by Riona Kelly
She gave it a few more minutes, then tossed the covers back and headed for the bathroom to get ready. After a lukewarm shower to wake her, she wrapped a towel around her body and grabbed the blow dryer to get her long hair at least partially dried. By the time she dressed, she had a text on her phone with a short message: In town. c u in 15
The timestamp was less than ten minutes earlier, so he would be arriving any time now. She straightened the covers on the bed and tidied up a little, wishing she had time to get coffee and a pastry before he arrived. As she picked up her aunt’s robe, she heard the knock on the door.
“One moment,” she called out and hurried to hang the garment in the closet. Then she peeked out to see it was Roberto, and she was surprised to see Colin standing behind him. She released the deadbolt, letting them in. Roberto gave her a brief hug and a peck on the cheek as he came in, which she returned, then looked at the other man. “Colin, I wasn’t expecting you so soon. I thought you were in Paris.”
“I was, but I got back to Mijas last night and found Roberto to get a few questions answered, so here we are.”
He smiled at her and pointed to the bathroom. “May I?”
She nodded, then turned to Roberto as Colin went to the little room. “What’s up? Why the sudden rush to get here?”
“Colin and I talked last night, and I had to come.” He placed his left hand over his chest and spoke forcefully. “Someone has stolen my work and erased my name. I have to fight this.”
Her heart melted in sympathy, and she threw her arms around him, pulling him close. “I’m so sorry. But Aunt Lindy and Colin are both working to find out the whole story. We shouldn’t do anything until they can obtain proof.”
“What more proof?” His eyebrows drew together in his anger. “The man has my painting, right here. The one stolen from my studio! Bad enough, he bought the others and took my name off, but he didn’t even pay for this one!”
“I know, but you can’t just go in there and accuse him.”
“She’s right,” Colin said as he came out of the bathroom with the toilet flush still sounding behind him. “Let’s get all the details worked out, then we can get the authorities. Is Lindy down getting coffee?”
Michelle glanced at him and thought he wouldn’t be happy with the answer. “She left earlier this morning and left me a note. I think she’s going to de Sintra’s studio to talk to him.”
“What? No, no ... This isn’t good. Do you have the address?”
Michelle nodded and called it up on her phone.
“I’m going after her. She might not be safe.” He grabbed the notepad by the desk, ready to write down the address. As soon as he’d scribbled it down, he hurried to the door then paused to say, “You two stay here until you hear from me. Don’t do anything. You understand me, Roberto?”
He nodded, then Colin left.
“Probably good advice,” Michelle said. “Let’s go get coffee and rolls and wait for him to get back to us.”
Roberto sulked, his body still tense and anxious to take action. He looked tired, dark circles below his eyes, and he probably hadn’t slept much on the trip to Lisbon. “Did you drive?”
“Colin did.”
She nodded, caught his arm, and pulled him along with her to the hallway and the elevator downstairs.
They drank two cups of coffee, and she had the desired sweet roll while they waited for Colin to call or text them. Picking at a napkin with his fingers, Roberto told her what had happened when he and Colin had confronted Arturo about the commissioned paintings.
“The only thing Arturo is guilty of is not asking enough questions of these patrons who wanted to purchase my art. I can’t really fault him for that. Fortunately, he did keep a record of all the requests and copies of the emails and letters. Over a dozen people contacted him for commissioned pieces, and you don’t grill a paying customer about why they want the painting. We found three repeat customers, though, and combined, they ordered seventeen paintings.”
“But why steal the last one?” Michelle asked as she tried to piece together the whole operation. Her aunt was right; middlemen were involved in the scheme, but stealing from Roberto was a dumb thing to do.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe one of the people involved took it because it was commissioned, and they needed it right away. So they stole it before I was ready to hand it over.”
“Still doesn’t make sense. If they were in a hurry, why is it still in the studio here?”
Roberto shrugged. They both checked their phones again to see if they’d missed a message. Michelle sent a text to Lindy’s phone, asking if she was okay. Now she was getting worried. Colin had been gone for about an hour, and neither he nor her aunt responded to their phones.
Abruptly, Roberto sprang to his feet. “I’m going down there. You wait here for your aunt. I can’t sit here and do nothing any longer.” He began walking toward the hotel lobby.
“No! Wait a moment.” Michelle picked up her phone and ran to catch up with him.
“If you’re going, I’m going with you.”
He hesitated, then reached back to catch her hand as she drew almost even with him.
Roberto flagged a cab in front of the hotel, and Michelle rattled off the studio’s address again. In less than thirty minutes, she stood just outside the studio as Roberto paid the driver, then led the way into the small, dark space.
As soon as they were in, Michelle cast her eyes toward the back of the studio where Roberto’s painting still sat on the easel. The back door was open, and a light shone through from the alley. The odor of stale garbage wafted in with a draft. She saw no sign of her aunt or Colin. Her nerves spiked, and tension crept up her neck.
Roberto spoke to the same lady who’d been there the previous day. Her embroidery work spread across the table in disarray as if it had been thrown down instead of neatly placed, and the woman herself looked disconcerted to see Michelle and another visitor to the shop.
Even though she didn’t understand much Spanish and even less Portuguese, she did hear Roberto say something about de Sintra. Asking to see him, maybe? The woman responded with something equally as unclear, and he shouted something back at her.
“Roberto, it’s here!” she said, grabbing his nearest arm and pulling him toward the painting.
He said something sounding more like an order to the woman, then he followed her toward the painting. Before they got there, he saw another one on the wall and went over to peer at it. His face darkened as he grumbled, “I just finished this one recently. Another one Arturo sold. Look, he barely covered my name and hasn’t signed it yet!”
Michelle paused to look where he pointed and saw the paint appeared smeared and retouched. Even she could see it.
She touched his arm and pointed to the one at the end, the stolen painting. He took one look at it then grabbed it off the easel. “This is mine. I painted this. Where is the bastard who stole my work?” He whirled and glared at the lady who was on her phone, calling someone.
“We need to go,” Michelle said, her stomach growing nervous. She was pretty sure the clerk wasn’t calling de Sintra to come chat. Where the heck were her aunt and Colin? She’d thought, for certain, they would be here at the shop.
Unexpectedly, two men ran into the room from the back hall. One made a quick grab for Michelle, and she shrieked out a cry. He wrapped his muscular arms around her chest, pinning her to make it hard for her to fight him. A goon of a man, at least in Michelle’s mind, he was easily six inches taller than she was and had a good fifty pounds on her. As he yanked her backward off her feet and dragged her, she glimpsed a bigger thug struggling with Roberto and saw the painting fly out of his hands and to the floor.
Michelle dug her heels in and took a deep breath to let loose a howling scream when the clerk slapped her face, then pressed a strip of duct tape over her mouth. The goon forced her into a chair, and the embroidery lady ran the tape around her mid-section and arms to hold her in the s
eat. Legs still free for the moment, she tried to kick the goon, landing at least one successful hit before he grabbed her ankles. He and the woman secured her ankles to the front legs of the chair. Then the brute pulled her hands together, and the woman wrapped them firmly in tape.
All the while, Roberto fought against the thug, trying to land a punch or at least kick him someplace where it would count. As his eyes turned toward Michelle, his rage returned, and he screamed something in Spanish and attacked the man anew. The clerk stood nearby as the goon went over to help subdue Roberto. Another man stepped into the room from the back.
She recognized the build as soon as she saw his shadowed form. Alain Marchant. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t make more than a muffled sound. Roberto turned toward the newcomer and also recognized him from the photos on the web site. Furious, he made a lunge toward Marchant only to be grabbed by the goon before he could get his hands on the art dealer.
She watched in dismay as Roberto fought like a trapped wild cat, his arms flailing with his hands reaching to claw at Marchant while the goon held him and tried to haul him back. Roberto brought his right hand back over his head and scratched at the goon, scraping a fingernail down one side of his face and drawing blood. Then the thug hit him over the head with a wooden mallet. Roberto reeled and tried to retaliate until the hammer struck again. He went out like a light, dropping motionless to the floor.
Michelle gasped and sucked in the sticky tape, nearly choking on it. Through tears in her eyes and a muffled cough, she stared at Roberto’s inert form on the floor, trying to see if he was breathing.
“Bind him up and let’s get them out of here, Sasha,” Marchant said in French if Michelle interpreted it correctly.
He strolled over to Michelle and bent down to right in front of her face. “I should have known you and your aunt would be trouble, especially after you showed so much interest in de Sintra’s painting. Now I need to figure out what to do with you two as well as this painter. You’ve made quite a mess of my operation.”
Goon and the other thug picked up Roberto, who was now bound with tape at his arms and ankles with a piece over his mouth and carried him out the back door. In a few minutes, they returned, picking Michelle up in the chair and carried her along the same route which ended at the opened rear door of a parked van.
They lifted her into the van and secured the chair to the side with ropes. From this position, she could see Roberto but could do nothing to help him. Several canvases wrapped in bubble wrap were at the front of the van, and soon they brought another two out to join them. Were they all Roberto’s? she wondered. At least two, and probably three, in the shop were his, but were they running this same scam on other unsuspecting artists?
Although she didn’t see her aunt in the van with them, she couldn’t assume Lindy hadn’t been captured earlier. Maybe Colin had gotten her out before it happened. Now, what was Marchant going to do with them? Oh, crap! Why hadn’t she talked Roberto out of coming down to the shop?
So many questions went through her mind, like where are they taking us? What happened to my aunt? Did Marchant grab her and take her somewhere else? What had he said – “I knew you and your aunt would be trouble...”? Did he already have her? What about Colin? Then, what the hell do I do now?
As she watched, the thug added another painting to the load in the van, then Marchant came out to inspect the cargo, and he glared at her. He turned to the goon, who was just behind him and said, in English, so she could hear, “We will need to take care of the aunt and her friend who were here earlier today. I’ll leave it to you to handle while Sasha takes them away. I’ll decide what we’ll do with them once we have them all.”
She could only shoot glares at him as he turned and walked away while Goon closed the doors of the van.
Her heart dropped to her stomach as the van began moving. She felt the turns and bumps in the road and figured the driver was taking them out of the central Lisbon district. The windows in the back had been blocked with dark curtains, and a wall separated the cargo area from the front seat, so she couldn’t see anything except the shape of Roberto lying on the floor where they’d dumped him. As the vehicle moved onto a highway and began to pick up speed, Michelle felt like crying and screaming, but she couldn’t do either.
She stared down at Roberto’s unmoving body and felt the despair of being unable to do anything and not even knowing if he was alive or dying. And dammit, she was so uncomfortable her body was beginning to hurt.
After what felt like several hours, Michelle’s body felt numb even though she wiggled her toes, flexed her ankles, and moved anything she could from her neck to her knees to try to keep her circulation flowing. During this time, she’d heard a muffled moan from Roberto and saw his body trying to move, but not being able to move to even a sitting position since they had trussed him up so much.
At least he was alive, she thought and made an answering muffled noise to let him know she was with him. Judging from his increased attempts to move, she concluded it might not have been a good thing to do as it seemed to aggravate him.
She’d had plenty of time to mull over their predicament during the drive. Once the initial fear had subsided, she could think more positively. They were still alive, which mean Marchant might not be intending to kill them. Or at least, not right away, or he would have had Sasha Thug take them out of town and do it, then dump them in the ocean or some other place where they wouldn’t be found easily. So much for her positive-thinking. Maybe he figured to bargain with them, like promising Roberto he would keep her alive if he continued painting. But it would mean imprisoning them somewhere. Was he was taking them to their prison or to kill them?
Eventually, the van slowed and turned off the main highway and made another turn. To the right, she thought, probably going inland, assuming they’d been traveling up the coast from Lisbon. As they went, she detected the smell of rain and wet soil and heard drops hitting against the van. After about another thirty minutes or so, it turned again, then went for another long spell before slowing and turning once more onto an uneven road.
It bounced along, every bump jarring her body painfully until it came to a halt, then the sound of the door opening. A few tense minutes passed as Michelle expected the back to be opened at any second, but the van bounced again, and the door shut. The van moved forward for several feet, and the process was repeated. Opening a gate, she thought. The driver had to get out to open and close the gate after they went through. She was pretty sure they were almost at their destination.
When the van stopped again, the engine died, and she heard the cab door open. She braced herself and waited until the back doors opened, and the low light of near dusk and a dark cloud-covered sky backlit their captor. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out trees and some mountains in the background. She didn’t see any buildings or houses, so they were in the countryside.
Ohmigod, is he going to kill us here? Her heart jerked, feeling like it had slammed into her ribs. She couldn’t breathe as she tried to gasp for air.
Sasha climbed into the van, cut the ropes tying her to the side of the van, picked her up, chair and all, and set it at the edge of the opening. He jumped down, then lifted her again and carried her around the side of the van where an old-looking farmhouse stood alone except for a barn about fifty feet farther on.
Grabbing a dolly from the van, he set her on it and began wheeling her toward the barn. A light rain came down, soaking them both as they covered the ground, then he set the dolly upright, opened the barn door, and turned on a light. He brought her in then took her to the back corner of the barn where a small shed-sized building with a standard door sat. He opened this, and she panicked. He couldn’t be putting them in the elevator-sized space. Then he wheeled her in, and she realized it actually was an elevator.
At the press of a button, they went down at least twenty feet before the door opened onto an underground concrete bunker. One side held food storage and other supplies, li
ke a larder, and another section held a vault, which was closed at the moment. The back section was a solid wall with only a heavy metal door across it.
Thug opened this and took her inside, then left her there, turning back to get Roberto, she presumed. So confident of her inability to escape, he didn’t even bother to close the door as he left. He was right, of course. If she hadn’t been able to break even a hand loose in the past few hours, she wouldn’t manage an escape in the short time it would take him to bring Roberto. Then what?
She gazed around the room to see what it actually looked like. A small room in the right back corner looked like it could be a bathroom, and it might even be big enough for a shower. Next to it, a wooden wardrobe with a 1940s look leaned against the wall. Farther up on the right side, a small propane stove and an electric heater crouched up against the wall. A wooden dining set, also looking like it came from another era, provided a flat surface to eat. Four uncomfortable-looking beds with only thin mattresses over wooden frames lined the left wall.
Perhaps it had been built during World War II and had been a bomb shelter. Although she guessed it might have originally started as underground storage for canned goods, produce, and other farm items, it had been converted. It might have been expanded from its original size, but she was certain, this section was added later and intended for someone to be able to live down here if necessary. Now, she feared it would be their prison.
A thump along the stairs caught her attention, and she looked to see Sasha Thug dragging his helpless victim into the room. Her eyes met Roberto’s and the downturn of his eyes told her how sorry he was to have dragged her into this. She shook her head a little to say no. It wasn’t completely his fault. She could have stayed behind, but she and her aunt had a part in it also.
Sasha whipped out a knife and cut her arms free from the chair, allowing her to move them a little. Then he cut the duct tape securing her ankles to the chair legs. He stood back quickly, then turned to Roberto, cutting the tape holding his legs together, then cutting the ones at his wrists.