“I’ll send you a copy of the postcard Martha sent to Eve, just in case you see something I don’t.”
“Be careful, Max. I’m trusting your gut about Gabriel Truman, but there is still a chance that he’s involved—considering that he’s business partners with Colter through Boreal.”
“Eyes wide open,” she said.
“David’s there, right?”
“He took Eve to school. She visited me this morning and was running late. We’re meeting back at the cottage as soon as I get this postcard.”
“He should be there with you.”
“I’m okay, Ryan, but thank you for your concern. I’ll call you shortly.” She hung up before he said something that irritated her.
She sent David a text message as soon as she pulled up in front of Gabriel’s house.
I’m at Gabriel Truman’s house to pick up a postcard that matches the last one Martha sent to me. I’ll be back in an hour, or I’ll call.
She got out of her car and followed Gabriel to the front porch. The house was on the corner, set back, with a long driveway going back behind the house to a small garage. It was two stories with a basement and attic, charming and well maintained. The lawn was trimmed, flowers grew in pots and flower beds, and a huge tree was on one side—a perfect climbing tree, Max thought.
Gabriel let her in. “Um, do you want something? Water? I can make coffee.”
“I’m okay.”
“I’ll get the baby book—it’s in my bedroom.” He went upstairs.
Max turned in to the living room and stared at the painting over the fireplace.
It was the same seascape that her mother had sent her.
This was not a coincidence.
She walked over to the fireplace, reached up, and carefully lifted the painting. It was heavy, the frame solid, about as wide as her arms. She squatted and lowered it to the floor.
Gabriel came downstairs. “What are you doing?”
“This is the same picture.”
“Yeah, my mom loved that picture. She’d met the artist, a local woman. She passed away years ago, not long after my mother, though I think she was twenty years older.”
“You said my mother was here—that she came here with Eve and left her with your mother.”
“Yes. So?”
“How long was she here?”
“My mother never said.”
“I think this is it.”
“Is what?”
Max said, “Help me turn this around.”
Though Gabriel looked at her skeptically, he helped her turn the heavy picture around and prop it against the couch.
Two things were written on the back.
The first was a stamp of authenticity from a local art gallery, and written in that this piece was number seven of one hundred.
The second was in her mother’s perfect handwriting.
Don’t Ever Give Away the Seascape.
“Whatever painting Colter is looking for is here. But we have to be careful—it’s been here for sixteen years, if I’m right. See?” Max was growing more excited. “Look, you can see that this backing was pulled away and reaffixed.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Let’s pull it back from the same spot, rolling it carefully down.”
Gabriel helped her. As soon as they started, she saw the old canvas. It had been folded on the sides and wedged into the frame.
She didn’t want to damage the art. Canvas was durable, even after all these years, but the paint itself could flake off or if they scraped it, the texture could be damaged.
“Would you object to me taking the frame apart?”
“No. I just can’t believe Martha hid a painting here, in my house.”
“I need a hammer. Once I get off one side, the rest should be easier.”
It took Max fifteen minutes of painstaking and slow work. She could have done it faster, but she was nervous and excited and most of all didn’t want to damage the original. When the frame was finally disassembled, she carefully turned the second canvas over.
It was a beautiful, elegant painting of ballerinas. The light and shadow, the feeling of movement, the details in each women’s expression—joy, envy, pain—made Degas one of the leaders of the Impressionist period. Holding this priceless, nearly two-hundred-year-old painting made her heart pound.
“It’s the Degas.” She was truly awestruck. “It’s been here all this time.”
“I never knew,” Gabriel said. “She put it here? When she left Eve? Now this makes complete sense.” He handed Max Eve’s baby book. The postcard of the seascape was identical to Max’s. On the reverse, Martha had written:
Sweet Genevieve,
I have to go away for a while, and if I don’t come back you’ll be okay. Look to the bay for answers, look deep, and you’ll find true happiness.
Your Mommy
“I always thought it was just a nothing comment, like a motivational saying. And when Eve fell in love with sailing like me, Eve said her mother was right, that the ocean brings happiness. But it wasn’t that—it was about this picture.”
“And about as clear as mud,” Max said. “I will never understand Martha. You could have sold this at a garage sale and never been the wiser that it was here. I have to call Ryan.”
She took a photo of the Degas and sent it to him. He called her back immediately.
“Is that it?”
“Yes. It was behind a picture in the Truman house. A picture that was the same as my last postcard.”
“We have to get it secured immediately. I’m on my way. Can you stay there? I can’t believe she put it behind another painting. Is it in good condition?”
“It appears to be.”
“Take it back to your cottage—no, shit! We don’t want to handle it too much. Can you stay there with it? Don’t let it out of your sight?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there in an hour. Or less.” Ryan hung up.
“Can I stay here?”
“Of course. I still can’t believe that was here for sixteen years.”
Carefully, Max carried the Degas to the dining table and laid it out. She closed all the blinds—you never knew who could be watching.
Gabriel’s cell phone rang. He left the room to answer.
Max took several pictures with her cell phone. She sent one to David, then called him. He didn’t answer.
“David, call me when you get this—we found it. I need you to get over to Gabriel’s ASAP.”
Gabriel stepped back into the dining room. “Maxine, I don’t know what happened, but that was the resort. There was a shooting in your cottage. Sheriffs are there now—it looks like your place was robbed or something—and I think your partner was shot. His ID says David Kane.”
Max’s stomach flipped. “David? He’s okay, right?”
“He’s heading to Memorial Hospital, it’s about thirty minutes away.”
“I need to talk to someone, find out if he’s okay. I need to get there.” She stared at the painting. “Do you have a safe?”
“Not here—at the resort.”
But Brian Cooper was at the resort.
“We need to hide this. Someplace absolutely secure. I have to get to the hospital as soon as possible.”
David had been shot. He had to be okay. He had to. He was not going to die on her.
* * *
If she had any doubts about Gabriel, they disappeared. He found an ingenious hiding place for the Degas, and then drove her to the hospital. She called Ryan on the way—he would go straight to her cottage and figure out what, if anything, was taken, plus find out what was going on with the local police. Then she called Sheriff Bartlett.
“Sheriff, what happened at the resort? What can you tell me?”
“Ms. Revere, I just got on-site. I was clear on the other side of the county. My two best deputies have secured the scene, and we sent your friend up in a chopper to get him to the hospital right quick. He lost a lot of blood, bu
t they got him stable and he was conscious, that’s a good sign. He was hit in the upper-right shoulder and in his right calf.”
“Who did it?”
“We’re canvassing the area, talking to everyone at the resort, there’s a camera at the entrance that takes down the license plate of every vehicle—I have a man going through that right now. We have a solid time frame because when the shots were fired a witness saw two men leaving in a dark-colored SUV. I may be a small-town sheriff, but I know how to do my job.”
Max didn’t want to doubt him, but this was her best friend who had been hurt. She sometimes thought David was her only friend. “I have a lot of important papers and research in the den. Do you know if anything was taken?”
“Can’t tell—everything is a mess. Someone definitely went through the desk and your files.”
“Agent Ryan Maguire of the Norfolk FBI is on his way. He was privy to my investigation into my mother’s disappearance, and we have some people of interest we’ve been working on—he’ll know if anything is missing.”
“You brought in the FBI? I wish you’d have told me.”
“It’s a long story, Sheriff. I’m with Gabriel Truman on my way to the hospital now. Please call me, I can be reached at this number.”
“I’ll call when I have news.”
He hung up.
Great. She’d pissed off the sheriff. She hadn’t even thought to call him, why would she? He hadn’t been sheriff when Martha disappeared, or even when Jimmy returned ten years ago. Small-town politics—she put it aside.
“Emma,” she suddenly said.
“What?”
“David’s daughter. Emma. She’s thirteen. Lives in Northern California. Oh, God, I’m going to have to call Brittney.” David’s ex-girlfriend—the mother of his daughter—hated Max. Max was forbidden to have any contact with Emma or Brittney threatened to take away David’s visitation rights. It was a long and complicated and ridiculous situation, but Max would never stand between David and his daughter.
She called her producer, Ben Lawson.
He answered on the second ring. “I hope you appreciate that I haven’t been nagging you even though you promised to review the script immediately.”
“David’s been shot.”
“What happened? Is he okay?” Ben’s voice changed immediately from irritated to concerned.
“I’m on my way to the hospital.” She gave Ben the name and location. “I don’t know anything. He was stable and conscious when he left in the helicopter.”
“Airlifted? Oh, no. I’ll call and get information.”
“You need to call Brittney. And David’s father.”
“I’ll take care of it. Tell me as soon as you know anything.”
“Likewise. Thanks, Ben.”
“Is it related to your investigation?”
“It appears that David walked into my cottage when someone was going through my office.”
“What did you learn?”
“I think I know what happened to my mother. Oh, and I have a sister.”
“A sister? Did you say a sister?”
“I have to go.” She hung up before Ben could ask any more questions.
Gabriel made excellent time and pulled in to short-term parking. They ran into the emergency room.
Max was good at getting information, and hospitals were notorious for making it difficult. She wasn’t a blood relative, a wife, or girlfriend, but she pulled the other card.
“My employee was brought in here by helicopter with a gunshot wound he sustained on the job. I need information. Is he okay? David Kane.”
The head trauma nurse came out almost immediately. “You’re with Mr. Kane?”
“Yes. I’m his employer.”
“Mr. Kane is stable and we’re prepping him for surgery. When it’s done, the doctor will come out to speak with you.”
“How long?”
“I can’t estimate that. There is a bullet lodged in his right clavicle. It will be a while.”
“Can I see him? Please, just talk to him for one minute?”
“I don’t think so, but let me check.”
Two minutes later she returned. “You have one minute.”
The nurse took Max to where David was being prepped for surgery in a brightly lit room. Two nurses were working on him. His clothes had already been cut off. He was on an IV and there was a mound of gauze on his leg and his shoulder. He had an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, but his eyes were open.
She took his hand. “David, it’s me. It’s Max.”
He turned his head and winced. He reached to get the oxygen mask off his face. She helped him.
“Ma’am, you can’t remove that.”
“He saw who shot him,” Max said. “David, who did this? Who shot you?”
“Colter.”
“Phillip Colter?”
“He took … a folder. I don’t know what it was. I shot him. I think the arm.”
“That’s it,” the nurse said and put the mask back on his face.
“Do not die,” Max ordered David. “Do you understand? I will not forgive you if you die on me.”
David nodded. Was he smiling under the mask? Probably grimacing in pain.
The nurse injected something into his IV. “You need to leave, we have to get him sedated and the doctor just arrived for surgery.”
Max walked out. She slumped against the wall. David was the strongest man she knew. He was tough as nails, her rock. He was indispensable. Not only that, he was her friend. Her best friend. And he was shot working for her.
Gabriel walked over with a bottle of water. “Here.”
“Thanks.” She drank half.
“Is he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. He’s in surgery now. He identified Phillip Colter as his shooter. I have to call Ryan and let him know. He can finally get a damn arrest warrant. Colter is not going to get away with this.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Ryan arrived at Max’s cottage just as she called to tell him that David ID’d Phillip Colter. “Stay there, where you’re safe,” he said.
“For now,” she said.
He didn’t like that answer, but had a feeling no matter what he said she would do whatever she damn well pleased. It was as annoying as it was endearing.
“Where’s the painting?”
“Gabriel has dozens of boat blueprints rolled in the corner of his office. We rolled the painting into one of them.”
“Hidden in plain sight. Good. I’m going to send the sheriff out to Colter’s place to serve an arrest warrant, and I’ll retrieve the painting. We need to get it secured.”
“Gabriel wants to talk to you.”
“Agent Maguire?” Gabriel said. “My daughter is going to be home in thirty minutes. Can you wait there until she arrives? Get her someplace safe? I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t want her in that house alone until Colter is caught.”
“How about if I take her out to the Henderson spread? They have an army.”
“Yes, thank you so much. I would feel better if she was with someone.”
“Not a problem. There’s a team of FBI agents coming in from my office, and Sheriff Bartlett has called in every available deputy. We’ll find Colter.”
Ryan hung up. “Bill,” he said to the sheriff, “David Kane identified Phillip Colter as his shooter.”
“Colter? I’ll be damned. I thought that family moved away years ago.”
“His company owns the house out on the peninsula off Oyster Bay—the big spread. He’s probably there. I have a team of FBI agents coming in, if you need backup.”
“I activated our SWAT team, they can be anywhere in the county in twenty minutes.”
“Great. Also, Mr. Truman says that Brian Cooper may be working with Colter. I don’t know if he had anything to do with the break-in, but he’s a person of interest.”
“I know Brian. I’ll send two deputies to pick him up for questioning.”
“Thanks, I promised Gabriel that I would go to his house and wait for his daughter to get home from school.”
“Really? Eve is a big girl. Is she in trouble? Danger?” the sheriff asked bluntly.
Ryan needed to tell him a short version. “Colter is a suspect in an art heist, possibly working with Ms. Revere’s mother. We suspect that Martha Revere had one of the paintings that Colter has been looking for.” Ryan should tell the sheriff that Max found it, but he didn’t want to give too much away. Bartlett was solid, but Ryan didn’t know everyone else on his staff, and considering that Colter was local and had money, he could have a cop on the payroll. The last thing Ryan needed was for Colter to get to the house before him.
“And?”
“It’s recently come out that Eve’s mother and Max’s mother are the same woman. So if Colter thinks that Max knows something about the painting, he might extrapolate and think Eve knows something about it.”
“You know, we’ve all always wondered about Eve’s mother. Gabriel never talked about her.”
“Now you know. I’m going to run upstairs, see if I can figure out what Colter took, then go meet Eve.” He glanced at his watch. It was two—the Truman house was less than a ten-minute drive. She wouldn’t be home until after three.
“I’ll go catch up with Mr. Cooper and Mr. Colter and see what they have been up to,” Bartlett said.
Ryan went upstairs, showed his badge to the deputy standing watch in the living room, and entered the den. He put on gloves. The room was a mess—Max’s timeline hadn’t been touched, but her notes were all over the place. He looked at the room, then closed his eyes and visualized the last time he was in here. It was last night, when Max shared information that she hadn’t exactly gotten legally. He walked around, looked at the timeline, her desk, notes on the paintings, her mother, Jimmy, Eve—
He opened his eyes. The prospectus from the junior boating club was gone. He looked everywhere, but it wasn’t here.
Why would Colter take it?
He had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach. He ran out to his truck and started driving as he called Eve’s high school, identified himself, and was transferred to the principal.
“This is Special Agent Ryan Maguire with the FBI. This is an emergency. I need you to locate a student of yours, Eve Truman, and sequester her in your office until I arrive. Do not let her go with anyone else, only me.”
Abandoned Page 32