Master of Illusion

by Nupur Tustin

  Ah! That would account for her repeatedly seeing the word, General.

  “Someone must’ve been a Degas fan as well,” Celine remarked. Her eyes shifted to the four sketches and the single watercolor. “It’s almost as though two different thieves robbed the museum at the same time,” she murmured.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the Rembrandts and the Vermeer and even the Flinck, I suppose, were genuinely valuable. I can see why a thief would want to steal those. But the sketches, the finial—those seem more like a made-to-order theft. For someone who absolutely had to have them.” Celine shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking aloud.”

  The coffeemaker beeped.

  “No, it’s an interesting theory,” Julia said as she rose to pour herself a cup. “We’ve known there’s a mob angle to these thefts. But it’s hard to explain why a bunch of rough-and-ready men would’ve wanted those sketches.

  “You’re right, though. Only a genuine art lover—someone who appreciated the role of a sketch in the finished composition—would have wanted them. It’s probably why Isabella Stewart Gardner bought them in the first place.”

  “Maybe the Rembrandts and the Vermeer were supposed to be payment—in kind—for committing the theft.”

  Julia smiled. “Now that’s a theory.” Taking a cautious sip from her cup, she returned to the chaise.

  Celine returned to the file, poring over its contents. “I don’t see anything about Simon Duarte or Earl Bramer.” Puzzled, she looked up at Julia.

  “It was just a rumor—brought to us, believe it or not, by Grayson aka Greg. Unverified. The person he named as his source denied it.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her lack of sleep was getting to her; her brain felt weary, befogged. “You’re saying now they didn’t exist?”

  “No, they did. They worked, as I mentioned, in the museum garden. And shortly after the heist, they were burned to death in a fatal car crash. Those are undeniable facts, but whether we can connect Duarte and Bramer to the heist . . . We have no real evidence.”

  Julia shrugged. “On the other hand, I’ve never been one to believe in coincidences. And it’s true, despite our best efforts, the art—all of it—has eluded us.”

  Celine flipped over the next few pages, skimming paragraphs of background about the museum and its inception. The Gardner Museum had been designed to showcase a rather eccentric woman’s eclectic collection. She’d never had an opportunity to visit, but she’d heard the stories.

  “It’s nice to have some background, I find,” Julia explained as Celine perused the file, “when you’re investigating a case. You may not need it. But it’s still helpful to know.”

  Celine turned to the last page. What she saw made her catch her breath.

  “Who is this?” she demanded.

  Julia leaned closer, peering down at a woman clad in black. “That’s her—Mrs. Jack—Isabella Stewart Gardner. It was painted by John Singer Sargent.” Julia smiled. “Hard to believe, but in its day, that painting created quite a stir.”

  “I imagine it did!” Celine said, staring at the image of the Lady. The familiar, black form-fitting gown, the strand of pearls around her waist, the daring neckline.

  “What’s the matter, Celine. You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “That’s because I have.” Celine looked up. “This is the woman who’s been haunting me since I was two, Julia. I see her every time I sense an untimely death.” Her gaze shifted downward. “This is Mrs. Jack?”

  “Or Belle, as she was called in her younger days.”

  Belle needs you to restore her museum, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine’s voice sounded in her ear. She’s always known you’d be the one to do it.

  The Gardner Museum heist had taken place a few weeks before Celine had been born in April. And when Isabella Stewart Gardner—Belle, as she liked to be called—had realized that Celine would be the one to recover the art, she had decided to watch over her.

  Her presence was a sign—the only sign you had as a child—of your intuitive abilities, Sister Mary Catherine said.

  “Why did you never tell me?” Celine demanded. She pulled up in front of her cottage and turned off the engine.

  She’d left Julia’s cottage confused. If the Lady who’d haunted her since she was two was Belle—Isabella Stewart Gardner—then who was Bella, the woman in her dream? What did Bella want from her?

  Belle didn’t want me to. She felt you weren’t ready, Sister Mary Catherine replied. And I could see you weren’t. Oh, Celine, you didn’t even want any visions. Don’t you remember?

  She did remember. Sensing murder and being involved in it—unable to do anything to prevent it—had taken a toll on Celine. She’d asked for a respite.

  Belle protected you from all the things you might have seen—until your parents died. She showed you that.

  “And I was devastated,” Celine whispered.

  She thought you’d be able to handle the visions as you grew older. But that didn’t happen. And when you asked to make it stop . . .

  “You agreed.” The memories were returning. “But you also reminded me a time would come when I’d need my ability to see.”

  Celine sighed. “So this is it?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “And Bella, the woman I dreamed of? Who is she?”

  Someone both Dirck and John were very fond of.

  “And Simon Underwood still keeps in touch with her, doesn’t he?” In her dream, she’d seen a relatively young woman, a woman in her thirties. But the only woman Simon had made reference to, Annabelle Curtis, must have been at least about his age—close to sixty.

  “Is Bella a young woman?” Celine asked.

  Not anymore, dear, Sister Mary Catherine said. You see her the way Dirck remembered her.

  Remembered her, Celine repeated to herself. That meant Dirck hadn’t kept in touch with her all these years. Why not?

  But Sister Mary Catherine’s presence had faded; a fog of weariness enveloped Celine instead. She sensed there were dots that could be connected, but her brain was going around in circles.

  “I need sleep,” she muttered, pushing the driver’s-side door open and stumbling out of her car.

  Celine hadn’t taken more than a few steps up the driveway when the visions assaulted her. Polished black shoes stomping determinedly down the path; rough, bear-like hands closing upon the door handle; picking up a stone and—

  The vision abruptly left, jolting her awake. The window on the right side of the door was shattered. A sliver of light showed between the door and the jamb. Whoever had broken into the house had left the door ajar.

  Were they still inside?

  Pulling her phone out of her shoulder purse, Celine cautiously crept toward the door. The same raw energy she’d felt outside the Delft in the pre-dawn hours of that morning assailed her.

  They’re here, she thought. Dirck’s killers are here.

  With the phone out in front of her, aimed like a gun, she slowly opened the door, craning her neck to peer inside. The open kitchen-living room area was empty. But someone had rifled through her belongings.

  She pushed her way in. Prints had been pulled down off the walls. Drawers were left open, kitchen towels, cutlery, and other odds and ends were strewn on the countertops.

  “Who’s in here?” she called. “You have no business here. Show yourself.” She looked around. “Now!”

  The pages of an open magazine rustled as a slight breeze wafted in through the door. Other than that, there was utter silence.

  They’d either left or were waiting inside to ambush her. Hitting 911 on her phone, she made her way to the bedroom.

  The same disarray jumped out at her. Her quilt and sheets had been swept off the bed. The closet door was open, her clothes swept to one side. A coral, carry-on suitcase and another larger suitcase had both been dragged out of the closet—both unzipped.

  Celine ended the 911 call. Whoever had come in here had left. Thi
s was a matter for Detective Mailand and the PRPD crime scene technicians. The fingerprints they found here would match the ones they’d found at the Delft.

  She sank down on the bed. What had Dirck’s killers been looking for? The Vermeer? Or—

  Dear God! An image of the cardboard box Dirck had entrusted to her erupted out of the depths of her consciousness.

  Chapter Thirty

  Bob Massie, Mechelen’s handyman-slash-guard, was on his knees in a secluded area behind the barn, rinsing sprinkler heads. Six-foot tall hedges enclosed a rectangular, concrete-paved area equipped with a hose, buckets, and outdoor shelves lined with tools—drills, coils of wire, air hoses, and other odds and ends.

  He glanced over his shoulder as Celine sprinted into the area, panting.

  “Did they find it?”

  The question stopped Celine in her tracks. “Who?” she wanted to know, her mind going instantly to the box she’d hidden for Dirck. “Did who find what?”

  “Your friends,” Bob said. Celine came up closer and stood behind him. He had a blue shop towel in his hands, and he was diligently scrubbing between the ridges of a cylindrical tube attached to the head.

  “What friends?” Celine frowned. She was beginning to feel like Echo, the Greek nymph reduced to repeating whatever everybody around her said. But it wasn’t her fault. Bob and his cryptic replies weren’t making a lot of sense.

  Bob stopped scrubbing. “Your friends from back East, Celine.” He twisted around to face her. “You know, Andrea was real pissed at the last minute additions to the wine tour group. Next time you invite folks to join in a tour, think about letting him know, okay?”

  If there’d been last-minute additions to the group, Celine could well believe that their winemaker had been anything but happy. Andrea preferred conducting small groups. It was a more intimate setting; and it was easier to keep an eye on visitors, ensuring they didn’t wander off to areas off-limits to outsiders. He’d learned that lesson in Italy.

  The men who’d set fire to Andrea’s vineyard had slipped in on one of the many wine tours his winery offered.

  “What did they look like, these men who said they were friends of mine?” Celine asked.

  She didn’t think there was any point revealing to Bob that her cottage had been broken into. She didn’t have time to answer his questions. She needed information. And she needed it now.

  Bob held the sprinkler head up to the outdoor light and examined it.

  “Hefty, burly guys. Mid-forties. Frankly, I was surprised to hear that you hung out with people like that. They looked like wiseguys straight out of the Sopranos.”

  “Is that all they wanted, to join a wine tour?”

  “No, they said you’d asked them to pick up a box. Something you’d brought back from the Delft last night. Wanted to know where it was. But you hadn’t mentioned anything to me.”

  Dirck’s killers must have been watching the bar last night. They’d seen Dirck hauling those hefty bags into her car. It wouldn’t have taken them long to realize that if whatever they were looking for wasn’t in the bar, it had to have been smuggled out.

  And what better place than the winery? She squelched the feeling of nausea that arose within her.

  “So what did you tell them?”

  Bob turned to face her. “Well, I figured it out, didn’t I? You’d brought that box back from the bar yesterday. I told them you’d taken it to your cottage. Don’t tell me it wasn’t there?”

  Celine closed her eyes. Dear God, they’d conned their way into the winery and they’d broken into her cottage. What next?

  “Jeez, Celine!” Bob’s voice startled her. “You need to start communicating better. Especially if you’re going to be running the show from now on. You can’t expect people to read your mind.”

  She opened her eyes, willing herself to be patient. “You’re right, I suppose I do. Listen, Bob, I need the front windowpane on my cottage replaced.” She glanced at his hands, held over his red bucket, clutching the canister the sprinkler head fit in. “Pronto. It’s completely shattered.”

  Bob put the canister down, a frown forming on his broad forehead. “What d’you mean shattered? How did that happen?”

  Celine hesitated for just a second. “I think it was those men who lied about being my friends, Bob—and got you to tell them where I live.”

  She saw his jaw drop open.

  “Next time, could you please give me a call before taking every Tom, Dick, and Harry who passes by at their word?”

  Inside the barn, Celine took stock of her surroundings. The place was undisturbed—everything just as she’d left it last evening. Hard to believe it was only last night. It felt like an eternity had passed since then.

  “Everything okay?” Bob was behind her.

  His voice had startled Celine, but by the time she looked around she’d recovered her composure. And her anger. How had Bob allowed himself to get rolled like that?

  “I know Dirck and John must’ve mentioned this to you, Bob,” she began, “but in light of recent events, I feel I need to reiterate the Mechelen’s rules. No visitors are to be allowed anywhere near the guest or staff cottages or the barn.”

  Seeing Bob’s mouth open, about to argue the point, she went on, her voice sharper.

  “Is that understood? Not unaccompanied, not without my permission. It doesn’t matter who they say they are.” Her tone brooked no argument.

  Bob stared at her; Celine stared back. Then, he slowly nodded.

  “I can go look at that window of yours, now.”

  “Good.” She tossed him her cottage keys. He was leaving when another thought occurred to her.

  “Bob, wait!” She fished her car keys out of her shoulder purse and extended them toward him. “When you’re done, bring my car here, will you? Ms. Hood asked for some gardening supplies. It’ll be easier driving them to her.”

  Bob frowned, a question fermenting in his brain; she headed him off.

  “After you help me unload the supplies at her cottage, you can take the Pilot to get that pane of glass you’ll need to fix my window.” It was a smoother ride by far than the old jalopy Bob drove.

  He smiled. “Done deal.”

  Celine waited until he was out of sight, then, latching the door behind her, she went over to the wheelbarrow.

  It seemed heavier than she remembered it; the wheels emitting a rusty squeak as she braced herself against the floor and heaved. It moved at last. With a quick flick of her palms, she brushed the soil and dirt aside, and then lifted the floorboards up.

  The black hefty bag with its cardboard box hadn’t been touched. For a brief second, Celine wondered if it would be safer where it was. But she dismissed the thought just as quickly. Dirck’s killers had broken into her cottage. They’d have no compunctions about raiding the barn.

  Putting the item in Julia’s custody seemed like the best strategy. They’d have to find a way of getting it back into Annabelle’s hands. If she was right that was whom it belonged to.

  By the time Bob returned with her Pilot, Celine was waiting outside the barn. She’d found an old bottle of linseed oil and rubbed down the entire barrow with it. There’d been a grease gun on one of the shelves; she’d squirted as much as she could squeeze out of it onto the axles.

  Then, she’d loaded the barrow with bags of potting soil and every gardening tool in sight.

  Bob eyed the barrow, glanced back at the Pilot with its tailgate lifted all the way up, and then turned toward the barrow again.

  “It would be easier to load that thing into your car without all that crap, you know.”

  “That’s not such a good plan, Bob.” He was right, but she had no intention of giving in on this point. “We’d just have to put all that stuff back in.”

  “But—”

  Celine held up her hand. Fortunately, she’d already anticipated his objections.

  “I have a better idea.” She tipped her head back at the barn.

  “There’
s a large piece of plywood in there. We can use it as a makeshift ramp and wheel this baby in. No point trying to lift it. Even without all the potting soil and tools, it’d be much too heavy for the both of us.”

  Bob just shook his head. “Whatever you say, Boss Lady.”

  “You’re back.” Julia stood at the door.

  Her eyes roved past Celine’s slender figure to Bob Massie’s portly person and then down to the wheelbarrow.

  “With gardening tools.” The inflection of surprise in her voice so slight, it had surely eluded the handyman.

  At least Celine hoped it had. She stole a glance at Bob. He stood behind her, his features impassive.

  She turned back to Julia. “These belonged to Dirck and John.” The explanation was meant to serve as a hint, but Celine wasn’t sure the former fed had caught on. “Brought here all the way from Boston.”

  “Ah!” Julia’s eyes widened. “Let me help you wheel it around to the side.”

  “You still need me around?” Bob Massie’s gruff voice interjected. “I need to get that glass for your window.”

  “No, that’s quite all right,” Celine said. “And, yes, you’d better get going. Before J&P Glass closes.”

  “What’s in there?” Julia asked once Bob had left.

  Celine shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know it’s important. It was hidden in the bar. Dirck asked me to bring it back last evening and find a secure place for it.”

  “And you’ve brought it to me because—“

  Celine sank against the doorjamb. “Because they were here, Julia. Dirck’s killers were here.”

  “What? When?” Julia drew her into the cottage. “Come inside.”

  “You need to bring it in. They broke into my cottage, Julia.” Celine twisted back toward the door. But she was too tired to resist Julia’s efforts and allowed herself to be taken in and helped into a couch. “They broke in while we were gone.”