Chapter 3 #3
The office was almost hilariously different from the gallery.
Instead of the ultracontemporary metal-and-glass furniture and fixtures in the bright gallery, the office was warm, cluttered, and a little dusty in places.
Canvases of all sizes were wrapped in brown paper and leaned against beige walls.
The furniture—what he could see, anyway—was nearly all antique wood and overstuffed upholstery.
Papers were stacked—more like piled—on every surface.
And sitting behind the desk was Lilith. She beamed when she saw them, and as she rose, she took off her glasses, letting them dangle on their beaded chain and rest on her dark gray blouse. Her hair was a lighter gray, cut into a neat bob that ended just below her sharp jaw.
“Well, if this isn’t a pair I’d ever expected to see come through my door together,” she mused.
Cole scowled at Will. Will smirked at him.
Lilith ignored that and brought them each down to her height—she was barely five feet tall—for fierce hugs. After she let them go, she said, “So. How in the world did the two of you end up…” She gestured at both of them.
“Not by choice,” Cole said. Before Will could add his snarky two cents, Cole barreled on. “Some things went south last night, and apparently I picked up a stray.”
“Fuck you,” Will muttered.
Lilith just laughed. “I’m sure there’s a story there, but I’m also sure you’re both here about the Iberian Puffin.”
Cole and Will nodded.
She frowned, shaking her head. “I knew Alders was taking a chance, putting that thing on display. I believe art should be out where it can be seen and appreciated, but that piece is like flypaper for… Well, for people like the two of you.” She said it matter-of-factly, not with the sneer or judgment most people directed at criminals.
To Lilith, art thieves were a fact of life.
Much like mosquitoes and leeches, they were part of the food chain; while they were annoying and parasitic, their absence would damage or even destroy entire eco-systems.
“The Mona Lisa is only as famous and valuable as it is because it was stolen,” she’d explained to him a long time ago. “Without that mystique and intrigue, it’s just another da Vinci.”
In the present, she motioned for them to sit in the wooden chairs in front of her cluttered desk.
Cole, being an adult who hadn’t been raised by wolves, sat like a normal human being.
Will kind of threw himself into the chair, draping limbs every which direction like a cursed doll that had been kicked down a flight of stairs.
Lilith sat primly in her leather desk chair and folded her hands on top of a spiralbound black book. “I understand that last night was… eventful.”
“Very,” Cole said.
“Good thing all the paintings were behind glass,” Will muttered. “When the sprinklers went off…”
Lilith closed her eyes and touched her chest, as if the very thought of the sprinklers destroying all that art made her heart hurt. “Good thing,” she agreed. Opening her eyes again, she said, “And the Puffin—it was broken.”
“Shattered,” Will clarified. “I only saw the pieces for a second or two, but it was like a cheap ceramic figurine. Like I think it was hollow and everything.”
Cole ground his molars, and for once today it had nothing to do with Will. If he’d stolen that bird only to discover it was a craft store knockoff…
“There are many counterfeits of the Iberian Puffin.” Lilith reached behind a stack of papers, then came back with—
Cole blinked. It was the same bird. The same bright pink flamingo diamond. The same slick lacquered finish. It was close to the exact same size, too, though he couldn’t be sure without seeing them side by side.
She set it on top of the papers in front of her. “This is a twenty-dollar knockoff, but it’s probably a better fake than the one Alders displayed. At least it isn’t hollow.”
Gesturing at the bird, Cole asked, “May I?” She nodded, and he picked it up.
Yeah, this was definitely not a hollow ceramic fake.
In fact, it looked more real than the one he’d been attempting to steal last night.
It weighed a ton, too, and for a fake stone, that diamond worked the light like a real one.
“What’s the stone? Is this moissanite or something? Because it looks—shit, it looks real.”
“Moissanite,” she confirmed. “It has fewer facets than the original, but it’s otherwise an excellent copy.”
“Can I see it?” Will asked.
Cole handed it over. “No joke—it’s heavy.”
Will took it, and of course, he fumbled it. They both lunged for it, nearly cracking their heads together as they just stopped the bird from hitting (and no doubt denting) the hardwood floor.
Will managed to get it into a football hold, though, and he smirked at Cole. “Guess you weren’t kidding—it is heavy!”
Cole rolled his eyes as he sat up again. At least Will was careful with it now, cradling it gently as he inspected everything from the finish to the stone’s setting.
“So there could be thousands of fakes out there,” Cole said to Lilith. “How do we know if we’ve found the real one?”
“You probably won’t,” she said. “They’re a lot like fake Rolexes. Some are incredibly obvious. Some can only be differentiated from the real ones by a very well-trained eye.”
“Which apparently Alders doesn’t have,” Will mused as he carefully put the Puffin on a stack of papers.
“On the contrary,” Lilith said. “Whether he has a trained eye or not, he does have the real Iberian Puffin. Or at least he did before last night. He just displayed the fake one while he was showing off his collection to his friends.”
“But why was that piece fake when everything else was real?” Will asked.
“Almost everything else,” Cole said. When they both looked at him, he added, “There was a Ming Dynasty jar that I’m absolutely certain was fake.
Everything else? Checked out as near as I could tell.
” Still, a sour taste formed in Cole’s mouth.
He hated that after one piece in Alders’s collection had jumped out at him as fake, it hadn’t made him stop to question if the Puffin was authentic.
Some counterfeits were indeed subtle (barring the ones created by his wannabe artist ex-boyfriend), but there were usually tells.
In his defense, he’d just been casually perusing the other pieces on display.
He’d been there on a job, looking to abscond with one specific piece, so he hadn’t been scrutinizing the others; it was by sheer chance he’d briefly noticed the smudge on the little Ming Dynasty pot.
Then he’d assumed the pot was a fluke because so many other pieces were authentic.
Apparently he should’ve taken the pot as a sign to thoroughly inspect the Puffin, just to be safe, because he’d very nearly run off with the hobby shop special. Fuck.
“There’s another issue,” Will said. “Last night, we weren’t the only ones there to get the Puffin.
” He paused. “Or, well, there was at least one other person there who was trying to get it, because he’s the one who dropped it and broke it.
But there were other known art thieves there. Possibly others we didn’t recognize.”
Cole was nodding as Will spoke. “And two of the other thieves are definitely on Marcus’s shitlist, same as us.
And he’s the one who tipped us off. So, whoever took the real thing—it’s gotta be another one of Marcus’s enemies.
Someone who had better intel than we did and knew the real Puffin wouldn’t be rolled out last night. ”
Lilith gave a single slow nod as she took in the information.
“The place was crawling with cops, too,” Will supplied.
“I think he was trying to get us caught. Cull the competition, you know? Maybe one of us would get out with the Puffin, but odds were good that whoever tried would get caught. Jansen Mortimer was arrested. Some of the others might’ve been, too.
It looked like Eli Quinn was working with Jansen, and the cops were going after him, but…
” He shook his head. “Things were happening pretty fast at that point, so I’m not sure. ”
“That sounds on-brand for Marcus,” Lilith said dryly. “Since he can’t compete as well as he’d like, he’ll do what he can to reduce the competition.”
Cole chuckled. “I’m surprised he didn’t hunt down the people accepted into that art school and break their fingers or something.”
“Don’t give him any ideas.” Lilith sat back, arms folded loosely across her blouse.
“It does make sense for him. Stealing such a high-profile piece from such a high-profile collector is risky under the best of circumstances. Throwing half a dozen thieves into the same venue after the same piece, they’re bound to get caught.
Or try to stop each other and then get caught. ”
“Exactly,” Will said.
Cole shifted in his chair. “So we need to figure out what his MO was, where the real Puffin is, and what Marcus’s next move is to thin the competition.”
“For starters,” Will said, “one of my colleagues is looking into the real Puffin’s theft. The police are quietly investigating, so he’s seeing if he can get his hands on Alders’s CCTV footage—and then… I guess we’ll know one way or the other.”
Cole scratched the back of his neck. “Either way, there’s something going on. And you’ve got a bead on more shit happening in this world than we do, Lilith, so we wanted to get your input.”
She pressed her elbows onto some papers and steepled her fingers as she peered at her Puffin paperweight. “We should consider that Marcus himself might have stolen the Puffin.”
Cole and Will both laughed. Hard.
“Marcus?” Cole waved his hand. “Oh, God no. He’s a worse art thief than he is an artist, and that says a lot.” He’d managed to steal some pieces, including some valuable ones, but that had more to do with dumb luck and bad security than anything.
Will actually had to wipe his eyes. “Marcus. Being stealthy and patient enough to break into a vault… oh, that’s good. That’s seriously good.”
Lilith wasn’t laughing, though she didn’t seem irritated with their amusement. “Be careful underestimating him. After all, he did convince the two of you to date him and to attend last night’s party.”
Cole sobered. Then Will did. She… wasn’t wrong.
“A piece like that would be quite the jewel in Marcus’s crown,” she continued. “And it would make him an indelible part of the Puffin’s lore.”
With a dry chuckle, Cole said, “That sounds like him—not just stealing something he could sell for a mint, but making himself part of a centuries-old legend.”
“Narcissists gonna narcissist,” Will grumbled.
That got a bark of laughter out of Cole. Will held up his fist, and Cole couldn’t help it—he bumped it.
Lilith watched them with an amused curl to her lips.
Right then, Will’s phone went off, and he jumped to his feet. “That’s my colleague. Excuse me for a second?” Without waiting for a response, he stepped out into the hall, the door shutting just after he said, “What have you got for me?”
As soon as they were alone, Lilith turned her amusement on Will. “Are you sure you two can work together without killing each other?”
“Would the world be a worse place if I ended up killing him?”
She just laughed.
“Anyway,” he said. “There might’ve been other pieces stolen last night. If someone got the real Puffin, or if anyone took advantage of the chaos as a distraction.”
“Possibly.” Lilith pursed her lips. “Maybe, if he weren’t such a dumbass about security…”
Cole snorted. He was about to say something when the door flew open again.
“You two aren’t going to believe this.” Will heaved himself into his chair, phone in hand. “My buddy got the CCTV footage.”
Cole straightened. So did Lilith.
Will continued, thumbing through something on the screen as he did.
“There were three other people at the party last night. Faces I don’t recognize and neither does my colleague.
They each got away with some small but very, very expensive items during the fray after the Puffin shattered.
” He turned the screen toward Cole and Lilith.
“And I’ve got confirmation that someone did get their hands on the real Iberian Puffin. ”
Cole and Lilith leaned in. The footage wasn’t the usual angles from cameras around the room.
It was from the vault door itself. Slightly off to the side, likely invisible to an intruder.
That type of vault had, Cole knew from experience, a camera just above the keypad, and he watched as the masked thief sprayed something on that camera.
Then, unaware of the second camera focused right on his face, he pulled down his mask and peered at the keypad, giving the lens a perfect, crystal clear shot of his face.
“Holy shit,” Cole breathed. “Marcus.”