The Collector

by Nora Roberts

  “I did. I also got that she had no idea what happened to Oliver, and even knowing he was killed, hasn’t connected it to the egg. She’s a very nice woman. Kind of silly, but nice. I have to remember to get her the name of Earl Grey’s breeder, because she wants her own. When I do, I think I could get Giovanni Bastone’s contact information. But we should be able to find it ourselves.”

  Satisfied, Lila snagged another drink from a passing server. “Don’t you just love cocktail parties?”

  “I do.” Monica tapped her glass to Lila’s. “Poor Ash tolerates them only when he can’t find a way out. He’s already thinking exit strategy here. Give it another thirty minutes,” she advised. “See and be seen, then slip out. I’ll cover for you. And you.” Monica slipped an arm around Lila’s waist, as her son often did. “We absolutely have to have a long, long lunch the next time I’m in New York.”

  Thirty minutes, Ash thought, and checked his watch before leading his women back downstairs.

  Nineteen

  When they got back to New York, Ash decreed—though he felt no man should walk a dog the size of a hamster—it was his turn to take Earl Grey out and about. Fine with that arrangement, Lila foraged through her kitchen supplies. A few samples of party finger food had only sharpened her appetite. By the time Ash returned, she had her comfort favorite—mac and cheese—ready to serve and was already busy checking Facebook for any responses.

  “You made mac and cheese.”

  “From a box. Love it or leave it.”

  “The blue box, right?”

  “Of course. I have my standards.”

  He got a beer from the fridge. Driving meant he’d had to get through the cocktail bullshit on a single beer. He’d more than earned his second of the night.

  “That blue box was the only thing I could make when I got my first place. That and Eggos,” he remembered, with some fondness. “I’d toss one or the other together if I worked late. Nothing tastes as good as mac and cheese at three in the morning.”

  “We could wait and see if that still holds true, but I’m hungry now. Oh, Jesus! Ashton, I got a hit.”

  “A hit on what?”

  “My Facebook trolling. Antonia Bastone answered. In response to my query—are you related to the Antonio Bastone who played poker with Jonas Martin in the 1940s? She writes back: ‘I am the great-granddaughter of Antonio Bastone who was a friend of the American Jonas Martin. Who are you?’”

  He stuck a fork in the bowl of mac and cheese. “Antonia could be a forty-year-old man with a beer gut hoping to score with some naive girl playing on the Internet.”

  Her head still bent toward her laptop screen, she merely lifted her eyes. “Who just happened to pick that name for a cover? Have a little faith—and get me a fork. If we’re going to eat out of the serving bowl, I want my own fork.”

  “Picky.” He ate another bite first. “God, this takes me back. I remember making this after a long night with . . . a fork,” he said, and went into the kitchen.

  “That memory involved mac and cheese and a naked woman.”

  “Maybe.”

  He brought back a fork and a couple of napkins.

  “Just FYI, I have memories of naked men.”

  “Then it’s all good.” He sat. “Okay, the middle-aged beer gut’s a stretch. She answers the American—possible she got that because she checked your page, then assumed. But yeah, it’s likely you hit. You’re handy, Lila. I wouldn’t have gone with the dog or the social media. You scored on both.”

  “I’d say it’s just luck, but false modesty’s so irritating. How much should I tell her, Ash? I never thought I’d get anything this quickly, so I haven’t thought of the next step, not clearly. I can’t tell her I’m a friend of the half brother of the man who was killed because of the Fabergé egg her ancestor didn’t win from Jonas Martin. But I need to tell her something, enough of something to continue a dialogue.”

  “You’re a writer. You write good dialogue—your teenagers sound like teenagers.”

  “I know I’m a writer—and thanks—but I haven’t plotted this part out.”

  “No, you tell her you’re a writer, which is true. She can verify that. You’re acquainted with Miranda Swanson, also true, who’s the granddaughter of Jonas Martin—and remains friendly with Giovanni Bastone. All true. You’re researching the family histories, particularly the Martin/Bastone connection and the wager, for a potential book. Not true, but plausible.”

  “That’s pretty good plotting on the fly.” She dipped into the serving bowl again. “Maybe I will write a book about all this, eventually, so I can go in that direction. I am researching. Okay, that’s good. The truth, and the possible truth.”

  She typed in a response. “And ending it with: ‘Are you, or any member of your family, willing to talk to me?’” She hit send.

  “So now . . .” She dug more enthusiastically into the mac and cheese. “We wait and see.”

  “We can do better than that. What’s your schedule like?”

  “My schedule? I’m here until Monday afternoon, then I have two days before I start a job in Brooklyn, then—”

  “Two days might not do it. Can you get someone to cover you in Brooklyn?”

  “I could, but—”

  “Cover Brooklyn,” he said. “Let’s go to Tuscany.”

  She just stared at him. “You sure know how to class up the mac and cheese.”

  “We’ll leave Monday, as soon as you’re clear. That’s enough time to pinpoint the Bastone villa—and with some luck get an invitation to visit. No luck, we’ll figure something else out.”

  “Just . . .” She wagged her hands in the air. “Go to Tuscany?”

  “You like to travel.”

  “I do, but—”

  “I need to take the next step, and that’s verifying the Nécessaire. I can’t go without you, Lila. I won’t leave you on your own until this is over. You don’t like those terms, but that’s what they are. So consider it doing me a favor.”

  Now, brooding a little, she poked at the orange pasta. “You’ve got some moves, Ashton.”

  “Guilty, but you want to go. You want in. You don’t want to be here while I’m tugging the Italian threads.”

  There was a cat, and a dog, and an aquarium of saltwater fish—and a garden—in Brooklyn. She’d been looking forward to her two-week stay.

  But weighing it against Tuscany, another piece of the puzzle, and Ashton . . .

  “I have to cover Brooklyn, to the satisfaction of my clients.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  Lila checked on Earl Grey, who rode happily in her straw bag, before she walked into Julie’s gallery. She spotted a couple of tourists—browsers, not buyers, by her gauge—and one of the staff talking earnestly to a sharp-faced couple over a sculpture of a woman weeping into her hands.

  She wondered why anyone would want something that unhappy in their space, but art spoke to whom it spoke.

  She found Julie—as discussed in morning texts—in the back room carefully preparing a painting for shipment.

  “Another big score, one I promised I’d prep for shipping personally.” Julie blew a stray curl out of her eyes. “Great bag. When did you get that?”

  “Yesterday. Why are you barefoot?”

  “Oh, I caught my heel in a grate walking to work—I know better. It cracked, so it’s wobbly. I’ll get it to the shoemaker this afternoon.”

  Lila just opened her bag, dug out her little pack of sandpaper and her super-glue. “I’ll fix it.” She picked up the shoe—a very nice peep-toe Jimmy Choo—and got to work.

  “The bag,” she continued as she carefully sanded the two bases. “I went to the Hamptons, to a cocktail party, and needed something to carry Earl Grey.”

  “You took the dog to a cocktail party in the Hamptons?”

  “Yes. This would be better with actual shoe glue, but . . .” Lila gave the newly glued heel a tug. “That should hold. So. He
re’s a quick update. I need advice.”

  She ran Julie through the progress of the day before edging out of the way while her friend unrolled reams of bubble wrap.

  “Only you would’ve thought of Facebook to track down objets d’art, and murderers.”

  “She hasn’t answered my last message, so all of that might be a bust. But whether she does or doesn’t, Ash wants to go to Tuscany—next week. He wants me to go with him.”

  “He wants to take you to Italy?”

  “It’s not a romantic getaway, Julie, which I couldn’t even consider when I have jobs booked.”

  “Excuse me, it may not be a getaway, but a trip to Italy—to Tuscany—is swarming with romance.” Aiming a stern look, Julie fisted her hands on her hips. “Tell me you’re going.”

  “That’s the advice I’m after—and don’t just jump on it. I can get someone to cover my next job. It’ll take a bite out of my budget, but she’s really good, and the clients will be fine with it. I want to go because . . . so many reasons. I have to tell him, one way or the other. I’m going over there next. I had to all but push him out the door this morning to Vinnie’s funeral, and swear I’d take a cab over there this afternoon.”

  “That’s a reasonable precaution.”

  “Which I’d catch no less than ten blocks away from where I’m working. I’m starting to feel like Jason Bourne.”

  She pushed at her hair. “Julie, what am I getting into?”

  “I think you’re safe with Ash, but it’s dangerous. If you’re at all nervous or unsure about—”

  “Not that part. I can’t walk away from that part.” No, she thought, walking away from that wasn’t an option. “I’ve been in it since I looked out the damn window that night. I mean with Ash. What am I getting into?”

  “I think it’s pretty clear. You’re involved, romantically, and looking for problems.”

  “I’m not looking for them. Exactly. I like to anticipate, to be prepared. If you’re not prepared for the variables, they can bite you in the ass.”

  “You know how to enjoy the moment better than anyone I know, until it’s personal. You like being with him, you have feelings for him. It’s clear it’s the same on his end. Why anticipate trouble?”

  “He hovers.”

  “The situation calls for hovering, if you’re asking me.”

  “All right, that’s fair. He’s used to handling the details, and people, and situations. Add that to the way he feels because he didn’t handle Oliver’s situation. It’s intense. He’s got a way of making things happen, and . . .”

  “And you like to take care of your own details, keep everything loose.” Satisfied with the padding, Julie got out the strapping tape. “Sometimes tying yourself to someone else’s life, managing those details together, is the answer. It’s another kind of adventure.”

  “You’ve got stars in your eyes,” Lila accused. “And the moon, too.”

  “I do. I’ve been in love with Luke since I was fifteen. I denied it for a long time, but it’s always been Luke.”

  “That’s romantic.” Lila pressed a hand to her heart. “That’s Elizabeth and Darcy romantic.”

  “To me it just feels like reality.”

  “That only makes it more romantic.”

  “I guess it does.” Smiling to herself, Julie secured the padding. “Still, I was doing just fine on my own. I can be happy—and so can you—on my own. I think that’s what makes it all the more special, all the more strong, when we can take that step, when we can say okay, this is someone I can trust, and be with, and plan with.”

  “You’re planning?”

  “I was talking about you, but yes. We’re taking it slow. Slower,” she said with a smile when Lila narrowed her eyes. “But we tossed away the last twelve years. That’s enough waste. You want my advice? Don’t toss away something because you’re projecting variables and escape hatches. Go to Tuscany, be safe, solve a mystery and be in love. Because you are.”

  “I don’t know how to feel this way.”

  “You’d be the first to tell me, just feel.”

  “It changes everything.”

  Julie just waved a finger in the air. “And despite the fact that you live somewhere new a couple dozen times a year, change is your phobia. When you’re not at the controls. Try something different. Take turns driving.”

  “Take turns, go to Tuscany, go sit for a painting I had no intention of doing and now can’t wait to see finished. Be in love. Add all that together, baiting a killer with objets d’art seems like child’s play.”

  “You forgot be safe. I mean it, Lila. And e-mail me every single day while you’re gone. Twice a day. We’ll go shopping before you leave.”

  “I can’t afford to go shopping—I’m losing Brooklyn.”

  “You’re going to Italy. You can’t afford not to go shopping.”

  That settled that, Lila thought as she left the gallery. She’d just damn her summer budget to hell, go a little crazy. And really, it had been years since she’d gone a little crazy—the contents of her suitcases were beginning to show it.

  Live a little, she decided, and opted to walk to Ash’s loft, doing some window-shopping along the way. A couple new summer dresses, some cropped pants, some tanks and some flowy tops.

  She could recycle some of her going-out-and-about wear to work wear, purge some of her work wear. As long as it fit into her suitcases, she was good to go.

  A window display caught her eye—the white, faceless mannequin in the breezy dress with boldly colored swirls, and the strappy wedges in emerald green.

  She shouldn’t buy green sandals. She should buy a neutral color, something that would go with anything—just like what she had on.

  Green could be neutral. Grass was green, and it went with everything when you thought about it.

  As she debated with herself, she felt a presence behind her, and before she could step aside, a tiny prick in her side.

  “You should be very still and very quiet, or the knife will go much deeper, and very quickly. Nod if you understand me.”

  In the window glass, Lila saw the reflection now, the stunning face, the black rain of hair. She nodded.

  “Good. We should talk, you and I. My associate has a car, just around the corner.”

  “You killed your associate.”

  “There’s always more of that kind. He was . . . unsatisfactory. Knowing that, you should take care to be satisfactory. We’ll walk to the car, just two friends enjoying a summer day.”

  “I don’t have what you’re looking for.”

  “We’ll talk. I have a quiet place.” The woman put an arm firmly around Lila’s waist, as if they were the best of friends, or lovers. The knife pressed a deadly reminder into her side.

  “I just looked out the window.” Stay calm, Lila ordered herself. They were on the street in broad daylight. There had to be something she could do. “I didn’t even know Oliver Archer.”

  “Yet you went to his funeral.”

  “For his brother.”

  “And the brother you know very well. It can all be a simple thing, an easy thing. The brother gives me what was promised, and all is satisfied.”

  Lila scanned faces as they walked. Look at me! her mind shouted. Call the police.

  Everyone passed by, in a hurry to get somewhere else.

  “Why do you do this? Why do you kill?”

  “Why do you sit in other people’s houses?” Jai glanced down, smiled. “It’s what we do, our living. There are many commendations on your website. We’re good at what we do.”

  “So it’s just a job.”

  “There’s an American expression. It’s not a job, it’s an adventure. My employer pays well, and expects superior work. I give