Framed Shadows: Shadows Landing #6

by Kathleen Brooks

  “And then we’d bring you back to life to kill you again,” Cy called out from their corner. Ridge nodded in agreement along with his cousins and uncles.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I might ask to go on some of these guy trips in the future,” Paxton said with a chuckle.

  “I’m in,” Dare said, shooting up his hand.

  “We’ll be sure to invite the wives on our spa trips,” Annie said with a grin.

  The guys groaned and the youngest Davies brother, Pierce, looked nervous. “You all know we were never here, right? Like, our wives can’t know what we’re doing or they’d kill us.”

  Cy, Miles, and Marshall nodded as they suddenly looked very nervous.

  “This is going be a very fun wedding,” Paxton said with a smile and Tinsley laughed. It was the best sound he’d ever heard.

  “Here we go!” Miss Ruby said as she and the rest of the knitting club held up a large blanket with a block letter K in the middle for Kendry.

  “That’s beautiful,” Paxton said, truly touched. Maybe the knitting club wasn’t so bad. “How long have I been out? That had to take you all forever to knit.”

  “We each knitted a section so it was done in no time,” Miss Mitzi told him as they carried it to the bed.

  “We couldn’t have you recovering with nothing but a hospital sheet to keep you warm,” Miss Ruby told him.

  “Do you think getting shot trying to save Tinsley would get me two apple pies a month?” Paxton asked innocently before reaching down to his wounded leg. “Ow. It hurts a lot and apple pie would make it feel better.”

  “Oh, you poor, dear boy,” Miss Ruby said, glancing back to the knitting club. “We’ll take good care of you.”

  “Thank you all. Knitting clubs are the best because they have the biggest hearts.” Paxton held open his arms and Miss Winnie and Miss Ruby came in for a hug. Over their shoulders he saw the Faulkner and Davies men staring at him in disbelief. He winked at them and their mouths dropped.

  “Come on, ladies, let’s get baking.”

  The room was quiet as the knitting club left for the night.

  “You’re going to share, right?” Ridge asked. “I mean, I’m going to be your brother now.”

  “Nope. This is to get you back for what you put me through when I wanted to date Tinsley. Revenge isn’t a dish best served cold. It’s a freshly baked apple pie, boys.”

  Paxton smirked. Having brothers and cousins was going to be fun. Although it surprised him that it was Ryker who burst out laughing first. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard Ryker laugh.

  “Oh, this is going to be fun. Welcome to the family, Paxton,” Ryker said.

  Paxton reached for Tinsley’s hand and ran his thumb over the engagement ring. Home. Family. Love. He had found it all right here in Shadows Landing and he couldn’t be happier.

  31

  Three months later . . .

  Tinsley hadn’t felt this nervous since she’d been kidnapped. It had taken months, but with Olivia’s legal help, Paxton’s FBI connections, her Keeneston family’s political connections, and a few bribes on Ryker’s part, Tinsley had traced the history of the art collection they’d confiscated from the Myriad. Not only that, but she’d found the rest of the collection—another twenty pieces that had been scattered all around the world.

  She’d been lucky. During her research, she’d discovered the great-granddaughter of a former local government official who had not only kept impeccable records, but had saved them from the Nazis to show the devastating destruction of life and property during WWII. There, in the documents, was a full list of paintings from a collection that a family of generations of art dealers had on display a month before their gallery was shuttered by anti-Jewish policies.

  With that paperwork in hand, Tinsley had the original owners’ names and began a worldwide search for the surviving members of the family.

  Tinsley and Paxton had gone to battle with the FBI to get the paintings released into her custody. Then she’d gone to battle against countries to get several stolen paintings back. She’d threatened heads of states, museum directors, and even a very wealthy private collector. Some owners of the artwork had been horrified to find out their art was stolen by the Nazis during World War II and had given them back with no strings. Other times, she’d had to raise money to buy the art, or at least reimburse buyers for what they paid for it. She’d even rushed into the middle of a live art auction in New York City at one of the most prestigious auction houses to prevent a painting from being sold.

  But now her was mission was complete.

  “We are meeting the head of the museum,” Olivia reminded them. Olivia and Ryker had come along since they’d done so much work on the case, and considering it was Ryker’s private jet they were flying in. Also he’d threatened some people on her behalf and paid off others. “It’s Ms. Rachel Katz. Are you ready, Tinsley?”

  She took a deep breath. Paxton smiled at her proudly as they stood up.

  “I’m ready.”

  Tinsley had been a woman on a mission. She’d delayed any talk of a wedding until she could get this collection to the rightful owners. Paxton hadn’t argued once. Instead, he had helped in every way he could.

  The plane door opened and Olivia went down the stairs first. A woman in a dove gray suit with a light blue silk blouse stood waiting for them by a luxury SUV.

  “Olivia Townsend,” Olivia said, holding out her hand as she began the introductions. “Tinsley Faulkner, Paxton Kendry, and Ryker Faulkner.”

  Tinsley reached out and shook hands with the woman in her early forties. Her dark brown hair was pulled up into a twist and the excited smile on her face matched Tinsley’s. “I am Rachel Katz. Shalom and welcome to Israel. It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.”

  “You, too, Ms. Katz.”

  “Rachel, please. Come this way. We are very excited to be of assistance in this endeavor. Your actions to get the artwork back to their rightful owners are very admirable. Everyone in the art community is talking about it.”

  A uniformed driver held open the door to the SUV. Ryker sat up front, while Olivia and Paxton climbed into the third row, and Tinsley sat next to Rachel in the second row. “I didn’t do this to be talked about. I did it because it’s the right thing to do.”

  Rachel reached out and touched Tinsley’s arm. “I know. That is even more reason we are excited to work with you.”

  Rachel pointed out landmarks as they drove through Jerusalem to the art museum. As incredible as it was, Tinsley could hardly pay attention. She was too eager to get to the museum.

  When they arrived there, all the employees were lined up on the steps. When Tinsley got out of the SUV, they began to clap and she nearly lost the battle to maintain her composure. She might be dubbed the new badass of the family, but she was still sensitive. And this . . . this was as sensitive and emotional as it would ever get.

  Paxton took her hand in his as they walked up the steps to the museum. She shook hands with all the employees as they made their way inside. Tinsley followed Rachel through the lobby and then into an expansive exhibit room. Tinsley stopped in her tracks as she placed her hands over her mouth. It was beautiful. They’d cleaned the frames and replaced several of them after restoring the art by delicately cleaning the canvases. The lighting was perfect and the pieces looked . . . happy. They knew they were home.

  “The family is arriving in fifteen minutes. The press will arrive in two hours.”

  “Does the family know?” Tinsley asked Rachel.

  Rachel shook her head. “No, they do not. I couldn’t find the words to tell them, so instead I told them they’d won a private tour of a new exhibit, organized by an American, that I thought they’d love. I still don’t think I can find the words.”

  Tinsley took a deep breath and watched Olivia, Ryker, and Paxton walk a slow circle of the room. She watched them taking in the art and was moved just from that.

  Tinsley took a moment to stop befo
re each painting to talk with them. They’d been her constant companions these last months.

  “Is that a Monet?” Paxton asked as he joined her.

  Tinsley laughed and swiped at a tear. “Manet. You know that.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s a Monet.”

  “They’re here!” Rachel gasped as she pulled herself together. “Come with me.” She motioned for the group to follow her. Rachel reached back and pulled Tinsley to come stand with her in the lobby.

  Tinsley didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Paxton reminded her to relax. Through the open door, they saw the minivan’s side door open. A man and woman in their early seventies got out of the front of the minivan to help two elderly men from the back seats. The taller of the two had a walker and the other used a cane. They were dressed in suits and smiled up at the two people helping them out of the van. Soon, several vehicles pulled in behind the minivan and a lot of people emerged from them. There were young children, teenagers, college students, thirty-somethings, and more retirement-aged couples. They all came over and hugged the two elderly men and each other. They were smiling, laughing, and several of the teens rolled their eyes and turned their attention back to their phones. Ah, teenagers, the same in every country.

  Tinsley felt Paxton’s hand come up to the small of her back reassuringly. It was then she realized she was shaking. It seemed an age for the large family to make it to the lobby.

  “Welcome!” Rachel called out, her voice cracking as she tried to keep it together. “I’m Rachel Katz. I’m the curator of the museum and this is Tinsley Faulkner. She’s a painter from South Carolina, in America. She’s put together this exhibit for you to enjoy today.”

  “Thank you for having us. My family loves art. It is in our blood,” the old man with the walker said. He held out his hand for her and Tinsley had to bite her lip to maintain her composure when she saw the old black numbers from a concentration camp tattooed onto his arm. “I’m Elek Alder and this is my younger brother, Sandor. You said it was okay to invite the whole family.” Elek laughed as he gestured to the thirty-plus people behind him and Sandor. “These are our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren.”

  “It’s an honor to meet you all,” Tinsley said as a couple of heads popped up at her strange-sounding accent. “This is my fiancé, Paxton Kendry, my cousin, Ryker Faulkner, and my friend, Olivia Townsend.” Tinsley made the introductions and everyone shook hands. Now it was time to finish what she’d started. “I asked Rachel to invite you here today to be the first to see the collection I’ve put together. Please come this way.”

  Rachel offered her arm to Sandor as Elek walked next to Tinsley into the exhibit room. The brothers walked three steps inside the door before they both stopped.

  “Elek, is this—” Sandor sputtered as he reached out and grabbed his brother’s arm. It was then Tinsley saw a matching black tattoo on Sandor’s arm.

  Elek turned to her, tears streaming down his face. He wavered and Paxton was there to hold him up. His son rushed forward with a chair and someone who must be Sandor’s son similarly brought him a chair.

  “Papa, what is it?” one of the sons asked worriedly as the two brothers clung to each other.

  Elek’s hand reached out and clasped her wrist. “You did this? Where did you… How?”

  “Papa? What is going on? What did this woman do?” a daughter asked Elek in alarm.

  Tinsley couldn’t answer. She only could nod. Elek pulled her in front of him and Sandor and then tugged her downward. When she was on her knees in front of them, the men enveloped her in a hug as they all cried together. This is why she had done it. The paintings were finally reunited with their family. She wasn’t sure how long the brothers held her and cried, but when they finally released their grip on her, her shirt was soaked with tears.

  “Can we see it?” Elek asked.

  “Of course, Mr. Alder. It’s yours. I brought it home for you,” Tinsley said softly, but it was loud enough for the family to hear.

  “Ours? I don’t understand. Papa, what’s going on?” the daughter asked.

  Elek stood up and Paxton hurried to help if need be. Sandor followed and together they stepped farther into the room. They moved slowly, pointing to paintings and talking to each other in hushed whispers before they sat back down and addressed their family.

  “I’ve never told you the full story, but it’s time you all learn what our people went through. Not from a book or from people who weren’t there, but from us. It was 1944,” Elek said and his family instantly fell silent. Even the teenagers put down their phones. “The Nazis invaded Hungary. Jews were killed on the street and those who weren’t murdered were rounded up and marched almost three hundred kilometers to Auschwitz. They were starved, whipped, and murdered along the way. Around four hundred and fifty thousand Hungarian Jews were killed. Murdered.”

  Sandor looked as if he were far away when he spoke. “A family friend gave my father forged papers and told us to run. My father went to the family gallery where we were living and ripped paintings from their frames. He took all he could carry and then we went looking for Elek.”

  Elek continued the narrative. “I was part of a forced labor team. That day we were beaten and worked within an inch of our lives, but then they started shooting us. Hundreds of us, just murdered and kicked into the river. I ran. I threw away my coat and walked with a group of teenagers. That’s where our father and mother found me. We used those forged papers to make it to the Austrian border. Then we slipped into the countryside at night.”

  “We lasted nine days,” Sandor said before both brothers fell silent.

  Finally Elek took a deep breath. “We tried to pass off the papers when we were caught, but it didn’t work this time. We were thrown on a train for Auschwitz.”

  Tinsley saw both brothers absently rub on their arms where the tattoos were.

  “I still see it in my nightmares,” Sandor said as if he were back there. His voice was small, thin, and barely above a whisper now as he relived the terror. “They took our parents away. I can still hear my mother’s screams. We never saw them again. Our heads were shaved, our shoes taken, our clothes taken . . .”

  “We were young and strong so they sent us to a work camp,” Elek said, his voice also barely above a whisper. “Death might have been better.” He stopped, then straightened his shoulders and looked to his family. “We fought for you before you even existed. You’re the reason we fought, the reason we lived.”

  “We were near starvation when the Americans and Allied forces arrived,” Sandor said, his voice growing stronger. “They brought us blankets. They gave us the clothes off their backs and food from their pockets. But we weren’t free yet. We went back to Budapest, thinking we could go home.”

  “Only there was no home left. All of our friends and family had been murdered either there on the street, on the death marches, or in the camps. We were all that was left. Even the buildings were rubble,” Elek told them. “Gellert and his wife were dead. The Nazis had murdered him when they found he’d helped over a thousand Jews escape, including trying to help us. His teenage son was alive, though, and we lived with him in what had been a shed on his property filled with old papers and discarded furniture. His house had been burned down by the Nazis after they shot his father and mother in front of him.”

  “For three years we lived like that,” Sandor said, picking up the story. “Until Israel became a state. The rest is the history you know. We came here with nothing. We worked hard, saved, and started buying art again in honor of our father. We met the loves of our lives and were blessed with our families. But every night, every day, I remember. I remember my father’s vow to restore the family’s collection, and I remember being torn from our mother’s arms at Auschwitz. I remember the hunger, the cold, the degradation.”

  Elek squeezed Tinsley’s hand. “This woman has brought back our family legacy and fulfilled my father’s vow. This is the Alder Collection s
tolen from us by the Nazis. That Vermeer was ripped from my father in Austria. That Manet was hidden in my mother’s dress and was found at Auschwitz. How?” Elek simply asked her.

  Tinsley looked up from the brothers to the tear-soaked faces of their family and couldn’t find the words.

  “I’m not just Tinsley’s fiancé. I’m an FBI agent specializing in art crimes. Tinsley is an art expert as well as an artist in her own right. She owns a gallery and one of the paintings came through her door as part of a drug deal between a gang in the United States and the Argentinian mafia,” Paxton answered for her before telling them of the case and then what they did to bring the collection together and back to the Alder family.

  Tinsley was so grateful he was able to tell them because she didn’t know if she could speak with all the emotions going through her. So, she simply sat on the floor holding Elek’s and Sandor’s hands as Paxton told them how they had ended up in Israel today.

  “Rozsa,” Elek said, motioning to a woman who must be his daughter. “Bring me the Manet.”

  The woman headed straight for it and lifted it from the wall. “Here you go, Papa.”

  Elek gestured to Tinsley. “This is for you. A wedding gift. There are no words that can express what we are feeling right now. But when there are no words, there is art.”

  Sandor nodded as his niece turned to hand the painting to Paxton.

  “Mr. Alder,” Tinsley finally gasped. “We can’t take that. It’s too much. It belongs to you, to your family.”

  “We wouldn’t have seen it or any of these paintings if it hadn’t been for you. It’s not nearly enough. Tell me, where did you find it?” Elek asked.

  “This one was found in a private art collection in Poland,” Tinsley told him. She looked up and saw movement by the door and smiled. She had decided to come after all. “This brave young woman showed them proof of your ownership and the family holding it gave it back. In fact, she was by my side fighting heads of state and powerful collectors to bring your art home.”