grayson had jettisoned his tracker—a custom-made FBI tracker that made his movements accessible to no one but the agents monitoring Operation Recovery—outside the Delft Bar.

  What exactly had happened to make him do that? It didn’t seem likely that he’d garroted Thins. Could he have made off with the art?

  Unlikely. Not without a car. And the only time the tracker had been in a car had been on its ride to a police station.

  Even if all Grayson had was the Vermeer, it was a bulky item, not easily carried while walking. Of course, it was possible Grayson had a pretty good idea where the Vermeer was.

  But was that reason enough to run?

  Blake considered the other option. What if Grayson had witnessed Dirck Thins’ murder? But if so, why hadn’t he called Blake immediately? Ditching the phone was understandable. Anyone could use it to track him. But getting rid of the tracker was not. Only the FBI could monitor him on that—

  Unless—

  Blake stopped pacing. The very thought made him sick.

  Did Grayson suspect the FBI was behind Thins’ murder? Did Grayson Pike fear he was next on the hit list? But why?

  What could he have seen? What could have aroused his suspicions?

  Special Agent Blake Markham strode toward his desk. Grayson had to be found.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Geoff Brandt pushed a metal shopping cart laden with items out of the Costco warehouse in San Luis Obispo and surveyed the parking lot. It was a warm day, the sun blazing down on the dark asphalt of the vast lot.

  There’d been no more than a few cars when he’d walked in a half-hour ago, minutes after the store opened. Now they cruised past in a steady stream, deftly maneuvering in between the white lines that demarcated each parking space. He craned his head, peering over the rows of parked vehicles, trying to locate his Mrs. B.

  Getting out of the parking lot wasn’t going to be easy, but with his Brandt Plan, they’d save several precious minutes. Instead of wheeling the cart over to the car, he’d have her meet him in front of one of the spots closer to the exit. Then, he’d quickly unload his items into the trunk and get in the car.

  The trick was to find either an empty parking spot or one with a car whose owners were still shopping inside. If all else failed, you blocked an elderly shopper, the kind that takes a half-hour to walk three shopping bags from the cart to the car. They were never in a hurry to go anywhere and were usually too polite to complain.

  His head on a swivel, he caught sight of a brick-red Toyota Camry abruptly catapulting out of a parking spot. That impatient maneuver along with a glimpse of blonde hair falling past large shades was all he needed to pinpoint Mrs. B.

  He gripped the cart handle and shoved. It lurched forward, wheels rattling, as Brandt guided it toward a lane that wound round to the exit. Cars swept past, impatiently searching for empty spots in a lot that was fast filling up now. He couldn’t have Mrs. B pull up in front of an empty spot. No, they’d have to block a parked car.

  Or better still, a shopper getting ready to leave. A slow-as-molasses seventy- or eighty-year-old. And there, as luck would have it, was one. She was loading the trunk of her ancient Volkswagen Bug. Brandt gave her a quick nod and smile as he rolled to a stop just inches past her.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. B was making her way toward him. His smile widened, but he doubted she could see him.

  He angled the cart slightly out toward the center and waited. In a few minutes, Mrs. B’s tires squealed as she turned the corner into his lane, gaining speed. He pushed the cart out a little more, raised his arm in a cheery wave, and bared his teeth in a wide smile.

  But Mrs. B seemed in no mood to stop. Brandt’s grin faded.

  “Hey, wait!” he called out, thrusting the cart out in front of her.

  “Asshole!” she yelled, careening to the left to avoid the cart, which creaked to a stop just behind her car. She jerked her middle finger up at him and shot out the exit.

  “Damn!” Brandt cursed. “What is it with that bitch?” He pulled the cart back toward himself. “Goddammit!” He banged his fist hard into the metal handle, about to express himself a little more strongly when he noticed the elderly owner of the Beetle gaping at him, eyes wide, jaw slack.

  Brandt rubbed his bruised knuckles against his thigh and gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that, ma’am.” He gestured toward the street that Mrs. B was now streaking past. “That was my wife. And”—he shook his head ruefully—“my ride to the airport.”

  He patted his pockets, in search of his iPhone, but there was no such thing in his pockets. “Must’ve left it in the car.” He sighed as he dropped his hands, deflated.

  He wheeled the cart around.

  “They’re not going to take that stuff back, you know,” the woman’s voice quavered after him.

  Brandt looked over his shoulder.

  “You may be able to return the clothes. But not the food. They won’t take that back. And you’ve got a lot of food in there.”

  Brandt glanced down at the cart. There was a lot of food.

  Two rotisserie chickens, hot from the oven, a large round container of brownie bites and another with mini cinnamon buns, a party pack of chips, and several ready-to-eat containers of pulled pork and chicken marsala.

  “I’m taking the clothes. Those are for me. But all this food”—he gestured toward it—“was for my wife. To keep her going for the few days I’ll be out of town unable to cook for Her Highness. She can come get it if she wants it.”

  “You’re going to leave it here?” The woman asked, her reedy warble rising in shrillness. “Right here, in the parking lot?”

  “You want it?” Brandt responded, seeing her gaze lingering on the items. “I can’t take this with me on the plane. And I’m sure as hell not going to walk it back home.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “Here, you can have this as
well. It’s a gift card. I was going to give it to my wife to make up for being away for her birthday, but after that stunt she just pulled I’d sooner flush it down the toilet.”

  “How are you going to get to the airport?” she asked, still staring, bedazzled, at the food in his cart.

  “Don’t know. My cell phone’s in the car. I can’t call a cab. And even if I do, my passport’s in the car as well. So I’m—pardon my French—royally screwed.”

  The woman cocked her head. “Well, they do accept other kinds of ID, you know. My nephew tells me anything with a photograph will do. As for your other problem, I don’t have a cell phone—never could figure out how to use one—but I might be able to help out.”

  The moving tracker caught Blake’s attention. The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office might be handling Dirck Thins’ murder, but surely even a department as tiny as the Paso Robles Police Department could afford to handle the investigation of the crime scene itself.

  He’d have expected the tracker and any other evidence found at the Delft to be retained at the local police office. But, no, it was clearly moving out of the police department.

  It wasn’t proceeding in the direction of San Luis Obispo, though. The agent watched in amazement as it traveled down 13th Street out of downtown Paso Robles, over the Salinas River, and then onto South River Road.

  So the tracker hadn’t been handed over to the police. It was the first ray of hope Blake had experienced in an otherwise gloomy morning. Whoever had picked up the tracker had obviously not realized what it was or that it might be connected in any way with Thins’ murder.

  That was good. Very good. It gave him a little more time to track down Grayson before a certain malodorous substance hit the fan.

  The sense of relief didn’t last too long. A knock on the door and Ella Rawlins’ disapproving face behind it brought Blake scudding down to reality.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I’d like to meet Simon Underwood, Celine,” Julia said as she waited on the paved walkway in front of Celine’s cottage. After nearly two hours at the Paso Robles Police Station, they’d finally been allowed to go. Exhausted, they’d decided to return to the Mechelen. “The man who painted—what was it called again?”

  “Purple Water.” It was the painting that had been slashed. Celine glanced over her shoulder. She twisted the key in the lock, her hand on the door handle, and hesitated.

  “You don’t truly think Simon Underwood had anything to do with what happened, do you?”

  “You’ll have to go meet him, won’t you?” Julia responded with a question of her own. “I could tag along with you.”

  Celine acknowledged both the question and Julia’s suggestion with a nod. She did need to meet with Simon. She’d have to let him know his work had sustained some damage—nothing serious; it could be fixed. But it wasn’t a conversation she was looking forward to having.

  Having Julia accompany her might make it easier.

  She’d have to break the news to the other artists as well that their works were now in the custody of the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office—silent witnesses to a murder. Her gaze drifted beyond Julia’s short, squat figure, and she sighed.

  The Spanish-tiled roofs on the Estate’s buildings, the crystalline blue sky with wisps of clouds scudding across the surface—it looked like it had been lifted straight out of a Francesco Guardi landscape—and the palm fronds waving in the breeze were such a stark contrast to the impressions of ruthless savagery she’d glimpsed at the Delft.

  It was a day like any other in Paso Robles—with one stark difference. Dirck was gone. And she’d been left to drift in the wind—again. Dirck’s lawyer would have to be informed, as would the Estate’s Italian winemaker, Andrea Giordano. She’d let Andrea convey the news to the Estate’s employees. She couldn’t bear to do it herself.

  Her gaze shifted to Julia’s blue eyes, narrowed into a squint against the glare of the sun.

  “You can come along, but I still don’t understand why you want to meet Simon. He would never hurt Dirck. They’ve known each other for years.”

  “That may be so. But don’t you want to know what it was about Simon’s paintings that would lead someone to torture and kill Dirck just for the sake of possessing them?”

  “But we don’t know if it was Simon’s work they were after. It was the first piece they began to examine when I interrupted them.” Celine hesitated again, but the thoughts flooding into her mind were too strong to ignore. “For some reason, you’re convinced Simon Underwood is Simon Duarte. Am I wrong?”

  Julia’s eyes widened. “You’ve heard of Simon Duarte?”

  Celine nodded. “From Greg,” she began to say when Julia touched her arm and gestured toward the door. “Let’s talk about this inside.”

  “There were three flights out of San Luis Obispo this morning,” Ella announced.

  “Just three?”

  “I assumed you were only interested in flights to Boston. Weren’t you?” The light from the window behind Blake hit Ella’s round glasses, making them gleam. He couldn’t see the expression in her eyes, but her lips, tightly pursed, left no room for doubt.

  Ella Rawlins, his personal assistant, wasn’t pleased with him.

  She made it across the floor to his desk in three rapid strides and dropped a sheaf of papers on his desk.

  “American Eagle flight AA 2588 at 6:15 a.m., United Airways flight UA 5660 at 6:18 a.m., and United Airways flight UA 5644 at 7:40 a.m. No one by the name of Grayson Pike or Greg Peters was on any of them.”

  Blake glanced down at the bundle of papers on his desk. “What are these?”

  “Passenger manifests for the three flights. I’ve highlighted the names of the passengers who purchased tickets for same-day travel—”

  “Thank you, but could you check the other early morning flights? Actually, could you check every early bird flight out of San Luis Obispo?” If Grayson thought he was on a hit list, he’d get on the first available flight out of central California—with or without fake ID. That’s what Blake would’ve done.

  Ella sighed—a heavy, drawn-out sigh that even Blake in his current preoccupied mood couldn’t miss. “I think that’s going to be a waste of time, don’t you? We really need to go about this in a strategic manner.”

  “I thought we were,” was all Blake could think to say.

  Ella shook her head, pulled out the chair on the other side of his desk, and thrust herself into it. “I’m afraid not. If we were thinking this through, we’d realize there’s no way Grayson could be on any early bird flight out of San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport.”

  “Why not?” He leaned forward, genuinely puzzled by her certainty.

  “He was in Paso Robles when he abandoned his tracker and cell phone, right?” Ella waited for Blake’s slow nod before continuing. “This was at about two, three, in the morning. At that hour, how would he get from Paso Robles to San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport?”

  Sensing it was a rhetorical question, Blake waited for her to tell him.

  “If he decided to rent a car, the earliest he could do it would be at 8 a.m. And that means the earliest flight he could take would be at about 10 a.m. There is a flight to Boston a few minutes after ten and two more an hour later. I can check all flights out of the airport between the hours of ten and noon, if you like.”

  Blake tapped his forefinger against his chin. Ella had a point. But unlike her, Blake didn’t think Grayson would hang around until sunup in a city where he felt unsafe. He’d be out of there sooner than that.

  “Greg told you that Simon Duarte and Earl Bramer were responsible for the Gardner Heist?”Julia pushed the filter basket in place and flicked the coffeemaker switch on.

  The rush of freshly brewed coffee gurgling and hissing into the carafe filled the room. It was accompanied by the rich, coconut-flavored aroma of Don Francisco’s Hawaiian Hazelnut medium-roast. Julia inhaled deeply and sighed, mouth broadening into a satisfied smile.<
br />
  “Iced water won’t cut it,” she’d said minutes earlier when Celine—her own craving for coffee long dissipated—had offered her a glass of ice-cold water. Julia had busied herself making coffee, listening intently all the while as Celine tried to recall the details Greg had shared at the Delft.

  It all seemed to have happened eons ago, even though it was just yesterday that Greg had walked into the bar. Just yesterday that she’d heard the names Simon Duarte and Earl Bramer in connection with the Gardner Heist.

  “Weren’t they?” Celine asked as Julia approached the easy chair by the couch where she sat nursing a tall glass of iced water. “Greg said that’s what the feds thought.”

  “Responsible for the heist, no.” Julia sank into the chair. “No one thought that. Involved in it, sure. But no one outside the FBI and the few CIs we were using at the time would’ve even known we suspected that.”

  “So, Greg couldn’t have known about that?” Celine tilted her glass, and stared as the water in it swirled around, ice cubes tinkling against the clear sides of the container. Greg hadn’t seemed like a federal agent. Of course he might have been undercover, but somehow she doubted that.

  Could he have been a CI—a confidential informant? But if so, why had he been in Paso Robles, at the Delft?

  She looked up. “If it wasn’t common knowledge, how did Greg know?”

  Julia’s eyes narrowed as she considered the question.

  “It was an odd coincidence, I’ll grant you that. The car crash and deaths of two young Gardner employees just five days after the museum itself was hit. For us not to suspect, and investigate, a connection between the two events would have been irresponsible.”

  A muted beep indicated the coffee was ready. Julia got up to pour herself a cup.

  “But it would have been equally irresponsible,” she said, stirring creamer and sweetener into her cup, “to publicly speculate about such a connection. The FBI tends to keep that kind of information close to its vest. We didn’t even include the Boston Police, who’d initially responded to the Gardner theft, in our investigation—rightly or wrongly.”