Telling Lies (33 page)

A second later, a shot rang out, and Sargasso fell to the floor, a small hole in the center of his forehead.

Lior turned in the direction from which the shot had come. It was Helen who had fired. Her watcher had released her and run to protect his boss. Seizing the opportunity, she’d apparently produced a gun from somewhere and used it to stop Sargasso.

For a few moments, everything was still, then pandemonium broke out.

* * *

“
Go, go, go!” Aaron shouted into his headset to the waiting NYPD and FBI teams as he and Mickey kicked open the door to the library. They’d entered the premises a minute before, and the gunshot spurred them into action. Gun drawn and already aiming, Aaron stopped short at the sight of Laurel doubled over, clutching her stomach, Helen at her side.

“
Laurel!” He rushed to her side, his only thought that she’d been shot.

“
She’s okay. She’s okay.” Helen must have seen the absolute panic he felt reflected in his eyes. “She was with … that … The Mossad guy saved her.” Her words tumbled out, racing over each other. “I … I shot Sargasso,” she nodded to his prone body. “He went after Laurel, but I got him first.”

Aaron looked to where Sargasso lay sprawled on the floor next to a huge desk. A dark man was bent over the body, reaching for something nearby. Shit. Aaron recognized the figure of the Mossad agent from the Delrusse gallery. He looked away to get Mickey’s attention, but the FBI agent was calling for backup to help him subdue a huge Japanese man who was screaming and beating his chest.

When Aaron turned back a second later, the Mossad agent had vanished. Not possible. He swiveled from side to side as he stepped to where the agent had been.

“
Oh, he’s gone,” said a voice from the far side of the desk, “So is Moto and my beautiful painting. Disappeared.” The words came from David Hammersmith, who was sitting huddled on the floor where he’d landed in the shuffle. “My brother thought he would handle Moto and get the painting for our family. I had a better idea.” Knees pulled up and arms wrapped around them, he continued to speak, while staring ahead and not really seeing anything or anyone. “You’ll never find them, you know. It’s over.” He laid his head down on his knees and began to sob.

“
Hey,” Aaron poked him on the shoulder, ignoring the man’s blubbering. “Where did they go? How did they get out of here?”

Hammersmith lifted his arm and desultorily pointed toward a panel behind the desk.

Aaron approached it and saw that it was in fact a small door disguised to look like one of the room’s wooden panels. He stood to its side and pushed it open carefully with the barrel of his gun. The compact space behind it was empty. There was a stairway going down, which he suspected came out a block or two away. He signaled to one of his men to check the passageway.

Mickey was giving him a high sign, and he walked over to the agent.

“
We rounded up most of Moto’s people, including two other bodyguards, plus that fat one over there,” he indicated the man who now wore shackles on his hands and feet. “No one is talking.” He shook his head. “Not yet anyway.”

“
Moto and one of his guys got out.” said Aaron. “But not with the painting.”

“
It’s still here, then,” asked Mickey hopefully.

Aaron shook his head. “No, that Israeli agent got it, and he disappeared, too.”

“
Shit,” exclaimed Mickey. “How the hell did that happen? Aaron, what’s going on? And why the hell is Laurel here?”

Aaron stared at his friend, not knowing how to reply. Helen’s words had told the story. Laurel was part of what happened today because she’d come here with the Israeli. That meant she’d kept her plans from him, not trusting him.

“
You’d better believe I’m going to find out,” Aaron’s voice was edged with steel.

“
Okay.” The agent gave his friend a long look before turning his attention to the body on the floor. “But do it soon. At least we got Sargasso and Hammersmith.” He sighed heavily. “What a fuckup. It’s going to take me months to explain this to the brass.”

Mickey walked over to his team, who were waiting on his instructions. “I’ve got to get these ‘foreign nationals’ down to headquarters. Then I’ll be back. We’ll need to talk.” He looked over the suspects waiting to be transported. “Thank God they’re not diplomats, or I’d really be screwed.”

“
Yeah, I know the feeling.”

He watched as his friend started giving orders to his team. Mickey had let him off the hook for the moment, but he’d have to be ready with answers when he returned, especially about Laurel’s involvement.

In the meantime, he had a crime scene to secure, a prisoner to interrogate, and witnesses to interview, including Laurel … before he put her out of his life forever.

Kips Bay

New York City

“
It’s over. Aaron won’t speak to me or see me.” Laurel looked into the calming white tea Helen had given her as if the leaves at the bottom of the cup could show her a brighter future. “I want him in my life. I don’t want to live without him.”

Helen didn’t know what to say. It had been nearly two weeks since the fiasco at the Stanfield Hotel. In that time, Laurel hadn’t heard from Aaron. He wouldn’t take her calls or return any of the messages she left.

Helen understood how Laurel felt, but she couldn’t blame Aaron. He might have been able to get past their arguments and Laurel’s high-handed stubbornness, but it had been Laurel’s decision to help Lior Stern without informing him that finally pushed him to his limit. That had been the one thing Aaron couldn’t forgive. It had changed the outcome of the case and put a tremendous strain on his relationship with Mickey Buonarroti.

Mickey had returned to the town house after insuring his Japanese wards were all safely ensconced at Twenty Six Federal Plaza. The atmosphere had been strained as he, Aaron, Laurel, and Helen had hashed over every aspect of the case into the early hours of the morning.

Helen had been glad to be alive to tell the story. She hadn’t really believed the Israeli agent would let Moto’s big guy squeeze the life out of her, but she hadn’t known for sure. Stern had, after all, walked away with the painting. That had been his mission, not saving her butt.

Helen had laid out her theories on what had gone down. Later she’d add today’s developments to the notebook she’d kept on the case. For now, she just talked things through.

Neither Aaron nor Mickey had been too thrilled that her assistant bath concierge subterfuge had fallen apart and that she’d been captured. At least her curtain waving had gotten their attention. True, if they’d arrived a few minutes earlier, she wouldn’t have had to shoot Sargasso. Thankfully, Moto hadn’t known that his bodyguard had neglected to search her case and find her gun. He had assumed she was trying to keep up her bath concierge act by holding onto the case. If she hadn’t had the gun, well, who knows? Horrible as it had felt to kill someone, even Sargasso, she had saved Laurel’s life, and the shooting had been ruled as justified.

Helen believed that Moto, on the other hand, would probably have murdered Sargasso in cold blood once the deal had been done. She was pretty sure that the billionaire believed that Sargasso had his fifteen million and would have tortured him first to get it back. Add in the fact that David Hammersmith—someone Moto would never trust—had been the secret buyer, and Sargasso’s fate had been sealed. And, unless they could find Sargasso’s bank records, that elusive fifteen million would be missing forever.

She was also certain that Moto had used the Drake Delrusse Gallery as a ruse to throw anyone who might be watching off the scent. It had worked to some degree.

Aaron had listened attentively to Helen’s thoughts, and she could see that he and Mickey had agreed with her suppositions.

Aaron’s approach to Laurel’s explanation of events had been entirely different. Aaron was obviously beyond angry and devastated by what he thought of as Laurel’s betrayal.

Seeing Laurel at the town house and thinking she was hurt had been a true shock. Realizing that she’d planned to be there with the Israeli had been tantamount to stabbing him in the heart.

When Laurel had begun to tell her story of going to see Hammersmith—another one of her secret plans—Helen had seen Aaron start to slip away. By the time she’d explained about Lior Stern rescuing her from Hammersmith and involving her in his scheme to retrieve the painting for Israel while giving her the opportunity to catch Sargasso, he’d been gone.

Trust, Helen believed, was like a fragile piece of china. Once cracks started to appear on its surface, they would spread until that’s all the eye could see.

If Mickey Buonarroti had been angry before, he was apoplectic when he’d learned the provenance of the painting. A work of art executed and signed by both Michelangelo and Botticelli made this picture absolutely unique. With its recovery, he would finally have had the evidence he needed to go after Moto for possessing stolen and looted art. It was a career making—or breaking—case, and Laurel had put his position in severe jeopardy. One more thing that Aaron hadn’t been able to forgive her for.

When the CSI team had finally released Sargasso’s body and Hammersmith had been taken to the precinct, and they’d all finished with the police and FBI reports, Aaron had walked out alone without saying goodbye, never once looking back.

Helen could see that Laurel had finally realized the consequences of her secrets and lies. Her determination to get Sargasso and avenge Fredericka Bellabocca’s death had consumed her. She was truly sorry for what she’d done. But, as Helen’s mother used to tell her when she was a little girl, “Sometimes sorry’s not enough.”

“
You know,” Helen began, “maybe …” and was interrupted by the doorbell. “Be right back,” she said to the forlorn figure slumped on her couch as she went to the front door.

“
So, what’s so important that I had to come over right now?” Aaron strode into the hall and confronted Helen. “Jesus, my desk sergeant said you told him it was a matter of life and death. What the hell’s going on? What are you up to?”

Helen looked up at the anxious man before her. Under the bluster, she could read the sadness in his eyes. He looked older, the frown lines curving down from his mouth deeper and more pronounced. The business with Laurel was taking its toll. When she’d called the precinct, she’d hoped maybe she could do something to help.

Helen smiled enigmatically at her guest. “Aaron, why don’t you come into the living room,” she took his arm, “and find out.”

T

he day was beautiful. A brilliant sun warmed the lush hillside of the cemetery, with its view of the city. Cypress trees swayed in the soft breeze that wafted inland from the sea several miles away. Lior Stern stood quietly, letting the calm and peace of this resting place soothe his troubled soul.

When the sun had moved well across the sky and his shadow had grown long, he bent down and chose a small round stone from those lying nearby. Gently he placed it on his grandfather’s gravestone to mark his visit. A moment later he took a photo from his pocket and slid it beneath the stone to anchor it in place. With a last look at the image, he spoke: “
Zeyde
, it is home.”

Lior bowed his head and prayed, for the man buried in this hallowed ground and for all the departed.

Yit’gadal v’yit’kadash sh’mei raba …

May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created as He willed …