Cort rolled his eyes. “Literally,oneother person. You andCain.”
“Not to be a kill-joy, trivia fans, but I’m still not getting why this is important,” Damon interjected in his roughvoice.
“Look, Bas,” Cam said offering up the laptop. “Look at the picture on thesite.”
Bas grabbed the laptop and sat back down on the chair arm, enlarging the painting on the website so he and Drew could look atit.”
Holyshit.
“Bas, isn’t that—?” Drew began, but Bas was alreadynodding.
“Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” Bas confirmed. His jaw was set, and Drew could feel the tension coming off him, even as he handed back the laptop. For the others, he explained, “My mom did a copy of that painting - an amateur thing - in one ofherart classes, and it’s hanging on the wall in the private office my dad and Ishared.”
“This has to be some kind of…thing,” Cam said, gesturing with his hands. “A secret message or a clue or something. Dad is trying to tell ussomething.”
“Like what?” Drewasked.
“I don’t know,” Cam admitted. “But if he was bringing in money off the books, it makes sense that he’d want to push it all through a dummy company.” He grimaced. “Sort of like Alexei, in away.”
Bas rubbed a hand over his eyes, sorrow stark on his face. “But what would the painting have to do withanything?”
Drew lifted a hand to the base of Sebastian’s spine and rubbed gently. Hearing these things about Levi Seaver, a man Bas had always looked up to, had to be killing him, and he was infinitely glad that now,finally, he had the right to touch Bas this way. To comfort him. Bas flashed him a gratefulsmile.
“Is it possible that there’s a safe behind there? Maybe with all the project notes and files that are missing?” Damon asked. “If this were some James Bondmovie…”
“My dad was no James Bond,” Cam said. “More like Q, the techdude.”
“Yeah, you said he wasn’t a pen-and-paper guy,” Cort mused, drumming his fingers on the table. “But then again… Maybe that would be the last thing anyone wouldexpect.”
Cam blinked and looked at Bas fordirection.
“It’s possible,” Bas allowed. “It’s not exactly a secret that the painting is there - the cleaning people have access to the office. But my dad never conducted meetings down there, so I can’t imagine anyone would have connected the dots.” He shrugged sadly. “I think at this point, neither Cam nor I can claim to be an authority on what our father would or wouldn’t havedone.”
Cam huffed sadly, and Cort pulled him into a sidewaysembrace.
“So, we need to get into your office and look at the painting,” Cain said, looking from face to face forconfirmation.
“That’s easy enough,” Bas said. “I’ll go over rightnow.”
“And I’ll come with you,” Drew toldhim.
“You might wanna wait a minute,” Cort told them. He licked his lips, looking between Drew and Bas. “You, ah, remember the final name you wanted Sean to run for you yesterday,Seaver?”
Bas frowned for a second, then his face cleared. “Oh, right.” He looked down at Drew guiltily. “MarkCharbonnier.”
“You had Sean run the name of the guy I went on a date with?” Drew demanded. “Before or after thedate?”
Bas cleared his throat. “Uh, it might have been before?” He spread his hands. “I just got a bad vibe off the wholething.”
Damon snorted. “A bad vibe calledjealousy.”
“Well, it turned out heisa criminal, so it was justified,” Bas said with a nod, though his eyes sought Drew’s as though he worried Drew might beupset.
In truth, Drew was far from upset. The idea of Bas beingthatjealous turned his insides to putty, and the worried look in his eyes made Drew want to laugh. But he knew admitting it would only make Bas even more of a caveman, so he pressed his lips together and tried to lookstern.
“You have a handy way of making up rules to suit your purposes,” he remarked. “Try to controlthat.”
“Or don’t,” Cort said. He glanced at Cam, and then at Cain and Damon, who all nodded solemnly, before turning back to Drew and Bas. “I’m afraid Mark Charbonnier isn’t just your garden-variety asshole. The financial services company he runsison the list of businesses from Alexei’sserver.”
