Fatal Forgeries

by Ritter Ames

  I didn’t know whether to feel relieved…or ill.

  TWELVE

  I mumbled a quick thank you to Williams then dashed out of the office and caught an elevator just closing. Jack caught up with me before I’d made it to the building’s front exit. As he took hold of my arm, I jerked free and hurried into the revolving door. No plan formed in my head, other than I wasn’t ready to talk about this.

  Halfway down the block, nearly jogging by this time, he raced ahead and got in front of me. I held up a hand. “Don’t say a word, Jack. Now is neither the time nor the place, and I’m not discussing anything yet. You’re ready to cast him over to the dark side, I know. But I’m not there yet, and I don’t want to argue.”

  My body felt as physically drained as my brain was mentally spent, and I moved out of the pedestrian traffic to lean against the stone and glass building, the window at my back cold and damp. He stood next to me, glanced around at the people passing by, crossed his arms, and asked, “What do you make of it?”

  There was no point in repeating myself. He wasn’t listening. Pushing off from the wall, I hurried to the curb, rain be damned, intending to flag down a taxi coming from the east. I even had the irrational thought of standing in the street if I needed to make it stop. Instead, Jack pulled me back under a nearby awning and used the taxi app on his phone. Within minutes, a cabbie curbed a black car a couple of strides away.

  “The office?” Jack asked, holding open the door so I could enter the backseat. “We need to try to conference with Cassie. See if she’s learned anything and bring her up to speed.”

  I nodded, annoyed he knew what I was thinking. Despite the video evidence, I did not believe it. My plan had been to go there, gain some necessary privacy, and pick my assistant’s brain. Then think all of this through quietly by myself. Well, I’d get the first half of the chore completed.

  He gave the address to the driver, and we sat at opposite ends of the seat. I shook my wet hair so any water fell onto the floorboard, then finger combed it to get the damp curls out of my eyes and off my neck. Leaning back in the seat, I turned my face to the window and watched the drizzly city go by.

  The silence got to him first.

  “Laurel, you must understand—”

  “Hush, please. I need time to process...” I looked at him and waved a hand in the air. “…all of this.”

  “Williams is putting in a request for flight manifests. Anything he finds, he’ll send it to me via email.”

  “Good. Now please quit talking.”

  Too many voices roared in my head, but I worked to sort out what was absolutely known versus what we’d seen and heard. In the past few months, the only two people I thought hadn’t transformed from good to bad, or bad to good, were Nico and Cassie. My confidence was shaken. Substantially. Rocked but not broken.

  The cab pulled up along the mouth of the alley next to the restaurant. I jumped out, leaving Jack to pay the fare. I was halfway up the stairs before I heard him enter the building. The number for the keypad was in my hand, and I was inside the office and turning on my phone to call Cassie when Jack arrived.

  At precisely that moment, each of our phones rang simultaneously. I was grateful for the reprieve.

  I expected mine to be Cassie, but it was Clara Ochoa instead. “Maybelle said you wanted to talk to me.” Her sullen voice still carried a strong Catalan accent.

  “I did. I mean, I do.” I could hear Jack speaking to Cecil, his director. He’d dropped his voice to a whisper, so I knew the call was probably mission related. I moved to the far corner to give each of us some privacy. “I need to locate someone in Barcelona. Someone who trades in your former profession.”

  A quiet snort came through the line. I pressed on. “His name is Miguel. I know that is a very common—”

  “Miguel with the scar, Miguel with the hat, or Miguel with the monkey?” she asked. “Oh, or Miguel with the limp. There is also an old Miguel.”

  “Ah, well…” I supposed several of those nicknames fit. Except Miguel with the monkey. I’d never seen him working with an animal. He wasn’t particularly old either, but was likely in his forties, and I didn’t know how Clara quantified age. “He just went back to Barcelona in the last week. He’s been here in London—”

  “Oh, you mean Sweet Miguel.”

  “Maybe—”

  “Brown hair, middle aged, wears a cap to cover his bald spot?”

  “Sounds right,” I said. “Why do you call him Sweet Miguel?”

  “He’s a soft touch. Tries to help everyone, even when he gets nothing out of it.”

  Something told me that her use of “sweet” wasn’t a compliment.

  “Any idea how I can find him when I get to the city?” I asked.

  “I could go with you and find him.”

  “You have a new job, Clara. You don’t want to risk that.”

  She whispered several Catalan words I didn’t know, but her inflection told me they were swear related. “I may be ready for a change soon.”

  “If you help by giving me information on how to find Miguel,” I said, “I’ll see what I can do for you when I get back.”

  A long breath came through the phone, then she said, “I need to make some calls. Wait for me to call you back. I will try to do so by tomorrow.”

  Since I had no choice, I replied, “Thank you, Clara. I truly appreciate any information.”

  “And you promise to help me get out of the laundry?”

  “You know you can trust me.”

  “I will call back.”

  And the line went dead.

  While Jack finished up his call, I paged through my messages and pulled up the internet boards, but there was no word from Cassie, and I also didn’t see anything that remotely seemed to come from Nico.

  All the facts swirled around in my brain. But several things stood out clearly, and whether I liked it or not, the facts needed to be thoroughly discussed with Jack and Cassie.

  Jack finished his call with Cecil and turned, saying, “I wa—”

  And my phone rang again. This time, it was Cassie. I ignored him and answered. “Your timing couldn’t have been better, Cass,” I said. “Are you someplace you can talk freely?”

  “Yes, I’m in my hotel room.”

  “And you’re alone?” I hopped up to sit on the table.

  “Yes, why?”

  I switched the call to speaker and set the phone on the wooden tabletop, equal distance between us. “Because Jack and I saw something earlier we all need to discuss. Jack, why don’t you take it from here?”

  “Okay,” he said, but frowned. He probably thought I was laying a trap for him, and he could have been correct. I wasn’t totally sure by this point. Mostly, I wanted to hear his take on things. See what impressions he had that warred with my own. Discover what I might have subconsciously picked up that he hadn’t and vice versa.

  But his delivery was almost with military precision, focused on fact and devoid of opinion. As he laid everything out, Cassie gasped several times, the loudest at Rollie’s name. When Jack mentioned the lack of restraints, she asked, “Are you sure one of them didn’t have a weapon hidden?”

  “If he did, he got it through airport security,” Jack replied.

  “Oh, yeah, right,” Cassie said.

  “But we can’t discount threats of violence,” I said.

  Jack frowned. “Nico moved freely—”

  “We don’t know what was said before they entered the area with the surveillance cameras,” I argued.

  When we finished, she asked, “So are you saying—or trying not to say—that Nico has gone over to the other side?”

  “I’m simply explaining what was presented on the video file,” he said.

  “What we believe we saw on the video file,” I clarified.

  He frowned at me
. “What? You’re not saying you think the films were switched or something?”

  “No. I’m just not ready to conclude everything was exactly as it appeared.”

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he leaned against the nearby wall and crossed his arms.

  But Cassie asked, “What are you saying, Laurel?”

  Mentally, I tried to herd the wild thoughts in my head, going for some logical list. “I guess I’ll jump to my chief concern. We can hit the minor points when we need to. If Nico switched sides, and is working for Rollie, why did he send the video of me stealing the painting? Sending it the way he did implied the people holding him were either the people we took the painting from or the kidnappers were the thieves who wanted to switch out a forgery for the original. Or, as we initially believed, he was warning me there was a video that showed me in my disguise. Regardless of the possible meaning, the one thing coming clearly in any scenario is he was warning me that I was recorded stealing the masterpiece.”

  “Okay,” Cassie said. Jack remained silent.

  “So, if he works for them, why didn’t he grab the painting from Clive before he left for Switzerland? Give it to the other side?”

  “He didn’t have time?” she suggested.

  “If he wanted to grab a painting worth millions, he would have done so.”

  “He doesn’t know we know what we do, and he left the painting so we wouldn’t suspect he’s a double agent?” Jack said.

  I shook my head. “If he’s conning us, he could have retrieved the painting, then left with Rollie and the others. Or if he’s truly going along of his own free will, but his errand would disrupt their schedule, wouldn’t they let him catch a later flight so he could retrieve a priceless work of art? After all, if they moved up their forgery operation so much they could only provide two copies instead of the regular four or five, the Caravaggio painting is important to the thieves.”

  “Oh, yeah, very good point,” Cassie said over the phone line.

  Jack moved away from the wall and closer to me and the cell. “You’re saying instinct tells you he remains above all scrutiny?”

  “I’ll entertain any idea you want to present, once you explain away the point I just made,” I said.

  He reached up and scratched the back of his neck. It could have been because he’d just had a haircut, but my money said it was based on more than a few itchy hairs. “Rollie would know from watching the video the person in the cat suit was you. Well, I would know, so I’m assuming he would recognize your shape and movements too.”

  My face felt warm, but I didn’t speak.

  “So the video link could be Nico’s way of warning you. But the theory could apply equally if he is working for them,” Jack finished. “There are a couple of ways the theory could work.”

  “But why would he warn me, if he knew they were going to try to kidnap me when I picked up the pieces from Clive?” I asked. “If we assume one thing, we have to assume the other.”

  “What?” Cassie cried.

  Oops. Guess I should have briefed her on my previous afternoon’s adventures before I mentioned anything. I took the next few minutes to bring her up to date on the kidnap attempt, the rescue by Lincoln, and the tall young man from the lobby of the Ritz whom I believed was my mugger later the same night.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier when you admitted you’d been mugged?” she asked. “And where was Leif when this happened?”

  I ignored the first question and focused on answering the follow-up.

  “He’s somewhere in Norway celebrating his mother’s birthday.”

  “But you said—”

  “No, you assumed,” I stopped her. “And I let you because you were already in Paris, and I didn’t want to deal with the fallout from Max if you tried to come back to London.”

  We were all silent for several beats. Now I had two people mad at me. Eventually, Cassie asked, “What do we do?”

  Good question. I looked at Jack. He shrugged.

  “For now,” he said, “we’ll keep sharing any communication we receive from Nico. Laurel’s point was valid, but we don’t know all of the facts and need to work carefully. Keep all information between the three of us.”

  In a way, I wished Nico was with Ermo Colle instead of with Rollie and Moran. I may not have wanted to acknowledge Colle as my father—in fact, I didn’t even know for sure if Colle was alive after I hit him in the head and left him for dead. But if Nico was with him, at least I knew he would keep my tech wizard safe as long as doing so suited his own purposes. Or while he at least believed Nico could help his operation.

  However, when it came to Rollie, there was an underlying ruthless thread in the man I’d seen too often lately to ignore. Since I wasn’t sure why Rollie wanted Nico, I couldn’t be sure my friend would be safely released. Something told me Rollie wouldn’t trust Nico, even if Nico pledged his allegiance to Moran’s side. After all, Simon played double and triple spy for months without Moran’s sharp mind catching the duplicity. It was Rollie who had spotted Simon’s possible treachery to all and had the cad followed to be sure. It was also Rollie who ordered Simon to be picked up, and who ultimately ordered his execution. I had a feeling Rollie didn’t trust too many people at this point, a sentiment I understood too well. However, I wasn’t ready to throw away my support of Nico.

  Then, of course, there was the new puzzler Jack revealed about who might truly be in line for Moran’s empire. If Paul-Henri was actually my father, was Moran thinking about pulling me in because he trusted me to a greater extent than he did Rollie? Or was he planning to gift me the design firm—and whatever strings would be attached to it? Either way, that path led to madness, and I could see how Rollie would resent me even if I swore I didn’t want to be over any phase of the empire. The clean operation or the crooked. Maybe taking Nico was a part of that. I’d have to bring it up to Jack later, however, since I wasn’t ready to reveal the information to Cassie.

  “Humor me a minute,” I said, rubbing my hands up and down my arms. I wasn’t cold, but I wasn’t feeling very comfortable either. Too much to think about. “Pretend you’re Nico. Give me any reason you can think of that would mean appearing to leave willingly with Rollie, but not taking the painting with you.”

  “If Rollie didn’t know I had the painting,” Cassie replied. “If I wanted to sell it myself.”

  As she talked, Jack half-circled the table and slipped his blazer on my shoulders. “I’m not really cold,” I whispered.

  “I know,” he whispered back.

  And I realized I was probably suffering from the many shocks of the day. My nerves were on overload. He’d noticed. I mouthed, Thank you, then called out to Cassie, “You think he’d do it to pull a con on Rollie?”

  “A con…” she mused. “Maybe go with them or they would snatch Laurel. They wouldn’t even have to be after the painting. That would be enough for anyone on this team to agree to go.”

  “I can believe that,” Jack said, walking around me to lean on the tabletop. “If they gave him no option.” His gaze met mine and held it. His voice softened. “It would be enough for me.”

  A lump formed in my throat, so I was glad when Cassie said, “Ooh, I like this theory. It’s exactly what any of us would do. But if he went to keep her from getting taken, why was she attacked twice yesterday evening?”

  Jack rubbed his chin. “The theory for Nico works if two factions continue working against us,” he said. “Especially if Moran is still trying to protect Laurel. If they saw the robbery video, recognized her, put it all together, and said they’d take Laurel if he didn’t come along.”

  “Except Nico and I aren’t replacements for one another. He’s more behind the scenes than I am, both digitally and figuratively,” I said. “His talents complement mine, but they’re quite different.”

  Jack took my hand in his, then cup
ped my chin with his other hand, keeping eye contact the entire time. “If Moran’s group was the one who kidnapped Nico in Rome,” he said. “Whatever they took him for at that time likely hasn’t changed. If I were Nico, and they came telling me they could only protect you if I came with them, I’d pull my passport and get onto the plane. No arguments.”

  I didn’t feel the least bit cold anymore. But in the back of my mind I worried Jack was trying to sidetrack me.

  “Yes,” Cassie said, completely unaware of anything going on but the puzzle. “And your idea would make sense if we still figure Colle is the one trying to steal the painting by swapping it with a forgery.”

  He raised his eyebrows and mouthed, Still angry?

  I shrugged and mouthed, Miffed. But better.

  Your loyalty is showing. He leaned in close as Cassie kept up a monologue.

  “Rollie wouldn’t even ask about the painting because it wasn’t their deal,” she said. “Nico left it behind without contacting you because they must have shown up suddenly, and he couldn’t call or text without their knowing. And he didn’t want to tip off Rollie about the masterpiece. But he—Nico—knew you’d get in touch with Clive when he didn’t show up at your hotel room—”

  I pushed Jack away. “Wait a minute! Yes, yes, that all makes sense.” I jumped off the table to pace. “I had the feeling all along the grabs were Colle instead of Moran because there were too many people onsite. Just like when he had us followed from Italy to Germany.” I stopped and faced Jack and the phone. “If Colle’s the one who shipped the two copies, then Moran is the one trying to sell the copy at the auction.”

  “Or vice versa,” Jack said, cocking his head to the side.

  “Yes, exactly, and if it plays out that the opposite is true then it’s just as clear,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah,” Jack seconded. “Care to have a go about that ‘clear’ comment?”