Oceans of Fire (34 page)

“Well, dear, of course not.” Carol removed the camera and handed it to Abigail. “But I did take several pictures of all of you girls as you moved around the room. Would you like me to show you how to use it?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Abigail tried to look as innocent as possible. The smile was slowly fading from her aunt’s face and that was a bad sign. “You two have fun!” She hurried away before Carol could get a good “reading” on her.

“What did you bring for us to eat?” Joley greeted her as Abigail slipped through the door. “I’m starving.”

“How can you be starving? You hung out at the buffet table,” Abigail objected. “I brought a camera. The food’s just a cover in case anyone was watching.”

“Then we may as well eat it,“ Joley said. ”It’s only practical.“

Hannah rolled her eyes, but she grabbed a black olive. “What are we looking for, Abbey?”

“You wench, you took my olive!” Joley smacked her sister’s hand. “Eat the cucumber thingies. I hate those.”

“Something that could be a Russian artifact. Packing maybe might have come from Russia. Anything at all that might indicate something illegal is going on here.”

Joley stood in front of a naked statue of a man, turning her head this way and that to study the rather smallish endowments. “Pathetic if you ask me. Seriously, this thing should be illegal. Where the heck would you put it? In your garden?”

Abigail dragged her away from the statue. “You’re such a pervert, Joley. You would find the only naked man in the room.”

Joley hung back. “I think I’m in love. Well, almost. I’ll need Frank to do a little work on him. Can you imagine Frank’s face if I asked him to add to the proportions?” She snapped her fingers. “Give me the camera.”

Abigail exchanged the camera for the plate of food. “What have you found?”

“I’m going to give Aunt Carol a preview of what her life might be like if she chooses the wrong man.” Joley began snapping pictures of the statue. “You never know, Frank may have used himself as a model, in which case Aunt Carol should definitely give old man Mars, as fruity as he is, a chance.”

“Joley!” Abigail tried to sound stern. “This is serious business. Aleksandr says a shipment of stolen art from Russia was off-loaded from a freighter to a fishing boat. It had to go somewhere and Frank’s name came up a couple of times. Chad works here unloading freight and packing boxes to ship to other places.”

Joley skirted around two opened crates on the floor, peering into them to see what they contained. “I don’t get any respect,” she groused. “I’m learning to be an art connoisseur. Do you know how many times some man has asked if I wanted to see his etchings?”

Hannah stifled her laugh with her hand. “You’re going to make me choke.”

“You wouldn’t he choking if you weren’t stealing my olives, you thief.” Joley peered under the table. “There’s a lot of packing stuff here, Abbey. Some of it has watermarks on it. If they were taking something off one ship and putting it on a fishing boat, it would probably get wet, wouldn’t it?”

Abigail hurried around several boxes to look under the table. “Even if we find evidence, how are we going to know if it’s Chad or Frank or if both are involved?” She crouched down to get closer to the paper. “It definitely has watermarks, but it’s just a plain brown wrapper.” She took a picture anyway, zooming in on the stain. “This is probably a total waste of time, but it gets us out of the party for a few minutes.”

“You didn’t bring us anything to drink,” Joley complained. “Looking at art stuff that isn’t deemed good enough to be on display is hard work.”

Abigail turned around and looked at her. “Why isn’t this on display? Is it being shipped? Did someone purchase it already? Frank must have ordered it, right?”

“Maybe someone commissioned him to sell this stuff.”

“Abbey,” Hannah said, “come over here. It feels different.”

Abigail immediately crossed the room. She wasn’t nearly as sensitive as Hannah to changes, but even she felt the strange shifting surrounding a small corner of the room. Her heart began to accelerate and her mouth went dry. “What do you think it is?”

“Can’t you feel it? Violence. Not death, but definitely violence.” Hannah searched the floor and walls, careful of her clothes. “Look around, see if you can see anything that indicates a recent fight. It has to be very recent to be so strong.”

Joley stood beside Hannah. “In the last couple of hours.” She shivered. “It was definitely a physical fight of some kind. Did either of you get a look at Frank’s knuckles?”

“Frank has to be in his late fifties. I can’t imagine him in a fistfight an hour before the press and a roomful of people and celebrities show up,” Abigail said. “He just isn’t the type.”

“Chad is,” Joley said. “In school, any altercation with anyone he wanted to settle with his fists.”

Abigail crouched down to examine the floor. “There’s blood here. Spots of it. A few on the table legs.” She ran her hand over the floor, “feeling” for the aftermath of a violent encounter. “There’s even blood on the cabinets.“ She pulled open the bottom one and stared at the four paintings inside. They were stacked upright, the frames facing her. ”Hannah, look at these.“

Hannah, using two of the napkins Abigail had provided from the buffet table, carefully removed one of the paintings from the slot it was in. “This is no forgery, Abbey. This is the real thing. I don’t know an awful lot about art, but I can feel the age of the canvas. What do you think, Joley?”

Joley held her hand inches from the canvas. “I think Frank Warner is a swine of the first degree and he better keep his greedy paws off of my aunt.”

“It still could be Chad.” Abigail focused the camera and took several shots, indicating Hannah remove the next one. “I’ll show these to Aleksandr and see if they’ve been stolen.”

“There’s no way these paintings don’t belong in a museum somewhere,“ Joley said. ”And I’d have a difficult time believing Chad has the brains to sell hot paintings from other countries.“

“He drinks too,” Hannah pointed out as she held the third canvas. “He talks about everything and anything when he’s drinking. Wouldn’t he slip up and brag?”

“He’s got to be making big money off of this if it’s him,” Abigail said as she photographed the last painting. “Do either of you know what he drives, or if he owns a house?”

“I’ve heard he’s a gambler.” Hannah slipped the last painting back into its slot and closed the door to the cupboard. “Inez has mentioned it a couple of times. Once she said if he wasn’t careful he was going to get his legs broken.”

“What about Frank?” Abigail retraced their steps toward the door. “Does he gamble? What have you heard about him?”

“Strangely, not very much. He seems to lead a quiet life,” Hannah said. “He likes theater and is very supportive of the community. I don’t know, he just doesn’t seem the type to do anything illegal like this.”

Joley caught at Abigail before she could open the door. “Someone’s coming,” she hissed. “Hurry, we have to hide.”

Abigail didn’t question the decision but made a dive to get behind a modern art fountain that had been relegated to a dark corner. Hannah sank down beneath a table surrounded by a fortress of boxes and Joley squeezed into a small space behind one of the largest statues. The door swung open and Sylvia Fredrickson crept into the back room, tugging on a man’s hand. Aleksandr Volstov followed her, closing the door behind him.

“Hurry,” Sylvia said. “I know you’ll find this so interesting. My friend Chad works back here and I’ve visited him dozens of times.” Her eyes darted around the room, searching out the corners. She gave a small disappointed sigh and plastered a flirtatious smile on her face.

“Are you certain we’re allowed back here?”

Abigail swallowed hard as she watched Sylvia drag Aleksandr into the center of the room. Aleksandr appeared smooth and interested, but there was no doubt that he didn’t want the other woman stroking him with intimate fingers. His aura held itself away from Sylvia’s, retreating each time she stepped closer. The brazen woman kept a firm grip on his hand and batted her eyelashes at him.

Aleksandr’s gaze was restless, taking in the details of the room, seeking out every secret in every dark corner. Abigail knew him well enough to know he was alert and uneasy. He twice looked toward the fountain where she crouched, trying not to breathe.

“It’s no big deal.” Sylvia halted and turned toward Aleksandr. “I told you I’d show you something amazing.” Her hands went to the buttons of her blouse.

“You said art.” He stopped her by placing his hand over hers.

“I am a work of art,” she answered, her smile seductive.

Abigail sucked in her breath sharply, her stomach knotting with a terrible anger. She glanced toward her sisters. She needed to leave, get away quickly before the building rage turned into something she couldn’t control.

Aleksandr moved around Sylvia to track around the room. Abigail could see he was drawn to the corner where she found the blood. He crouched down, just as she had, and examined the floor. “I don’t think we should be here,” he objected again.

Sylvia had gone back to opening the front of her blouse. “Don’t be silly. We won’t get caught. Everyone is busy asking for autographs of our resident celebrities.” There was a bite in her voice.

Hannah raised her hands and a breeze stirred dust through the room. Sylvia immediately began to sneeze, a violent onslaught that wouldn’t stop. Aleksandr was forced to do up the buttons on her blouse and lead her out of the room. As he went through the door, he glanced back toward the fountain.

Chapter 14

JOLEY and Hannah slipped out of their hiding places, both trying not to laugh. They hurried over to Abigail and dragged her out from behind the fountain.

Joley popped another black olive into her mouth. “I thought we were going to be caught for sure. Or worse, that Sylvia was going to strip all the way down to her bare skin right in front of us.”

Hannah rubbed her hand down Abigail’s arm in an effort to soothe her. “Aleksandr didn’t look very interested in her artwork. I’d say she’s definitely visited with Chad here in the back room.”

Abigail looked around the room, anywhere to avoid looking at her sisters. She was furious.
Furious
. She wouldn’t have sent dust flying. Hannah had been kind. Her temper was roiling in her stomach and had she been able to grow claws, she might have considered raking Sylvia’s face. “Next time she lays a hand on him, she’s going to find herself in a pit somewhere very wretched.”

Her sisters exchanged a small look of alarm.

“She probably saw you with him the other night,” Joley said. “You know Sylvia, she’d take her revenge by seducing your man. Let’s just get out of here while we can.” She hurried through the doorway, stepping aside to allow Hannah and Abigail through.

The crowd seemed to have swelled in numbers. It was a crush just fitting into the room. Abigail tried to draw air into her suddenly burning lungs. Sylvia might have tried to seduce Aleksandr, but he hadn’t been in the least interested. So why had he gone with her into the back room? He was using Sylvia just as certainly as Sylvia was using him. And what did that mean?

She knew how far Aleksandr would go to solve a case he was working. Did it include seduction? The thought crept into her mind. Tightened like barbwire around her heart. Would he sleep with another woman he wasn’t the least interested in? He had allowed Abigail to be interrogated, incarcerated, and deported to keep his position as a detective. If Sylvia could get him information on Chad Kingman and the only way she would impart it was for him to cooperate sexually, would he?