Do You Promise Not to Tell? (12 page)

“You say this woman from the television can be trusted?”

Peter nodded solemnly, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “I promise, Olga. Farrell is an old friend of Mom’s. She grew up here in Westwood. She works for KEY News now and she’s sure you won’t be in any trouble. She’s in a position where she can find out what’s going on. Somebody paid six million dollars for a fake. That’s not fair.”

Olga smiled ruefully. Ah, Peter was so young. He thought the world was fair.

Suddenly Olga was very tired. Tired of hiding, tired of worrying, tired of covering up the truth. She knew it would not be long before she would pass to the next life. She knew it would be best to go with no unfinished business behind her.

She didn’t have the energy to live with the secret any longer. Perhaps Peter’s coming to her like this
was a sign, a sign from God to make things right. While there was still time.

“Okay,” she said finally, in her thick accent. Peter looked astonished for a moment. He had actually gotten her to agree! “Okay, Peter, you bring television lady to take pictures of Moon Egg.”

Farrell gazed out the taxi window as it crawled across midtown. It was lunchtime, and traffic was in its usual miserable state.

Where to go from here?

Without the actual egg as evidence, Farrell could not advance the story. From everything Peter had told her about Olga, the old lady was not about to bring her Fabergé egg in for any sort of inspection by Clifford Montgomery, or any authority figure, for that matter. Olga was terrified of the police. But without authentication, it could well be that it was Olga who had a fake egg.

Authority. The FBI.

That was the next logical step.

The yellow cab pulled up in front of the Broadcast Center. She gave the driver a very generous tip. Poor guy, he had to drive around in this mess all day.

He didn’t say thank you. Typical. No good deed goes unpunished.

Dean Cohen was getting ready to go out to lunch when Farrell arrived back in their office. “What have you been up to this morning?” he asked.

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Since I’m a short-timer. I’m pretty well doing as I please.” Farrell tried to sound lighthearted.

“Any job prospects yet?”

“Actually, I have a few things in the fire,” she lied.

“Glad to hear it.” Dean lied, too.

Farrell tapped the number pads on the telephone to check her voice-mail messages.

“Hey, Farrell, it’s me, Rob. If you want to have some lunch, give me a call.”

She listened excitedly to the next message, a young man’s scratchy voice.

“Farrell, it’s Peter Devereaux. Olga will let you take pictures of the Moon Egg. Can you do it today, before she chickens out?”

God, what have I done?

Clifford Montgomery stared from his red leather chair, a stricken expression on his face.

If Farrell Slater proved right. . .

His reputation would be ruined. Churchill’s would be terribly damaged, perhaps irreparably. And the stock . . . Clifford’s mind raced and he could feel his chest tighten.

No, it had to be a mistake, some sort of misunderstanding. Slater could be wrong, couldn’t she? After all, she hadn’t actually
seen
the egg herself. And the egg sold at auction was flawless, down to the Fabergé marking stamped on its golden base.

He had to see this new egg for himself. But how?

Clifford was so engrossed in his worries, he’d momentarily forgotten that Meryl Quan had been privy to the whole unsettling conversation. Word mustn’t get out that there was even a hint of a problem with the auctioned Moon Egg.

He buzzed the intercom, signaling his assistant to come back into his office.

“Meryl, you must promise me, nothing that was said here over the last half-hour must leave this room. Until we figure out what’s going on here, we can’t talk about this to anyone. Understand?”

“Hey, Jack. What’s the status of the Fauxbergé investigation you’ve been working on?”

“Continuing,” Special Agent McCord grunted, not looking up from the paperwork on his desk at FBI New York Headquarters in Foley Square.

FBI press information spokesman Fred Behrends wasn’t amused. Why was McCord always so damned difficult? Someone should knock that chip off the big guy’s shoulders.

“Well, buddy, KEY News is working on a story about fake Fabergé. The producer who called was asking a lot of questions. Lots of what-ifs.”

Suddenly McCord seemed interested. “Like what?”

“Like, what if a fake piece of Fabergé was auctioned off for serious money? And what if someone else had the real thing, but was afraid to come forward?”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told
her
that we’d get back to her.”

B. J. adjusted his lights carefully. It wasn’t easy to maneuver in Olga’s tiny living room. He tried to think of the various shots he’d like to get. The old lady’s apartment was a trip. It reminded him of the illustrations in his childhood storybook of the inside of Hansel and Gretel’s cottage, where they lived before their parents lost them on purpose in the woods. Or maybe it was the Three Bears’ house. Whatever. Olga’s place was visually interesting.

Farrell was busy reassuring the old woman. She was looking pretty shaky. Bet the old gal hadn’t had this much excitement in a long time. He hoped she didn’t stroke out or something on them now.

“Olga, it would be great if we could shoot some pictures of you sitting in front of the icon,” Farrell said softly.

So that’s what the little religious painting on the wall was called. An icon
. It was draped with a carefully starched and embroidered linen cloth, and a white candle flickered beneath it. A little shrine. B. J. wondered if the old lady knelt and prayed before it. Probably, if she could bend those birdy legs and get down there on those bony knees. He felt momentarily guilty. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten down on his knees to pray.

“Peter tell me you want picture of egg. Not picture of me,” Olga protested to Farrell.

God, he hoped Farrell could talk the old lady into letting him tape her. She was straight out of central casting and she’d be a really great element for the piece they would eventually do.
C’mon, Farrell. Talk the old girl into it
.

“Of course, Olga. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you don’t want us to take pictures of you, we won’t. But I have to be honest with you, it will make the story much stronger if our viewers are able to see the woman who has the real Moon Egg.”

Olga considered the producer’s request. She looked uncertain.

“How about this?” Farrell continued. “While we’re here, we’ll take the pictures of you. I’ll call you when we get ready to air the story and you can tell me then if we can use them or not. I promise I won’t include you in the story without your permission.”

Olga looked confused. B. J. didn’t like feeling they were taking advantage of her. But he felt that way lots of times on different stories. He felt sorry, if he let himself, for the poor schnooks who found themselves with unwanted notoriety and had to live with the aftermath of their particular circumstances long after he and his camera left.

“Come on, Olga,” Farrell encouraged. “Why don’t you sit over here? We’ll put this little chair over by the icon. There. Sit here, Olga.”

Olga obediently took a seat in the wooden chair. She smoothed out her skirt and then folded her hands
in her lap. She looked nervously from the camera to Farrell.

“Tell us a little about yourself, Olga.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Where were you born?”

“St. Petersburg.”

“Russia?”

“Yes.”

“When did you come to this country?”

“When I escape from Russia after Papa die.”

“When was that?”

“After World War.”

“One?” asked Farrell.

“No, Two.”

“How did you get out of Russia?”

Olga was beginning to look frightened. B. J. hoped Farrell would pick up on that and lay off this line of questioning.

“You don’t have to talk about that, if you don’t want to, Olga,” Farrell said gently. “But tell us how you came to have the Moon Egg.”

Olga took a deep breath and B. J. zoomed in tighter on her face. The camera was picking up a nervous twitch at the corner of Olga’s right eye.

“My father work in Fabergé studio in St. Petersburg. He is famous workmaster. Makes many beautiful things for czar and royal court. The most special thing, he make Easter eggs for czar to give czarina and his mother on our most special holy day. My father work on these eggs.”

Olga stopped and her eyes darted from Farrell to
the camera and back again, reminding B. J. of a scared rabbit.

“Just look at me, Olga,” Farrell instructed gently. “Don’t think about the camera. Just relax and talk to me like I’m the only one here.”

“When czar and royal family overthrown, there is chaos everywhere in our country. Revolutionaries take over everything. They come to studio and take everything for the new people’s government.”

“Everything?”

Was the camera picking up a smile in Olga’s eyes?

“Well, not everything. Some of the workers hide things. My father, he hide Moon Egg.”

“Could you show us the Moon Egg now, Olga?”

Wednesday

B. J. popped the videotape into the machine, cuing it up ten seconds before the part when the Moon Egg opened and the comet of diamond stars appeared. Then he and Farrell sat back to wait for Range Bullock.

Farrell wondered if B. J. could feel her tension. The moment she’d seen Olga’s Moon Egg, she’d known it was the real thing. She was sure of it. It didn’t matter that she was no expert in gemology or antiquities, didn’t know all that much about Russian history or jewelry design. The power of the work of art overwhelmed her and she knew to her bones that she was looking at Nicholas’s gift for his beloved Alexandra.

Would Range be able to see it as well? Or would he dismiss it because she was the messenger bringing it to him?

“Let’s see it.” The executive producer loomed in the viewing-room doorway.

As B. J. hit the play button, Farrell watched Range’s face, trying to read his reaction. Skepticism.

That’s his job
, Farrell thought to herself.
He has to make sure of the facts. Don’t take it personally, he isn’t judging you. He’s judging the facts of the story
.

“Interesting,” he grunted, when B. J. stopped the
tape. “So you say it’s an old Russian emigré that has this alleged Fabergé egg?”

“Yes. And she’s hidden it all these years, afraid to let anyone know that she has it.” Farrell waited.

“And the head of one the world’s foremost auction houses, and an acknowledged expert on Fabergé, authenticated the egg that was sold last week?”

“I know it seems unbelievable, but yes.” Farrell’s heart thumped in her chest.

There was thick silence in the room as Range leaned on the doorjamb, mulling over the improbable story. Farrell could feel her pulse pounding in her ears and her face flushed as she waited for his response.

“I suppose anything is possible,” he answered finally. “But we need more than this before we can go with the story.”

“I have an interview at the FBI this afternoon. I’ll see what I can get there,” Farrell said, hiding her disappointment.

“Good. Let me know what you find out.” As Range left the viewing room, he wondered if he had misjudged Farrell.

As Farrell waited for her interview at New York FBI headquarters, she already suspected a few things about her subject. He would be in good physical condition, he would be an expert marksman, and he would probably be a somewhat cynical patriot, with a good measure of control freak sprinkled in for good measure. Acquiring wealth would not be of major importance to this guy. Nobody got rich working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Farrell did not bargain for the fact that she would be instantly attracted to Special Agent Jack McCord.

His eyes. Piercing blue, they locked onto hers the moment he entered the room. He was accompanied by the FBI press information officer, Fred Behrends. Farrell knew that Behrends was there to run interference for McCord, make sure that the investigator did not run off at the mouth too much.

After they all shook hands and took their seats in the metal chairs that graced the spare government office, Behrends asked, “How can we help you, Miss Slater?”

Why did she feel suddenly nervous? She had gone on hundreds of interviews in her career. Usually she could tell the interviewees were far more intimidated than she was. Why did Jack McCord’s eyes boring into her make her heart beat faster? She could feel her
cheeks grow hot. The foot at the bottom of her crossed leg wiggled and she wished she had worn a better outfit than her gray flannel trousers and navy merino wool turtleneck. Why hadn’t she taken a few minutes to freshen up her makeup before she came?