Britt’s heart reverberated slowly like a bass drum.Boom. Boom. Boom.
He was lying.
She activated the tracking app on her phone because back when she’d set it up, she’d added him to it. It took the app a few seconds to pinpoint Zander’s location, a small space of time that stretched wretchedly long with the premonition that he was not at the inn, writing, like he’d told her.
The circle representing Zander appeared on the app’s screen, traveling south on Highway 101. Nauseating proof. She’d just caught him in a lie.
He was fifteen minutes outside of town. Not a tremendous head start. If she drove fast, and she liked to drive fast, she could probably shave off a few minutes of his lead.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
A quaking had begun deep inside her torso. It was fear, she realized. She was afraid that their whole relationship was abruptly, horribly at risk.
She’d been so careful of him. She hadn’t imagined that he might not be as careful of her. It hadn’t occurred to her to doubt him.Not once. Now, however, as she stared at her tracking app, she saw that she shouldn’t have been so blindly naïve.
Zander.Zanderhad lied to her. He’d lied.
Big, bottomless misery hovered above her, waiting to swallow her whole. The only thing that could generate that level of misery was equally big and bottomless attachment.
She cared about Zander even more than she’d realized.
When she got to wherever he was going, he had a lot of explaining to do.
The fourth key Zander tried on the door of apartment #618 slid easily into place, then turned the deadbolt with a solidclick.
He entered, then locked the door behind him. Cool, moist air enveloped him.
One of the keys had actuallyworked.
He was inside his uncle’s secret apartment.
A contemporary kitchen that looked like it had never been used gave way to a living area. The space held the minimum amount of furniture. A simple table with four chairs. Beyond that, two sofas and a coffee table. Cream curtains partially covered the windows at the rear of the space. An open door led to a bedroom containing a bed with a beige comforter.
If the painting had once been here, was it now gone?
He flipped the light switches and illumination flooded down. As he progressed through the kitchen, the living room’s right-hand wall became visible first. Three easily recognizable oil paintings had been suspended there. All were knock-offs of famous works. Monet’sWater Lilies. Van Gogh’sStarry Night. Degas’ ballerinas.
He walked farther and was finally able to glimpse the left-hand wall.
In the center of it hung a painting.
It was a painting he’d seen many times before in articles about the Triple Play, on microfiche, on computer screens, in the books he’d checked out about Renoir. Very few people had seen thisparticular masterwork face-to-face in the past thirty years. Now all at once, he was in that number.
Young Woman at Rest.
Oil on canvas. Painted in the year 1876 in the impressionist style by the famously brilliant Frenchman Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Owned by the Pascal family since 1931. Taken by the Nazis in 1941. Found and returned after a painstaking search by Annette Pascal’s grandparents and father in the year 1968. Stolen again in 1985 by James Richard Ross, who later became Frank Joseph Pierce.
A simple wooden frame bordered the painting. Brightness shone against the textured brushstrokes, each one melting into the next with awe-inspiring skill.
Zander’s memory supplied the subject’s name. Nina Lopez. Nina had lived more than a century before, yet to this day, her skin glowed with youth. Golden brown hair flowed over one shoulder onto her floral dress. Her liquid eyes looked out from the picture thoughtfully, almost as if she had been waiting with long-suffering patience to be found.
A hush fell over Zander, quieting his body and mind.
This piece of art was far more timeless than he was.
Every detail of it proclaimedmasterpiece.
He glanced again at his surroundings. It seemed that Frank had done what he could to ensure the painting’s security. He’d furnished the apartment, likely so that nothing about this interior would arouse suspicion should staff from The Residences need to enter. He’d even added other impressionist works to the room. Anyone who observed them would think that this apartment’s renter liked European art from the late 1800s. They’d have no reason to imagine that one of these pieces might be an original.
