So she thought she was on her toes, did she? Considered herself untouchable? Well, she had another think coming. It was time to move on to plan B, a more permanent solution—after he’d tied up the loose ends on plan A.
The man drove deeper into Miami, despising the lousy car he sat in, but needing it to blend in with the environment. Sweat trickled from his scalp down his neck and from there to his spine. No AC in this stinking climate . . . though he should be used to it by now. And perspiration was the least of his concerns.
He headed east, the houses getting smaller and more derelict as he went, until they were nothing but little shit-boxes inhabited by the rodents of the city. Crack whores. Drug dealers. Kids who’d grow up to be the same. Mangy, starving dogs. Clotheslines. Cars on blocks in the front yards, if you could call them such.
He missed his home, his family—though family was the reason he’d come. He despised this city and everyone in it, and he’d been here too long trying to put this plan into action. Even in the high-end areas—Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, Brickell—he saw nothing redeeming. Conspicuous consumption, whorish women, no work ethic, easy highs.
As he stopped at a red light, he pulled his Glock from under the seat and checked the clip. The sight of it discouraged a pierced, tattooed guy in a ripped T-shirt from coming any closer.
The man adjusted his baseball cap and didn’t look at the kid. He wanted nobody to remember him, not even a punk looking for trouble.
The light turned green, green for go. And he progressed down the street, turned the corner, and came to his destination. He made sure he had the custom silencer he’d paid dearly for. And then the man got out of the car, shut the door, and faded into the shadows as the sun went down.
For someone, it wouldn’t come up again.
chapter 8
Gwen could breathe and think better on her own, without Quinn sucking all the oxygen from the room and distracting her. Knocking her off balance . . . though she’d done a pretty good job of fighting back. His expression upon sight of her SIG? A true Kodak moment.
Do you have a permit for that?
Yeah, baby. I can also knock you on your big, sexy butt in two seconds flat and crack that heavy-duty safe after breaking and entering the lab you think is so off-limits. But we’ll get to that later.
For now, she concentrated on looking sweet and addicted to fashion and generally unthreatening. She’d tried to call Avy again an hour ago, but there was no answer. Weird.
But as Gwen approached Le Fevre Art Consultants to speak with Angeline, Avy called back.
“Gwennie, it’s Ave. Wait—Liam, take a left up there. And don’t hit that cow.”
“You’re with Liam? I knew it. Where are you?”
“Loire Valley, France. Château country—Left, Liam, left! Your other left. You freaking wrong-side-driving, British—No! No kissing. Drive.”
Under any other circumstances, Gwen would have laughed. “When do I get to meet Liam?”
“Oh, you know,” Avy said vaguely. “Soon.”
“Has he really retired?” Liam had had a long and productive career in grand larceny. Maybe he could be a consultant in this situation. . . .
“Of course he has, or I wouldn’t be with him.” Kissing noises came from the phone, without protest this time. Gwen held the phone away from her ear. At least Avy was happy.
She opened her mouth to tell her about the horrendous situation back in Miami, but opted to indulge her curiosity first. “So, what is it exactly that you two are doing in France?”
“Huh?”
“What are you doing in—”
“Vacationing,” Avy said. “We’ll go to Italy next. We’ll be in Venice for the opening of Carnevale.”
“Right. You didn’t give up a five-hundred-thousand dollar commission to go on vacation,” Gwen said.
“What’s that?” Avy’s voice suddenly sounded faraway. Hissing noises came over the line. “You’re breaking up. . . .”
“You are terrible at faking static,” Gwen told her, but the line was already dead. So much for coming clean with her boss.
Gwen stowed her phone and tried to open the door in front of her, but it was locked. The name, Le Fevre Art Consultants, was trumpeted across it in big gold letters, and underneath was an ornate, rococo gold picture frame with a dollar sign in the middle of it. Subtle.
From the other side of the door she heard a man swear and a woman hiss at him to be quiet. It dawned on Gwen that she’d arrived at an inopportune time, even though it was two forty-five in the afternoon on a workday.
She’d turned around to leave when the door opened to reveal a small woman in a short green skirt and a gold silk blouse. Her hair looked freshly combed, though her rust lipstick had smudged at the left corner of her mouth. She was pretty in a hard sort of way, but owed a lot of it to good cosmetics and careful grooming.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Le Fevre? I’m Gwen Davies from ARTemis, Inc. I was hoping you’d have a moment to talk about the Jaworski collection’s Borgia mask.”
The woman hesitated and then shrugged. “Come in.” She stepped aside and Gwen entered the office, only to stop short at the sight of a familiar figure. McDougal had his back to her and was busily buttoning his cotton shirt.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Gwen. She guessed it wasn’t all that surprising. The Miami art world was small, and he had a habit of making conquests at art openings and galas. To him, women were canapés—and most of them couldn’t resist those Newman-blue eyes. But in the middle of the business day?
McDougal the man-whore turned around, finished his last button, and ran a hand through his unruly ginger hair. He winked and held out his arms. “Gwendolyn! What a pleasure.”
Angeline Le Fevre’s desk was clean—too clean, since a stack of papers and files had clearly been swept right off of it and onto the floor. McDougal’s shirt was untucked, and the unmistakable essence of sex permeated the air.
Gwen wished that the vanilla candle on a side table, the faint odor of mildew from the air-conditioning vent, and the smell of old cigarette smoke had covered it, but she wasn’t that lucky. Raunchy hormones buzzed through the atmosphere like flies.
“What brings you here, sweetheart?” McDougal asked, dropping his arms, since it was by now evident that she wasn’t going to step into them.
“My job,” she said evenly. “And you?”
He didn’t even flinch. He just grinned shamelessly. “A different kind of job.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Angeline bit her bee-stung lower lip.
“Maybe I should come back some other time.” Gwen turned to leave.
“Not at all,” said McDougal. “We’re finished here, aren’t we, babe? Was everything . . . to your liking?”
“Very well-done,” Angeline said.
“Glad to hear that. I’ll send you an invoice.”
Gwen presumed he was kidding, though she didn’t know why she was giving him the benefit of the doubt.
McD blew them both a kiss and didn’t let the door hit him on the way out. An awkward silence ensued, and then Angeline said, “Please sit down. How can I help you?”
Gwen eyed the chair suspiciously, but it looked clean and free of McDougal cooties. She sat down on it.
Angeline eyed her curiously, waiting for her to speak.
“Ms. Le Fevre, I’m here to ask you a few questions about the stolen Borgia mask that Quinn Lawson acquired through you for Jaworski Labs.”
Angeline’s expression went from curious to puzzled. “I was told that it had been recovered.”
“Yes. A mask was recovered, but not the original. What we repossessed was a very good copy.”
“Mon Dieu. A fake?”
Was it Gwen’s imagination, or was Angeline’s expression of polite surprise not all that surprised?
“But how can that be? It is not easy to duplicate such a thing.”
“No, it isn’t. I was hoping you could help me discover who might have
done it and when.”
Angeline fumbled in her desk drawer for a pack of cigarettes, which she was not allowed to smoke in a high-rise. She lit up anyway, without asking Gwen if it would bother her. It did, but she gave no hint. This wasn’t her office, after all.
“The mask was purchased at auction, correct?”
“Yes. From Christie’s.” Angeline lit her cigarette with a gold lighter and inhaled deeply.
“Was it tested there before the auction?”
“Of course. A house like Christie’s would never risk its reputation. The mask was examined by experts.”
“And how long was it in your possession before you delivered it to Jaworski Labs?”
Angeline exhaled, and deliberately in her direction. “It never was. I bid for Jaworski at the auction, but Christie’s delivered the mask through their fine-art carrier.”
“Do you know who that is?”
Another drag on the cigarette, a shake of the head. “You’d have to check with them.”
“So the switch could have been made by the shipping company.”
Angeline nodded through a cloud of exhaled smoke. “It is possible. I would certainly start there.” She tapped the end of her cigarette into a crystal ashtray.
“Or it could have been made after the break-in.”
Angeline’s heavily made-up gray eyes met Gwen’s. She shrugged and nodded. Crossed and recrossed her legs. Inspected her Robert Clergerie pumps for scratches. “What does this really have to do with me, Ms. Davies? I wish I could help you, but I cannot. What’s happened is very unfortunate, but . . .”
Gwen aimed her sweetest, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth smile at the woman. “I’d surely call the disappearance and duplication of a five-point-four-million-dollar art object, one that you brokered the deal on, more than unfortunate.”
Angeline sucked on the end of the cigarette until it glowed fiercely. Gwen wondered if she’d sucked on McDougal that hard, and then banished the revolting thought.
“Are you accusing me of something, Ms. Davies?”
Gwen widened her eyes. “Oh, no. Of course not.”
“Because I’d be extremely careful if I were you. My reputation is at the core of my business, and if you slander me, I can assure you that you’ll pay for it in court.”
“Angeline—may I call you Angeline? As I told you, I’m only gathering information. Because, as you can imagine, it’s not good for our reputation at ARTemis to have recovered a fake. I’m sure you understand why I’m trying to cover all the bases.”
Angeline blew some more smoke at her, and Gwen resisted the urge to empty the ashtray into her bright green lap. “Oui, of course. So begin with the fine-art carrier, eh? After the break-in, nobody could make a duplicate so fast. You found the fake when?”
“Two days ago.”
“Far too little time to reproduce a piece of that intricacy and quality.”
“Unless the forger has been working on the piece for a long time.”
Angeline’s hand stilled in the middle of ashing her cigarette. Then she resumed. “How? He’d have to work from the original, which was in the possession of the auction house.”
“Where was the mask before it went to Christie’s?”
“It belonged to an old man. He was sick, terminal, and needed the proceeds from the sale to pay his medical bills.”
Thanks to the Nerd Corps, Gwen had done her home-work before coming. “Right. So you had access for months while he was dying.”
Angeline laughed. “That’s a ridiculous theory.”
“Is it? Why?”
“I told you, Ms. Davies, that Christie’s runs tests. Now I think you’d better go.”
Gwen stood up. “Thank you for your time. I’ll leave my card in case you think of anything else that might help.” She dropped it on Angeline’s desk and turned to walk to the door.
As she opened it, she heard the woman rip the card in half, and then presumably again into quarters. Lovely manners Miss Le Fevre had. And she’d had a lot of lovely opportunity, too.
Gwen pondered this. Gosh, she might have to water Angeline’s plants for her one day when she was out. Feed her cat. Take in her newspaper.
Then she brightened. There was no need for her to break in to Angeline’s home . . . because McDougal could walk in legally the next time he wanted some raunchy sex.
She texted him, because she didn’t want to hear his voice.
McMan-whore. Oops, looked like she’d gotten ruder since her Sweet Briar days . . . not that Eric would care.
Check out your girlfriend’s closets for me. I’m positive she had something to do with the missing mask. Let me know if it’s in her panty drawer. Yes, I’ll split the commission.
Gwen plotted out her next course of action as she sat in Sheila’s domain, the wardrobe room, her face being covered in what felt like spackle.
Three walls of the room were fitted with California Closets and stuffed with clothes of every size and description: male and female, highbrow to lowbrow, rocker style to rocking-chair-appropriate.
Two mostly naked department store mannequins stood in the center of the room, staring vacantly into the middle distance. The male one sported a pair of boxers printed with half-peeled bananas. The female wore hot-pink panties with a black cat face on the crotch.
Gwen’s bare toes curled into the plush polypropylene zebra-print rug on the floor. The dust on the fake potted trees had made her sneeze three times, incurring Sheila’s wrath as she worked her magic on Gwen’s face.
Her butt hurt from sitting for so long on the awful reproduction rococo vanity stool. Sheila peered at her intently as she continued to layer on the age makeup, her tongue caught between her teeth.
Behind her turquoise reading glasses (studded with small tropical plastic fish) Sheila’s face had the texture of crumpled aluminum foil, but it was fascinating, full of character and experience. Her skin was a map of her life.
“Quit staring,” Sheila said, reaching for a big, fluffy powder brush. “One day, Little Debbie, you’ll have a face like a leather bag, too.”
Gwen sneezed again as an avalanche of mineral powder poured down her nose. “I didn’t—”
“And if I’m still kickin’, I’ll laugh my ass off. You think I wasn’t something to look at when I was your age? I had men begging to lick my boots.”
Gwen tried not to imagine Sheila’s accountant husband, Marty, sucking on her stiletto heel.
“Today Marty may look like a dumpling in Sansabelts, but he used to have the sexiest little tushie.”
Gwen blanched.
“Yeah, he used to get his TLC for free when he was hot. Now he has to save up points.”
“Points?” Not that Gwen was sure she wanted to know . . .
“Yeah, points—like you do with rewarding kids’ behavior. Or that weight-loss program. Marty unloads the dishwasher, he gets a point. He peels off his dirty socks and leaves them under the coffee table, he loses a point. He washes my car, he gets a point. He farts under the covers, he loses two points. See how it works? We start it every Sunday morning. If he racks up enough points by Saturday, he gets some after dinner.”
Speechless, Gwen just nodded.
“It’s a great system,” Sheila maintained.
“I-I’m sure it is,” said Gwen.
“All right, doll face. We’re done with your mug.”
Gwen spun in the chair and gazed into the mirror over the dressing table. She resembled her grandmother. Actually, she looked worse—as if Gran had been smoking crack under a bridge for the last ten years. “Did you have to go quite this far?”
Sheila cackled and marched toward her with a small, salt-and-pepper-colored dog under her arm. “Couldn’t resist, doll. I’ve been itching to do this—you’re too darn pretty.”
Sheila shook the dog, which revealed itself to be a mangy, flea-bitten wig.
Gwen eyed it suspiciously. “Where did you get that?”
“Mwah-ha-ha-ha. You don’t wan
t to know.”
“Has it been washed? Does it have lice?”
Sheila’s eyes sparkled with cheerful malice as she stuck her hand in a jar of goop and slicked back Gwen’s real hair with it. Then she brandished the dog again.
Gwen ducked. “Get away from me! Did you skin that off some poor animal?”
“Would you relax? I got it from a defunct dinner theater. And yes, it’s been dry-cleaned, so c’mere. You asked for my help.” Sheila stretched what looked like a stocking over Gwen’s scalp and tugged the wig into place over it.
“Damn, girl, do you look hot. Your ex sees you like this, he’ll marry you all over again for sure.”
“You’re so not funny.”
“You want that man,” Sheila said around a bobby pin.
“I do not want him.”
“He wants you, too.”
“He does not.” So why did the thought of Quinn wanting her get the back of her neck tingling? Why did she feel heat under all the muck on her face?
Sheila snorted. “He wants you so bad, he’d even do you in a chicken suit. And while we’re on the subject—”
“We are not on the subject!”
“—how could you divorce a man with those buns? That chest? Those arms . . .” Sheila moaned. “No point system necessary.”
“Stop salivating,” Gwen said in a severe tone. “And stop being nosy.”
“Can’t help it. Okay, let’s get you fitted with some body padding—ooh, how fun to make you fat! And then find a uniform. Really ugly shoes, too. I’ve never seen you in ugly shoes! This will be a pleasure. . . .”
chapter 9
Why scale a twenty-story building when you could dress like a Guatemalan grandma, grab a mop and bucket, and shuffle right in? That evening, Gwen followed on the heels of the regular janitorial staff as they arrived at the Martinez-Rochas Tower around nine p.m.
She spoke Spanish into a clunky old cell phone and wearily flashed a fake ID at the guard. He barely gave her a second glance, and Gwen got onto the elevator with the rest of them. She had a cover story if they asked her any questions, but nobody did.
She got off the elevator with three of the workers on the seventh floor and dodged into the nearest ladies’ room. She waited there until she was sure they’d dispersed and then headed for the stairwell with a duster and a few extra garbage sacks in her left hand. Jaworski Labs occupied the ninth floor of the building.
Take Me Two Times Page 7