by Taylor Smith
“No, I’m really glad you came.”
“Hannah, Cal told me about the meeting with Gabe’s assistant headmaster. I agree with her. It’s high time things changed, and if I have anything to say about it, they will. You have my word.”
“Thanks, Christie. I appreciate it.” Hannah hugged Gabe again. “We’re all going to do better, aren’t we?”
He nodded, then peered down at something on the floor next to the bed. “What’s in the box?”
“Box?”
“Oh, I forgot.” Travis lifted onto the end of the bed a large, flat cardboard box covered with FedEx stickers. “This came for you yesterday. Ruben signed for it. We weren’t sure if it was important, so we brought it along.”
“Who’s it from?”
Nora peered over Travis’s shoulder to look at the return address. “Oh, Hannah,” she breathed, “it’s from Rebecca’s gallery.”
Hannah’s heart sank. “I guess you’d better open it.”
Travis handed it to Nora and Russo pulled out a penknife to help her slit the packing tape. As they tipped the box sideways, an envelope slipped out, then a bubble-wrapped painting in a frame. Russo cut the tape around the bubble wrap and they peeled it off.
“Oh, my gosh,” Hannah said when he held up the painting for her to see. It was the Southern California beach scene with the little boy. “He reminded me of you,” she told Gabe. Then she looked up at Russo. “It’s the piece I thought was missing after the attack at the gallery. I’d told Rebecca I liked it and she offered to throw it in along with my fee for couriering Koon’s painting down to Puerto Vallarta.”
“Open the note, dear,” her mother said.
When Hannah ripped open the envelope, a check made out to her fell out first—her fee for carrying the painting—and then a handwritten note on a pretty card.
Dear Hannah,
I’m so grateful to you for taking this job. Who knows? Maybe this will be the beginning of a whole new career for me as an art buyer. Don’t fight me on this gift. I know you loved the painting. It’s small thanks in light of your help.
Enjoy!
Rebecca
With a lump in her throat, Hannah handed the note to her sister. As Nora read it, tears spilled down her cheeks, and she looked at Russo. “Why?” she asked. “Why was she killed?”
“Probably for the same reason August Koon was,” he said wearily. “According to what the feds have been able to piece together about Liggett’s and Gladding’s final days, this operation had all the hallmarks of a grand final gesture—particularly on Gladding’s part. They found meds among his personal effects suggesting he had advanced cancer—probably terminal, from the amount of morphine he was on. He felt aggrieved that Washington had turned its back on him after years of using his contacts, and he wanted his career to go out with a bang—literally. Liggett, meantime, was just a sociopath with a messianic complex. In the end, he even killed Gladding for not giving him enough respect. Before that, though, neither wanted to risk leaving loose ends that could trip them up before they were finished what they’d set out to do.”
“And the painting I carried?” Hannah asked. “Was it the stolen van Gogh?”
Russo nodded. “The restoration experts have taken a preliminary look and it seems Teagarden called it exactly right.”
“Why did he follow me last night?” Hannah asked, frustrated and heartbroken. “There was no need for him to get mixed up in any of this once he’d recovered the painting. He could have returned it to Yale University and gone back to doing what he did best. He was no match for that monster Liggett. Why didn’t he just leave well enough alone?”
“I think you know why,” Russo said quietly. “He’d grown very fond of you, Hannah, and he was an old-school kind of gentleman. Not the kind to let a girl walk into trouble alone.”
Hannah took Russo’s hand in hers. “Old-school gentlemen—a lot of that going around, it seems. Best backup I could have asked for.”
There were murmurs of agreement all around.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1764-9
THE NIGHT CAFÉ
Copyright © 2008 by Taylor Smith.
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