Forger of Light

by Nupur Tustin

  “You’re not protecting yourself, Jonah.” Her fury was rising. Her arms were pinned behind her back. She’d tried to pull them free only to realize he’d tied them. “You’re threatening me—an unarmed individual.” He was a hypocrite.

  He’d argued vehemently against the police carrying weapons; against law-abiding citizens owning them. But here he was, pointing a loaded weapon at her head.

  She said as much.

  “Call me whatever name you like, Celine. But first tell me where that etching is.”

  “Why are you doing this?” She stared up at him, pretending to be interested in his answer.

  “You really want to know?”

  She nodded, bending her head as low as she could to catch a glimpse of—

  “Looking for your fancy necklace?” Jonah threw his head back and cackled. “I got rid of that as soon as you went night-night back there. Julia and your buddies at the FBI are never gonna find you.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” she said, although she couldn’t imagine how Julia would find her. Jonah had noticed the necklace when he’d come to their hotel suite that morning and ribbed them about her jewelry.

  “It’s a tracker,” Julia had informed him at last irritably, as she fussed with the necklace and the monitoring software on her laptop.

  “They’re closer than you think,” she was merely repeating Sister Mary Catherine’s words—not quite believing it, until she saw his face.

  “Chelsea Creek,” she said. The name had swum into her mind. “We’re on the other side of the Chelsea Creek, right?”

  The gun shot out toward her, then regaining control, Jonah pulled his hand back.

  “Doesn’t matter what you know—or think you know. Your buddies aren’t psychic,” he gloated. “By the time they find you, you’ll be a rotting corpse.”

  Find a way to tell them, Sister Mary Catherine, Celine intoned silently. But she had no idea how the nun would communicate that to Julia and Blake.

  “Time to talk, Celine.” Jonah’s voice jolted her back to the present. “Where is that etching?”

  “I have no idea.” It was unfortunately the truth. She’d puzzled over Reynolds’ last words to her and still hadn’t been able to make sense of them.

  “You’re lying,” Jonah roared. He squatted down beside her, his pale face and matted hair inches from her. “You’re the only person who could know. Reynolds must’ve given it to you. The etching isn’t in his apartment. It wasn’t in his warehouse. And it damn well isn’t in his crappy sculptures. So where the hell is it, if not with you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think,” he snarled. “He had a leather case with him—”

  His words struck her. “How do you know what he had with him?” But the answer had already come to her.

  Beware the mailman.

  “You gave him those poisoned chocolates. It was you. The mailman Reynolds said had approached him. Good heavens, you nearly killed Annabelle.”

  “I didn’t know the chocolates were poisoned. How was I to know? I was only—”

  “Following orders?” she asked. “Doing what you were told? By whom? Hugh Norton? Why?”

  The questions poured out of her, although Celine doubted she’d get any coherent response from him. He’d thought he was helping to get rid of Reynolds, but he’d implicated himself in murder.

  “By whoever pays my bills, Celine. Have you any idea how expensive nursing homes are? On a journalist’s salary?”

  So that’s why he’d gone over to the dark side. For his mother. Celine understood his desperation, but that didn’t excuse what he’d done. What he was doing.

  “You have no idea who he is, do you? He sends you money anonymously.”

  “Stop asking questions,” he screamed, bringing the gun down on her skull. She flinched. A rivulet of blood trickled down her forehead. “Where’s that etching? What did Reynolds tell you? Call him here. Talk to him.”

  “You can’t speak with the dead on demand, Jonah. Besides, he’s already gone into the light. He’s not here.”

  “You’re lying.” Jonah’s face was white with fury. “He wouldn’t have gone without telling you where the etching was. Either he’s still here. Or you know where that etching is.”

  He pointed the gun at her. “You’d better start talking.”

  Blake was at Burroughs Wharf with Julia when Penny called.

  “What is going on?” the Director of the Gardner Museum demanded, her voice clipped. “Massachusetts Imaging Center just called me to say that Jonah and Celine missed their appointment. They tried calling Jonah, and Jonah . . .” Penny paused, clearly too outraged to continue.

  “What did he do?” Blake raised his voice, competing with the screeching herring gulls overhead. So Julia had been right. Jonah had enabled call forwarding on his phone. Fortunately, he’d enabled simultaneous ringing as well, or they’d never have figured it out.

  They’d checked the settings on Jonah’s phone, but Penny’s call was further confirmation.

  And Jonah was answering his phone. That was a good thing.

  Penny huffed. “He canceled the appointment, Blake. That’s what he did. Now, will you tell me what’s going on or do I have to go over your head and—”

  “There’s no need to do that,” Blake hastily interrupted. “Listen”—he’d have to give Penny some version of the truth, but it didn’t have to be the whole truth—“we think they’ve been taken hostage.”

  Her gasp was audible. “Good heavens!”

  “We’re trying to negotiate their release, but this is going to take some time and finesse. And as you can imagine time is of the essence.” A polite way of telling her to get off the phone and his back.

  “Oh my God!”

  “Yes, I know. Talk to you later.” He hung up and turned toward Julia.

  She was standing on the wooden planks of the tiny dock, inspecting the contents of a large black trash can. A cool breeze whipped her ponytail from side to side. Out on the water, cormorants cruised by the fishing boats.

  “Found the trackers,” she said. “Jonah dumped them here. Clever.”

  She looked out over the water. “I don’t know why I get the impression they’re in Chelsea.”

  “That would be stupid,” Blake remarked. He didn’t have to explain why. FBI headquarters was in Chelsea.

  “I know.” She turned to look at him. “On the other hand, if he wanted to inspect the sculptures”—she shrugged—“there are quite a few warehouses in Chelsea.”

  Blake looked out across the water.

  “He may well have inspected those sculptures,” he said. “And found zip.” He turned to face Julia. “That was Penny. Jonah responded to a call from Massachusetts Imaging Center. He canceled the appointment, said it wasn’t needed.”

  Julia looked thoughtful. “So he’s answering his phone.”

  “He’s not going to respond to a call from either one of us,” Blake reminded her. “So that strategy’s not going to work.”

  “No, but there is one call he’ll take.” Julia turned to him, blue eyes gleaming. “Get Ella on it, Blake. His cell phone company can help us triangulate his location. And”—her gaze turned to the buildings that crowded the waterfront on the other side—“Meanwhile, Chelsea isn’t that huge.”

  No, it wasn’t. And the warehouses—the isolated ones at any rate—were clustered around the Chelsea Creek.

  “Why don’t you—?” he began when Julia interrupted him.

  “No, you work with Ella. I’m going to drive around Chelsea, see if I can hunt down that bastard. This was my f—up.” Blake knew what she was referring to. It had been Julia who, in a fit of impatience, had let slip to Jonah that Celine’s necklace concealed a tracker.

  “Retired or not, I can’t just sit this one out, Blake.” She met his gaze squarely, lips set into a determined line. “I need to be the one to set this right.”

  Celine stared at the barrel of the gun. “Put the gun down,
Jonah.”

  Jonah’s mother had called, the conversation providing a welcome respite. Celine had hoped talking to her would help to calm Jonah down, pull him back from the edge. But it had done nothing of the sort. He was back at her side, his gaze cold and hostile.

  She struggled to quell her shaking nerves, but it was hard. “I’m no use to you dead.”

  “You’re no use to me alive,” he snarled. “I should kill you right now.”

  “I don’t think whoever you’re working for is going to like that.” She stared up at him, her arms aching, her legs cramped from being bent at the knee. She felt grimy and exhausted.

  Where was Julia?

  “Where’s the etching, Celine?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes closed wearily.

  Yes, you do, Celine. It sounded like Reynolds’ voice, but she couldn’t be sure. It’s where only you could see it.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw the office in the tasting room. Reynolds had been in there. She and Julia had searched it and found nothing.

  Where only you could see it.

  The table in the office came into view. She saw the stacks of mail, the papers, and—

  Startled, her eyes flew open.

  Jonah read the look in her eyes. “You know where it is.” He pointed the gun at her, his finger on the trigger. “Tell me. Now.”

  “N—”

  The gun went off before she could utter the word or finish shaking her head. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the bullet to enter her brain, but felt nothing.

  “Celine?” She felt gentle hands untying the knots that held her wrists behind her back.

  She opened her eyes. “Julia!” The former fed was kneeling by her side.

  “It’s okay.” Julia looked up at her and smiled. “He won’t be able to hurt you anymore.”

  Celine turned to where Jonah had been standing. The reporter was on the ground, a bullet in his head. “You killed him,” she said, wonderingly.

  “I had to.” Julia raised her head. “It was either you or him. You know that, don’t you?”

  Celine nodded.

  “I can’t believe you found me.”

  Julia grinned. “He wasn’t quite as clever as he thought. The warehouse door was unlocked. And enabling call forwarding doesn’t make a phone untraceable.” She helped Celine up. “Guess we got lucky.”

  “We sure did.” Celine shuddered, stumbling out of the dim warehouse. Emerging from the warehouse, she shaded her eyes against the bright sunlight.

  Remembering something, she turned to her friend. “You need to call Mailand, Julia.”

  “Why?” Julia gazed up at her, puzzled. “To tell him about Jonah?”

  “No.” Celine shook her head. “For the Gardner’s etching. He needs to fly it out to us. It’ll be in his evidence locker.”

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  “It was where you said it would be.” Mailand held out the stamp-sized etching to Celine. He was wearing the white cotton gloves Penny had insisted they all don before handling the Gardner’s Rembrandt. “Under the thick candy pad in that box of chocolates Reynolds left in your office.”

  The Sheriff’s detective had flown into Boston along with Annabelle and Bryan about an hour ago. Blake had driven them to the hotel suite Celine was sharing with Julia. Penny had driven over as well. Spacious as the living room was, it was stretched to capacity accommodating seven people.

  “To think it was in Paso Robles all this time,” Julia remarked to Penny and Blake. The former fed emitted a short, sharp bark of amusement. “Reynolds sent us on quite the wild goose chase, didn’t he?”

  “That he did.” Celine gently plucked the tiny paper from Mailand’s hand. Too battered and bruised from her confrontation with Jonah to travel, she’d suggested the gathering take place in their hotel suite.

  Room service had brought up a pitcher of iced tea and curried egg salad sandwiches, but both remained untouched on the coffee table.

  Celine gazed at the tiny print. The depth of light and shade Rembrandt had forged with his etching needle was quite remarkable. It had all the tonality and detail of a pen-and-ink drawing. The darkness of the artist’s eyes, the glimmer of light in the pupils, the detailed crosshatching on his soft cap and on the left side of his face and nose.

  “Lost for nearly thirty years,” she murmured, “and now it’s back with us.” She handed it to Penny. “Thanks to Reynolds.”

  “If only he’d been a little less cryptic,” Penny said.

  “To be fair, Tony did try to tell me—repeatedly—that it was in my possession,” Celine said. “But we’d searched the Tasting Room office pretty thoroughly. And it never occurred to any of us that he might have concealed it in that box of chocolates he left in the office.”

  “What a weird hiding place,” Annabelle commented, squeezing Celine’s hand. She’d been appalled when she’d seen Celine’s face, black and yellow and blue from the bruises Jonah had inflicted on her. She’d rushed over to hug Celine. “My goodness, are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Wow, he really did a number on you, didn’t he?” Byran had said when he’d walked into the suite after his mother. Celine was glad to see the resentment he’d harbored against her seemed to have all but dissolved.

  She looked up at mother and son now. “It wasn’t such a weird hiding place. When Jonah handed him that box of chocolates, saying it was for me, Tony figured no one else but I would open it.” She smiled wanly. “He didn’t realize I’d never had a chance to get into those chocolates.

  “He insisted I knew where it was. That it was where I couldn’t help but see it. And if any one of us had lifted that candy mat out of the box, we would’ve seen it.”

  Celine shook her head ruefully. “It wasn’t the only message of his that I misunderstood. He tried—again repeatedly—to warn me about Jonah. Why do you still trust the mailman? Beware the mailman. I should’ve known that pointed to the mailman being someone in our midst.”

  But that hadn’t occurred to her. And if it had, she’d have suspected Bryan. She winced, recalling how she’d suspected him of attempting to poison her—and his mother. She owed Bryan an apology.

  “Everything all right?” Blake asked Penny, watching as she carefully handled the tiny print, turning it over.

  It was Tuesday. He was no closer to tying Hugh Norton to the Gardner theft or of identifying the man known as the General than he’d been on Saturday. And with Jonah’s death, any chance he had of resolving the case seemed to have evaporated.

  Still, it would be worth it all if Penny could confirm they’d recovered one more bit of the Gardner’s stolen property. But her only response to his question had been a curt nod, nothing more.

  Mailand had shown him the etching on the drive over. The pencil marks made on the back after Mrs. Gardner had acquired the etching had been erased. There was no telling whether this was indeed the Gardner’s Rembrandt. And if it wasn’t, all that they’d been through had been for nothing.

  “I examined it under a raking light, just as you instructed, Ms. Hoskins,” Mailand said when he noticed Penny examining the reverse side of the etching. “The accession number is there, P21n9. And the marks on the mount, Blanc, Bartsch, Claussen. Didn’t see any kind of watermark, though.”

  “There wouldn’t be,” Penny explained, raising her eyes. “This is such a tiny sheet, cut probably from the edge of a larger sheet. It would be quite remarkable if it did reveal a watermark.”

  So why didn’t Penny seem happier? Julia must’ve been asking herself the same question because she leaned forward.

  “I realize this isn’t the biggest recovery, but it’s something. We’re one step closer to finding out who was behind this. One step closer to finding the rest of the art.”

  Penny nodded. “I know. It’s just that . . .” She paused, swallowing. “So many people have died for this etching, for this tiny piece of art. Tony Reynolds, that poor young woman at the mall, her husband—”

 
“Who killed her and Reynolds,” Blake reminded her.

  Penny nodded. “I know, and then Jonah. And all because of what . . .?”

  “Pride,” Celine said quietly. “And greed and a desire to remain unpunished.”

  “And so many people have been hurt.” Tears had welled up into Penny’s eyes. “Reynolds’ last sculptures destroyed. And you, Celine, look at you!”

  “She’s been brave,” Annabelle said, hugging Celine affectionately. “So very brave, hasn’t she? Simon—Dirck—would’ve been proud of you, my dear.”

  Later when Julia escorted the others down, Annabelle and Bryan remained with Celine.

  “Bryan has something to say to you, don’t you, Bryan?” Annabelle nudged her son.

  Bryan looked sheepish. He stared down at his hands and then up at Celine. “Just wanted to apologize for my boorish behavior. I was acting out my resentment against Simon—for leaving us, for not bothering to stay in touch, and finally for not even remembering us in his will. But none of that’s your fault.”

  “It isn’t his either,” Celine gently pointed out. “His life was cut short before he could consider reaching out to you in a way that wouldn’t put you and Annabelle—or him—in danger.”

  Bryan nodded. “I get that now.”

  “And besides, I owe you an apology, too. I knew you felt resentful and I thought I understood why. Nevertheless, the first person I suspected when we realized those chocolates were poisoned was you. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be,” Annabelle said, nudging her son again. “Go on, Bryan. Tell her.”

  Surprised, Celine looked from mother to son. “You did have something to do with that?”

  Bryan made a wry face. “Indirectly, I might have. Back in Paso Robles, Jonah and I got drunk and I revealed some details of your psychic visions to him. He persuaded me to call them in to a buddy of his at a rival newspaper. He made the whole thing sound more sensational than it was.”

  “Insider involvement in the Gardner heist,” Celine quoted the newspapers. It had triggered the attempt on her life. Julia had always suspected that.