by Julie Hyzy
Pete took a breath and moved aside one corner of the newspaper. But it was enough. Despite the low lighting, the diamond-encrusted egg shot a rainbow of color across Romas’ face and his eyes grew large. He looked up at Pete, then back down at the egg. Pete watched him. He licked his lips and shot a nervous glance over to the bar, but no one paid them any attention whatsoever.
Romas used the newspaper as a shield, so that a passer-by wouldn’t see the egg, but he caressed one smooth side of it, and nodded to himself. Bringing his other arm up, he cupped the egg in both of his ample hands, bringing it in for closer inspection, turning it gently one way, then another. After several moments of silence, interspersed with small sounds of appraisal, Romas looked up. “Where did you get it?”
Pete, emboldened, sat back, his arms across his chest. There was no mistaking the venal glint in this guy’s eye. The egg was real, he thought with satisfaction, and though Romas was careful to keep his face passive now, he’d obviously been surprised to see something this valuable fall in his lap from a guy like Pete. Now, he’d pay top dollar for this little trinket to make up for his rudeness. Pete tried to decide what the egg was worth. More than he’d bargained for, that’s for sure. “Same place I got some other stuff,” he said with a shrug. He was careful not to look too anxious.
Romas nodded, pulling his lips into his mouth, then pursing them. He appeared to be deep in thought. Finally his eyes flicked up to meet Pete’s and Pete was struck again by the odd color in them. “How much other stuff?”
Mentally kicking himself for not lifting a few more items while he was in that room with Gary, Pete squirmed in his seat. He was here to unload the drawing, and didn’t want to lose focus. “The picture,” he said, “the one I told you about? That’s just as real as that egg you got there.”
Romas nodded again, seeming neither impressed nor disappointed. Pete felt like one of the big guys all of a sudden, dealing in the big leagues and being asked to join the team. These trinkets might turn out to be his “nest eggs” after all. He smiled to himself at the play on words.
Pete held his hand out for the return of the egg. As he rewrapped it in the newspaper and shoved it back into the plastic bags, he thought he noticed Romas cringe. “What?”
“Nothing,” the big man said, but he held up his hand in a signal to Al.
Two drinks arrived as Pete tucked the bag next to him in the booth, snug against his leg. Al stood there, the ever-present towel on his shoulder, holding a tray. A tray. Like he was serving some sort of royalty or something. Filled just short of brimming, the on-the-rocks glass sparkled, its amber brew catching the light as it was set before Romas. Al placed a shot and a beer in front of Pete, but asked, “Something you’d like better?”
Pete shook his head, and downed the shot, following it up with a gulp of beer and a smile. He could get used to this kind of life. He saw Al scanning the table, apparently looking for some clue of what they were discussing and, finding none, his face registered a shade of disappointment. “Anything else you gentlemen need right now?”
Romas raised his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “I’ll let you know,” he said.
As Al walked back toward the bar, Pete could feel his chest bubble up with the desire to laugh. What a rush. These guys wanted to do business with him. With him. He could write his own ticket now. Laying his right hand on the package next to him, he looked down for a moment at the tabletop and fought the mirth that kept creeping up. The score of a lifetime. And he had Gary to thank for it.
He managed to keep himself to a smile, but in his mind he thanked his dead friend for including him on the heist. And, even better than that, thanked him for getting himself shot so that he didn’t have to share the take with anyone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam looked up as Annie came into the kitchen. “Have a nice nap?” he asked.
Annie, who’d thrown on her T-shirt and shorts in a hasty attempt to get dressed, didn’t think she’d ever seen anything more wonderful than Sam as he sat there, completely at ease, in her kitchen. She walked behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing the top of his head. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what?” Although the question was asked innocently enough, Sam’s eyes twinkled as he turned to her.
“For making me feel . . .” Annie came around and sat down. Her eyes began to feel hot again and she wrinkled her nose to keep from getting emotional. “For making me feel. Again.”
“When I said I wanted to be with you, I didn’t mean, only . . . that.” Sam reached for her hand. “I meant I always want to be around you, Annie. When I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you.”
Annie smiled as she reached up to caress his hand in return. “I thought it was just me who couldn’t get enough of you.” At Sam’s grin, a touch of shyness returned, so she shifted in her seat. “So, what have you been up to while I was sleeping?”
Sam nodded his head toward the table. “I’ve separated these into three piles,” he said, pointing. “Newspaper articles, official forms, and,” Sam turned his palm upward in a gesture of uncertainty, “notes. Most of which don’t seem to make much sense.”
“It’s all stuff he considered important, I guess.” She lifted a paper from the first pile, giving it a cursory glance. “But why he’d be collecting information about the missing Durer drawing is beyond me. And the rest of this stuff, I just don’t get. Look.” She picked up an index card from the third pile, reading aloud. “Portfolio. Suit. Bibles? What do you think that means?”
Sam shook his head. “I have no clue.” He held up a beat-up cocktail napkin. Across the decorative gold-monogrammed “Q” surrounded by a wreath of leaves, a name had been scrawled in blue ballpoint pen. Annie recognized Gary’s handwriting at once. Despite the fact that the ink had skipped as he wrote, the name was clear. “Do you have any idea who this is?”
“Donald Romas,” Annie read, trying to concentrate. “No. None.” She picked up a note from Sam’s third pile and started reading again, confusion in her voice. “This one’s another list. Car, copies, Pete, file, Al.” Puzzled, she glanced up to see Sam leaning forward, focusing on the back of the card she held.
“Any idea what 433831 stands for?” he asked. “It isn’t a phone number.”
“Huh?” Annie flipped the card over to look at the scribbles penned across the back of it. Her mouth dropped open as she recognized them.
Sam looked up. “What is it?”
Blinking, Annie put the information together in her mind. Her voice was soft as she spoke, trying to sort it all out. “Those numbers are the code to the DeChristophers’ burglar alarm. Gary must have watched me when I input them. Oh my God. And . . .” she bit her lip, as it occurred to her, “my key.” She jumped from the table and headed out the front door. Max leapt to attention, accompanying them as Sam followed, looking perplexed.
At the car, she rummaged through the glove compartment but came up with only one keyring—Sam’s key to Millie’s on the heart-shaped chain. The other one was gone. Sam started to come down the front stairs, but she waved him back and scratched Max absent-mindedly behind the ears as she came inside and headed toward the kitchen.
“I knew there was something wrong,” she said, worry and excitement making her voice rise and her words speed up. “Something was missing when they showed me Gary’s things at the police station. I just wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t concentrating.” Sitting down, she blew out a breath of frustration and looked at Sam. “It was there. The DeChristophers’ keyring. I’d bet my life on that. But the key wasn’t on it.”
“Annie?”
She got up again and started pacing from the back door to the sink. “He took my key from the glove compartment. And he had the code.”
Sam, his head slightly canted, watched her. “You think he went back to the DeChristopher house? You think he was planning to break in?”
Annie stopped mid-pace. Rubbed her eyes. “Let me think. Let me think.” Staring at the ceil
ing, she began to recreate that last day aloud. “I got mad at him. He’d gone wandering through the house and called me over to see something. Something in Richard DeChristopher’s study.”
“What was it?”
Annie stomped her foot in exasperation. “I didn’t look.” She shook her head and threw her hands up in an angry gesture. “The fact that he was going through the house without anyone watching him made me so furious that I made him leave, immediately. Maybe if I would have gone over there, maybe . . . I don’t know.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, took a deep breath. “That’s when we headed to the restaurant and had the big argument.”
“And he left you there, taking your car.”
“With the key in the glove compartment.”
“Do you think he set you up? You know, orchestrated an argument so that he could have access to your car and then the key?”
“You mean like he’d been planning a break-in ahead of time?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know,” Annie answered slowly, piecing it together. “Going out to lunch was his idea. Right after we overheard that the DeChristophers were going out to some fancy dinner that night. So he knew they wouldn’t be home. But still . . .”
“He might have hatched the plan that morning, when he saw things start to fall into place for a hit.”
Annie sat down. “I hadn’t thought of that. But the argument did seem to come out of nowhere. It was so sudden, and so strong.” She let her hands drop onto the table, with a thump of frustration. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Not for a second.” She looked up at Sam, who leaned against the counter. “So what do you think happened? Do you think he ripped off the DeChristophers and then Pete killed him for whatever it was they got?”
Sam sat across from her. “Mrs. DeChristopher didn’t mention a burglary, did she?”
“No.”
“Maybe Gary never got the chance to break in. Pete, or whoever killed Gary, might not have tried to get in there, yet. Maybe now that they have the key and the code, they’re just waiting for an opportunity.”
Annie’s eyes widened as she started to get up. “Then I’ll have to warn them.” She pressed her hand against her forehead as she berated herself for not thinking. “Gina was so trusting. She didn’t want her husband to know that I had a key. Now it’s all going to come out and she’s going to get into trouble.”
Sam reached for Annie. “Hang on a minute. We’re just guessing here. There’s no evidence. No real evidence. And you don’t want to get them all worked up for nothing.” Sam pulled out the copies of the newspaper articles. “This, for instance. What do you think this missing artwork has to do with anything?”
Annie shook her head again. “Have no idea. But Richard is quite an art buff. Maybe Gary thought that he saw something there that reminded him of this drawing.”
Sam sat back. “You don’t like Richard DeChristopher, do you?”
“No. I know it’s silly, but the guy scares me.”
“And he’s got some sort of bodyguard who hangs around?”
“Timothy, yeah. He’s not so bad, kind of stays in the background. But he looks like a tough guy.”
“Do you think that Richard DeChristopher is capable of perpetrating a crime?”
“Perpetrating a crime? My, aren’t we sounding professional here.” Annie felt herself smile despite the fact that she didn’t know what was going on, didn’t know what to do. Call Gina? Call Detective Lulinski? Or chalk up all her thoughts to her wild imagination? Sam sitting across from her had a look of deep concern. His brows furrowed together as he sat back, his arms folded across his chest, reaching out now and then to sort through the papers, trying to help make sense of it all. She was glad to have him with her. They were facing this together and knowing he was by her side made her feel stronger.
“What if . . .” Sam sat forward, leaning his elbows on the table, “What if Gary did see the missing Durer artwork at the house?”
Annie’s voice was dismissive, “That would mean . . .” she stopped, then spoke more slowly, ending her thought with a question, “that Mr. DeChristopher had to be the person who stole it in the first place?”
“What do you think?”
It felt like a cog had clicked into place. “Oh my God,” she said. Then, “No. It can’t be. He was just honored for being some kind of citizen of the year. And I don’t think he’d keep something worth . . .” Annie pulled the paper closer to read a couple of lines, “ten million dollars in his house. Do you?”
“He might, if he had a working burglar alarm and a bodyguard.”
Annie shot Sam a look that was half warning, half fear.
He held his hands out as he spoke again. “Where would you hide a missing piece of artwork? One that the entire city knows about. Heck, that the entire world knows about? You can’t just walk into a safe deposit vault with it under your arm, you know.”
Annie nodded. “Plus, these things require special humidity and temperature to preserve them. You don’t want to keep something that valuable in less than ideal conditions. At least, not for an extended period of time.”
“If Gary was thinking of stealing this from DeChristopher, he was in over his head. And he probably wasn’t about to attempt this alone. I think we have to find this Pete guy.”
“I wish that detective would take me seriously with that. He didn’t even seem interested. Completely dismissed the idea that Pete could have been in on Gary’s murder.” Annie’s mouth wrinkled in a frown. “Especially since he was found not far from that apartment where they used to live. I would have thought for sure he’d want to follow that up.”
Sam reached for Annie’s hand. He held it in a soft grip, absent-mindedly rubbing his thumb across the tops of her fingers. Annie felt her body respond, but forced herself to keep her mind on matters at hand. “And you know what?” he said with a smile. “We might be blowing this totally out of proportion. What are we working with? A few newspaper clippings and conjecture. Let’s stop worrying about it for a while. If Gary and Pete were working together, then it’s all over now because Gary’s dead. The only thing that worries me is your job over at the DeChristophers’. I don’t really like the idea of you going back there. Just in case we’re right about parts of this.”
“I’ve only got a little bit more painting to do till the project’s done.”
“Can’t you figure out some way to avoid going back? At least till we can clear this up?”
Annie sat up straighter as a thought occurred to her. “Hey, I know. Listen,” she leaned forward, placing her free hand over their entwined ones. “I told Gina I’d be there tomorrow afternoon. What if I go back there, one more time? Just to put the finishing touches on the mural. Anyway, it would look fishy if I don’t complete the project.” She wiggled forward in her seat as she continued. “And while I’m there, I’ll try to get a look in DeChristopher’s study and see if that drawing is there. Then we’ll know for sure if our suspicions are right.”
Sam shook his head, a look of incredulity on his face. “And what if we are right? Do you have any idea how much danger you could be in?”
“Why? Why would I be in any danger at all? How are they going to know that Gary was plotting to rob them? I’m perfectly safe.”
“If the guy is capable of stealing from a place as tight as the Art Institute, and if he’s holding onto some artwork worth ten million bucks, then he’s capable of a lot of things you’re best off avoiding.” Sam’s voice rose as Annie shook her head, her mouth set in a line of determination. “Come on, Annie, think about it. You’re not Nancy Drew, you know.”
“Of course I’m not,” she snapped, knowing he was right but not wanting to admit it. “Nancy Drew wouldn’t be pregnant.”
Sam’s eyes held hers for a long moment before a small grin appeared on his face. “Well, not that we know about, anyway.”
Annie felt a smile creep up. “All right,” she said. “I’ll come up with some excuse to not go back right away
. But we should probably tell that detective about this stuff.” She started to gather the papers together, arranging them into as neat a pile as she could. “I guess Gary’s pocket is as good a place as any to keep these.”
Sam put his hand out. “Tell you what. Give them to me. When I have some downtime today, I’ll go over all of this again. You never know.”
Max leapt to his feet.
Sam and Annie looked at him, standing alert at the back door. Sam stood up. “Think he needs to go out?”
Just as he said that, Max moved forward. Pressing his snout up against the crack between the door and the jamb, he growled. Annie saw the fur on his back stand up on edge. “Here, boy,” she said. But he didn’t move.
Growling deeper, Max leaned further forward and then stopped and sat back. Without taking his eyes from the door, he began to bark. The low-timbred sound coming from this animal made her realize how glad she was that Sam had brought him. He’d scare anyone away with that bark.
Sam headed to the back window and looked out. “Nobody out there,” he said. “Maybe he sensed a rabbit or squirrel or something running by.”
Annie opened the back door and Max raced out and sped to the back gate next to the garage, where he stopped and barked till Annie felt almost hoarse herself from listening to him.
Once back inside, Max panted and paced back and forth, wearing a path from the front door to the back door again and again, stopping only occasionally for a drink of water from his new purple bowl. Eventually he sat down, then lay down, but his eyes flicked back and forth, the long gray hairs above his eyes shifting with each movement.
“Guess he needs to get used to being here,” she said, amused by the dog’s antics.
Sam pulled Annie close. She loved his smell and the feel of his strong arms around her. It was as if nothing could touch her when they were together. She felt safe. He kissed her forehead, keeping his lips there as he spoke, “That’s something I wouldn’t mind getting used to myself.”