“We’ve been busy all day as well. I haven’t had time to make anything for dinner. We could go to the Crawdad Hole. They have a grill, or I can call out for pizza.”
“Pizza sounds good.” Luis dropped his backpack on the floor and flopped onto the couch. “I’m too tired to go out. But if you want to go, bring something back for me.”
Amelie met Maurice’s gaze. “Pizza sounds good. I’ll call in an order. Does everyone like everything on it?”
“No anchovies,” Maurice said.
“Ditto,” Luis seconded.
Swallowing her disappointment that she wouldn’t be using the condom still tucked between her breasts anytime soon, Amelie placed the call to have pizza delivered.
“I brought the photos and the watch with me.” Luis dug inside the backpack, pulled out the photos and the watch and handed them to Amelie.
She sat on the couch beside Luis, spread out the photos and laid the watch to the side.
Maurice sat across from them in a lounge chair. He leaned forward, a frown denting his brow.
They stared at the photos in silence. Amelie turned them over and studied the writing on the back.
After a while, Amelie leaned back and sighed. “I’m not seeing anything that would help us.”
Luis’s brow twisted. “Help us do what?”
Amelie hesitated. They’d learned so much new information since they’d spoken with Luis in New Orleans. She met Maurice’s gaze.
He gave a brief nod. “It’s up to you.”
Amelie made a decision and turned toward Armand’s son. “Luis, Fredrick Schulz paid a visit to us yesterday.”
Luis’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. He asked me the same things he asked you. He wanted to know if Armand had left any artwork, antiquities or journals with me. He went further to say he didn’t think your father’s death was an accident or heart attack.”
Armand’s son pushed a hand through his hair. “I had the same feeling. My father was so full of life. I had a hard time believing he was actually dead.”
“Schulz thinks someone is after the same information he asked about.” She nodded toward Maurice. “Maurice sent the photos to a techno guru he knows and asked him to do a search on a painting in the background of one of your grandparents’ photos.”
“What painting?” Luis asked.
Amelie pointed to the one where the young Germaine and Celine posed in their Paris living room before the war. “Do you see the painting over the mantel?”
He squinted at the image and nodded.
“Are you familiar with the work of Claude Monet?” she asked.
Luis’s brow wrinkled. “We might have covered him in school. Wasn’t he the impressionist?”
“Yes,” Amelie said. “That painting is one identified as belonging to your grandparents and was recorded as lost during WWII. Your father told me that his parents packed their valuables and fled Paris before the Nazi occupation.”
“So?” Luis shrugged. “My father didn’t have a Monet at the restaurant, and I never saw anything like that in his apartment. You were there. He didn’t have much of anything.”
“I know. But he might’ve known where his parents hid the painting. At least, someone thinks he might have known where it was.” She pinched the bridge of her nose as the image of Armand lying on the floor of his beloved kitchen, cold and unmoving, flooded her memory. “Someone willing to kill to find it.”
“Wow.” Luis sat back and ran a hand through his hair again. “You think the German was looking for that painting?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. He admitted that the Monet was what he was looking for. He claims that he searches for missing artwork lost or stolen during the war. When he finds a piece, he works to return it to the rightful owner or to a museum to be appreciated by many.”
“And you believe him?” Luis shook his head. “Or is he looking to be the next owner of the recovered painting?”
