For her part, Raquelle knew that she was falling in love again with her ex-husband. Assuming she had ever truly fallen out of love with him. The only question was whether that was enough to leave everything on the table in wearing her heart on her sleeve while letting bygones be bygones.
She fell asleep on that note, safely tucked in Landon’s arms.
Chapter Fourteen
“Happy birthday!” Landon voiced to his mother on a cell-phone video chat as he stood inside his condo. He’d left Raquelle’s place an hour ago, after having breakfast together like old times, to get ready for work.
Zelda Pritchard had turned sixty but could easily have passed for a woman ten years younger. Thin, she had chestnut hair in a layered, short cut and the same gray eyes that had been passed down to Landon.
Her face brightened as she said, “Thank you, Landon.” She became thoughtful. “I’m so glad to have reached this point in my life.”
He took that in multiple ways. One was reaching sixty while finding later success as a real estate agent. Another was knowing that his father, William Briscoe, had not even reached age forty before disaster struck. Finally, the fact that she was happy to celebrate her birthday with a new husband—Chuck, a retired neurologist—to share her life with as they settled into a place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee.
I can’t take any of that away from her, Landon thought, knowing she deserved every bit of happiness that he wanted for himself. “So am I,” he told her, grinning. “How’s Chuck?”
“He’s doing well,” she said.
“Great.” Landon waited a beat to then say what was likely to come as a shock to her, “I’ve started seeing Raquelle again.”
Zelda lifted a brow. “Really?”
“Yeah.” His voice was mellow. “It’s true.”
“And how did this come about?” she asked curiously.
“It’s a long story,” he answered, meditative. “No time to go into details just yet. Suffice it to say, though, I can only hope the story has a happy ending.”
“So do I.” Zelda flashed her teeth with encouragement. “You two made a great couple. No reason that you can’t again.”
Landon grinned. “I couldn’t agree more.”
He almost hated to cut the conversation short but knew that if things went his way there would be plenty of time to discuss his revived relationship with Raquelle. Which would open the door to reestablishing their own connection and even his getting to know Chuck better.
Landon headed out to the field office, expecting the autopsy report to come in at any time now on the circumstances surrounding the death of Fred Davenport.
* * *
KATIE RODE WITHZach as they drove into Saluda Shoals Park in Columbia, having taken the west entrance on Bush River Road. They had been surveilling, while keeping their distance, a black BMW X5 M SUV with Ivan Pimentel and Yusef Abercrombie inside.
After the BMW parked, Pimentel and Abercrombie got out and headed into the riverfront park. Katie and Zach left his vehicle and trailed them.
“Something tells me they’re not out for a leisurely strollin the park,” Katie said humorlessly, carrying a powerful zoom digital camera for official work.
“No, not likely.” Zach grinned. “Let’s find out what they’re up to.”
“All right.” She hoped the art-crime suspects might give them even more to work with in solidifying a case that was unshakable.
They watched as Pimentel and Abercrombie made their way to the river observation deck, where they were joined by another man.
Zach asked intently, “Who’s that?”
“I’ll get a closer look,” Katie told him. They were on the opposite side of the river, while hidden from view, amid southern sugar maple trees and red buckeye flowering plants. Using the zoom lens, she homed in on the trio. And then, more specifically, the unknown male. He was white, in his mid-forties, tall and of medium build, and had brown hair in a bun. She recognized him as wanted international art smuggler Hans Duey, who had also been on their radar and specialized in Native American stolen art and artifacts—selling them to the highest bidder. Duey had been fingered by Eddie Jernigan as part of the Art Crime Team’s transnational investigation.
“That’s Hans Duey, who Pimentel and Abercrombie went out of their way to meet with,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Not too surprising,” Zach said knowingly. “The trio are likely trying to get their stories straight while hoping to stay one step ahead of the law.”
“Good luck with that,” she said sardonically while snapping pictures and recording video of the three men conversing. “Aside from adding more fuel to the fire forour case, our partners at Homeland Security Cultural Property, Art, and Antiquities Investigations will love this—as part of their overall goal to dismantle global crime syndicates and their trafficking of cultural property for money laundering and funding of their various criminal activities.”
