2 Pane of Death

by Sarah Atwell

  When I opened my eyes there were police cars in front of me. I slammed on my brakes in time to avoid hitting the nearest one. The officers in the car had jumped out and were pointing guns at me. I took a quick peek at Maddy, who was bolt upright and white as a sheet. “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Then we’d better start explaining.” I opened the truck door slowly and stepped out, my hands high. “Boy, am I glad to see you guys! You sure got here fast.”

  “On the ground.” One officer advanced cautiously, gun still drawn. He gestured toward me, then down.

  Who, me? But who was I to argue? “Yes, sir,” I said as I laid myself facedown on the cracked asphalt. “But you might want to check out what’s going on in the warehouse. I think the guys in there have guns.”

  The officer made no reply as he frisked me efficiently, then pulled me to my feet. “What’s going on?”

  I was debating about how to answer that when I saw another car pull up behind the two, no, three squad cars, and Matt climbed out. I felt a surge of relief, and for a brief moment contemplated throwing myself into his arms and bawling. I controlled myself. After all, we had an audience—and an art collection to rescue.

  Matt strode up to me. “Em, what the hell is going on?”

  I tried to make my answer succinct. “Ian Gemberling had a trucker named Chas Jenson kidnap me from the shop and bring me here so he could kill me. He called Maddy and she came and he was going to kill her too—she’s in the truck. Peter’s art collection is in the warehouse there. So is Ian, and he’s got a couple of friends with guns. And Chas is in the warehouse too, but he was tied up when we left. This is his truck.” Looking a little the worse for wear after its encounter with the fence. Too bad. I was not disposed to feel charitably toward Chas at the moment.

  Matt gave me a long look, as if he didn’t quite believe me. I couldn’t blame him—I wasn’t sure I would have believed me either.

  I kept talking. “No, seriously. Ian planned to steal Peter’s collection, probably been planning it for a while, and Maddy says she accidentally killed Peter. She stabbed him and then called Ian, and he came and got the stuff out of there as fast as he could and stashed the art here to wait until things settled down and he could get his own people here to move it. But I guess I made too much of a stink, because he figured he’d better get me out of the way so he could leave town. He was planning to kill me and Maddy and try to make it look like an accident at Maddy’s shop.”

  Matt was still staring at me, but more in horror now than in disbelief. “Em, slow down and breathe. You just figured this out?”

  “Yup, in the last hour or so. By the way, how’d you get here so fast?”

  Another officer approached, a firm hand on a squirming Maddy’s arm. “What do I do with her, Chief?”

  Matt gestured him away. “Hang on to her for a minute.” For once Maddy kept her mouth shut. Matt turned back to me. “When you were nowhere to be found, Allison called Cam, who called me. But we would have found the place anyway. One of the guys Gemberling hired to move the stuff out of Peter’s house ratted him out, and he remembered the trucker’s name. Chas has a GPS tracker in the truck.” He hesitated. “You sure you’re okay? I got a little worried.”

  We could congratulate each other later. Right now Ian and his merry men were guarding the fortress, and we needed to apprehend him and save the fair maiden . . . er, the glass. “I’m fine. Never better. What now?”

  “We arrest Gemberling. How many are there?”

  “I think I saw two men, in addition to Ian. But I was a little busy trying to get the truck moving, so there might be more. Oh, and Chas, except we left him tied up. I’m not sure Ian will untie him, under the circumstances.”

  “Right. Stay here.” Matt strode off and conferred with his men. There was much nodding and pointing as they worked out an assault plan.

  It was then that another horrible possibility hit me. “Wait, Matt!” I joined the party. “You can’t fire.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, if there’s any shooting, you can’t fire back, because you might hit the glassworks.” I ignored the irony that I really didn’t care if they hit human being Ian Gemberling or any of his friends, as long as Tiffany, Chagall, and Morris survived unscathed.

  “I’d prefer that there was no shooting. We thought we’d try talking to Gemberling first.”

  “Oh.” I subsided, feeling a little silly, as another officer handed a bullhorn to Matt.

  He took it and switched it on. “Ian Gemberling,” his voice—tinny, electronic—boomed. “Throw out your weapons and come out with your hands up.”

  So they actually said that in the real world, not just on cop shows. I held my breath. No matter how many dollars were at stake in this heist, I had trouble believing that Ian would choose to shoot it out with the police. He should know that the game was over now. But then, I hadn’t thought he’d try to kill me, either. I didn’t really understand the criminal mind—thank goodness.

  After what seemed like forever but was probably no more than five seconds, a voice called out, “We’re coming out.”

  “Throw out your weapons first, and keep your hands where we can see them.”

  Another pause. Then two pistols came skittering out across the pavement. Matt looked at me. “How many guns?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is, I heard a shot, maybe more than one.”

  He nodded to two of his men, arrayed in bulletproof vests, who approached the doorway cautiously, one on either side. They flattened themselves against the wall near the door as Ian and two men came out, hands in the air. Ian and friends were quickly swarmed by more police and hustled toward waiting police cars. Ian gave me an evil glare as he passed, which cheered me no end. “I guess this means the show is off?” I said sweetly. He didn’t answer.

  Matt issued more instructions, and his men loaded Ian and the goons into police cars. Then he came back to me. “Show me what’s inside.”

  “What about Maddy?” She was still in the firm grasp of the other officer, and she looked like a rag doll.

  “Bring her along.”

  We made our way to the door of the warehouse. Matt peered in, and in a moment he spied Chas, still trussed, lying on the ground.

  “Good God, Em, what did they do to him?”

  I followed his gaze and started laughing. “They didn’t do it, I did. Relax, Chief—it’s salsa. I was improvising.”

  Matt’s mouth twitched. He nodded to another officer to check out Chas. The officer untangled the bungee cords and the duct tape and hauled Chas to his feet, soaked in salsa but unharmed.

  Chas peeled off the last of the tape. “What’d you do with my truck?” he demanded.

  “Son, I think that’s the least of your problems,” Matt replied. “Ortega, read him his rights and take him to the station with the rest of them. But keep them all separate. I want to hear their stories one at a time.”

  “Right, Chief.” The officer led Chas out to another squad car, leaving me and Maddy and guard with Matt in the cavernous warehouse.

  “Okay, where’s this art collection I keep hearing about?”

  I pointed toward the back corner. “Over there.” I led the way, until we all stood in front of the stack of crates.

  Matt sighed. “Guess we can’t just leave it sitting here, can we? How much is it worth?”

  Maddy spoke up for the first time. “Ian said three million.”

  “Were you going to receive a percentage from the deal?”

  Maddy looked at Matt, then her eyes shifted to me. “I think maybe I should talk to a lawyer before I say anything else.”

  “That’s your right, Ms. Sheffield. But you’re not under arrest at the moment.”

  Before he could issue any orders, I stepped up. “Matt, can you post a man or two here, to watch the collection? I don’t think it’s good for the pieces to be shuttled around by unskilled handlers. Art shipping is pretty specialized, and thes
e babies have been through a lot already.”

  “You may have a point. I’ll have to call in some more guys. Are all the pieces here?”

  I made a quick count. “I think so, but don’t hold me to it. I don’t think Ian’s had time to move any.”

  “Let’s hope not. This whole thing is complicated enough already.” He turned away to make a call. I looked at Maddy, drooping in the relentless grasp of the young officer, and I almost felt sorry for her. I stopped myself, though—she had almost gotten me killed, and for the flimsiest of reasons. No, she had made her own bed and she could wallow in it.

  Matt returned. “We’ll wait until the others show up—shouldn’t be long. Em, can I talk to you?”

  I assumed he meant without the eager ears of Maddy and her police escort. “Sure.” I followed him until we were standing in the middle of the warehouse, out of earshot.

  “Em, I warned you to stay out of this,” he began.

  I didn’t let him continue. “Matt Lundgren, it is not my fault that I got dragged into this. Maddy asked me to help her, and that was Peter’s idea. It was a good business opportunity for me. Was that wrong?” He shook his head and started to speak, but I cut him off. “Then Peter was killed, and I found him; that was also not my fault. Maddy, based on whatever twisted fantasy was going on in her head at the time, accused me of killing him. Okay, I can see why you wanted to keep me out of things from that point on, even though I can’t believe you ever thought I might have killed him. But all I did after that was a little Internet surfing.”

  “You enlisted the help of your brother.”

  “I did not! That was Nat’s doing, and she didn’t exactly ask me first. So he shared what he found with me—what did any of you expect? And look what he found!”

  “What did he find?” Matt asked.

  Oh, right. I hadn’t exactly filled him in on what Cam had unearthed on the computer. Well, he hadn’t asked. “Cam found a software package for tracking stolen artwork that Peter was working on. And he found a bunch of files about transactions of Ian Gemberling’s. Peter must have figured that something fishy was going on, and that made me suspicious about Ian. Apparently I was right. And I bet that you’ll find that Ian had a finger in a lot more than this theft.”

  “That remains to be seen. Why, then, knowing what you knew, did you associate with Gemberling at all?”

  “But I didn’t know! I knew Peter had been looking at his transactions, but I didn’t know why. See? It was not knowing that got me in trouble, not knowing.” This was not coming out right. And I was frustrated, and feeling the aftereffects of the adrenaline rush. Heck, I’d just been kidnapped, found millions of dollars’ worth of art the FBI was looking for, overpowered one man, stolen a truck, and made a dramatic getaway, so I figured I had every right to feel a bit frazzled. And why was the man who was supposed to care about me yelling at me now? I was an innocent bystander. And one who was getting pretty close to tears, and I hated that.

  Thank goodness Matt knew me well enough to back off. “I’m sorry, Em,” he said, his voice gentle. “The last week or two must have been hard on you.”

  “Damn it, don’t be nice to me or I’ll lose it,” I said in a strangled voice.

  He smiled. “Then why don’t we wait until we get back to the police station to sort all this out? It’s going to take a while.”

  And then in full view of his junior officer and Maddy, he pulled me close. I leaned against him, and his arms tightened around me.

  “Better?” he said, into my hair.

  “Definitely.”

  Chapter 27

  Matt drove back to the station with me sitting in the front seat in bemused silence. I was trying to sort out what had just happened, but I was still missing a lot of the pieces. Okay, maybe I dozed a bit too—being kidnapped can be wearying.

  I could now recognize where the warehouse was. Ian had chosen well. It was inconspicuous, in a lightly traveled area, with convenient access to highways. Just what he needed to hide a multimillion-dollar cache of stolen artwork. Which meant he had scouted the area and made his arrangements well before the event. Had Maddy helped him? I still wasn’t sure about her role. I had trouble seeing her running around the outskirts of town looking at drafty old buildings—not her style.

  I finally roused myself to say something, since Matt wasn’t volunteering anything. “What happens next?”

  “A lot of paperwork,” he replied.

  Big help. “No, I mean, how do you sort out the crimes and the criminals? You’ve got a murder, a major art theft, a kidnapping. I could probably come up with more if I tried.”

  “The murder is where I came in, so that’s where I’m going to start.”

  I waited for him to add more, but he didn’t. “Have you told Nat?”

  “I called her. She’s on her way to the station.”

  If anyone was going to come out of this happy, it would be Nat. She would recover the missing art and nab the culprit, and no doubt send her FBI career soaring.

  We pulled into the parking lot at the station, and Matt turned off the engine. Before we could get out, I laid a hand on his arm. “Matt, are you going to let me sit in on this?”

  He turned to look at me. “If you keep your mouth shut.”

  Same old line. “Matt, if I have something to add I’m going to say it. I’ve been involved with this from the beginning, if you recall.”

  “And look what happened,” he said flatly.

  “Well, excuse me for getting kidnapped. And don’t be so high and mighty—I managed to get us out of the warehouse, didn’t I? I was doing fine without you.”

  He grunted something inarticulate and climbed out of the car. I followed suit. So he was pissed at me—so what? If I hadn’t poked around, Ian Gemberling would have made off with Peter’s collection and most likely no one would ever have traced it.

  Inside, the desk sergeant Mariana looked up at me and smiled. “Hi, Em!” Then catching the scowl on Matt’s face, she quickly turned back to the stack of papers on her desk. I followed Matt down a corridor to an interrogation room. Matt pointed to a chair; I sat. After all, I didn’t want to be petty.

  Matt disappeared and a couple of minutes later returned with Maddy in tow. She was looking the worse for wear: Her blonde hair hung in greasy strings around her face; her clothes were grimy and rumpled. I assumed I didn’t look much better. She took the chair Matt pointed to and sat, wringing her hands. She looked at me, then looked away.

  Matt began. “Ms. Sheffield, at the moment you haven’t been charged with any crimes. I would very much appreciate it if you could provide information that would help us to sort things out, and I assure you that your cooperation will be taken into account if charges are filed.”

  Maddy was having a hard time processing what Matt had just said, and I didn’t feel like translating cop speak for her. “Wait a minute—you’re not charging me with murder?” she bleated.

  “No. You didn’t kill Peter Ferguson.”

  “What?” This time Maddy and I were in synch. “But I stabbed him!” Maddy protested.

  To my surprise, Matt ignored that statement. “Can you run through what happened on the day Peter died?”

  Maddy seemed to have forgotten about having a lawyer, and I wasn’t about to remind her. Of course, if she wasn’t under arrest, then this was just a request for information, right? And I wanted to hear this.

  “I went to Peter’s house, to ask him about something.” Her eyes glanced at me furtively. “Well, I wanted to know what was going on with Em. I knew she’d been to the house, alone, and I didn’t see any need for that. It was my project, after all. I was in charge.”

  I held my tongue. I knew that Maddy was far more concerned with Peter’s personal interest in me than in the pecking order for the project, although I’d never given her any reason to worry. Apparently she hadn’t needed one.

  “And we got into an argument. He laughed at me, told me I had no right to tell him what to do or wh
o to see. I was angry, and I guess . . . I just lost it. I mean, I’d waited so long, and I hoped . . . Anyway, I was holding a piece of glass—I’d brought it along to check the color—and I just stabbed him. In the chest. And he stumbled backward and fell over, and then he didn’t move.”

  “Go on,” Matt urged, in a neutral tone.

  “I . . . I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. So I got out of the room and I called Ian.”

  Matt interrupted. “Hold on. What is your relationship with Ian Gemberling?”

  “I’ve known him for years. Since college.”

  “And you knew he was in Tucson?”

  “Of course. Peter bought his art from Ian, and Ian was here to see the house. We met to discuss . . . things.”

  “And I saw them together, last night,” I added. “That’s one thing that got me thinking. I could tell they knew each other pretty well.”

  Matt glared at me, and I sat back in my chair, silent once more.

  “And he was the only person you could think of to call when you thought you had killed someone? Not 911?”

  Maddy tried her helpless damsel look on Matt, but he wasn’t buying it. Finally she shrugged. “I thought he would take care of it.”

  I fought back a scathing retort. Pretty little Maddy, so sure that a smart man would come along and make things right for her. But then, Ian had proved a bad choice, so maybe there was some justice.

  Matt sighed, almost imperceptibly. “Then what?”

  “Ian came to the house, and he brought a truck along with him, and a couple of guys. I thought . . . they were going to take Peter’s body away somewhere. Anyway, Ian came into the house, and he went into the big room where Peter was lying, and then he came out and told me to go home. So I did.”

  “But you came back!” I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, apparently. “That’s when you accused me of killing Peter.”

  “I couldn’t stand not knowing. I thought if I just stopped by, like it was any other day . . . Oh, I don’t know what I was thinking, all right? Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. But then the police were there, and you were there, and Peter’s body was still there, and I just said what came into my head.”