Grant extended one of his arms along the back of the settee. “They were dropped because the police couldn’t find the paintings. Or Ricardo or Emerson’s fingerprints inside the house, even. They figured that the robbers must have stashed the art outdoors, so they searched the boat, the land, everything. Even Callista and I hunted and hunted for those Modiglianis. We tramped around here for some time like Indiana Jones. But no luck.” His wide shoulders lifted.
“What did Ricardo and Emerson tell the police they’d been doing on your property?” Zander asked.
“They said they’d been trying to find a public park, and they’d simply gotten turned around.”
“I’m sorry that you lost those paintings,” Britt told him honestly.
“Aw, it’s all right. Like I said, they were replaceable. Callista would probably disagree with me on that, but there’s no use crying over spilled milk, right? I have plenty to be thankful for.” He levered himself up. “I kept everything about the robbery in a file. Earlier today, I went and found it for you. Let me grab it.”
He vanished inside his house.
The silence between Britt and Zander twisted into convoluted knots in Grant’s absence. Zander was sitting a foot and a half away from her on the same piece of furniture, but the distance felt like a football field.
Grief lifted within her, and she swallowed against it. She missed what they’d had.
Grant returned and set the file on the coffee table before them. “Help yourselves.” He relaxed into the position he’d vacated.
Zander opened the file. Britt scooted in and leaned forward, taking care not to move so close that she’d inadvertently touch him. The page on top contained a mug shot of Ricardo and information about the arrest. The face in the photograph clearly belonged to the man they’d met, minus thirty years of wear and tear.
“Done?” Zander asked, when he’d finished reading the sheet. His brain had just recorded a mental photo of the page, and he’d still completed his reading faster.
“Done.”
He flipped to the next sheet.
Britt inhaled sharply.
The mug shot revealed a young and beautiful woman with piercing, deep-set eyes. She wore her platinum hair in a short, layered pixie cut. She had flawless skin. A long and graceful neck.
Beneath the image was her name.
Emerson Kelly.
Britt glanced at Grant. “Emerson’s a woman?”
“Oh yes. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
She shook her head, her thoughts careening like bingo circles in a tumbler cage. Had any of the data on Emerson informed them that she was male?
She thought back. No.
She must have simply jumped to the conclusion that Ricardo’s accomplice was male. Why? Because Emerson sounded like a man’s name? Because she’d subconsciously reached the conclusion that a man was more likely to pull off a heist than a woman? Britt! Those were dumb assumptions.
“I know her,” Zander said.
Britt swung her chin toward him.
He kept his focus on the page. “She’s Carolyn’s friend.”
“She is?”
“She came into The Giftery a few weeks back when I was there. Carolyn introduced her as... Sunny, I think. She was wearing her hair the same way.”
Britt’s heartbeat thrummed. “How can we explain the fact that Emerson—the woman who was arrested here alongside Ricardo long ago—is now Carolyn’s friend? What logical explanation could there be?”
“Frank had ties to Ricardo. Ricardo had ties to Emerson. And now we know that Emerson has ties to Carolyn, which means that Emerson likely had ties to Frank. Three thieves, connected.”
“Three thieves pulled off the Triple Play,” Britt said. The Pascal’s security guard had never said he believed all three robbers to be male. He’d been too far away to see any of the three clearly, and they’d been wearing masks. “We’ve speculated in the past that Frank and Ricardo could have been two of the Triple Play robbers,” she said. “But now it’s possible that we’ve found all three.”
