Chapter 13
Becky dressed and twisted her hair into a fat bun of wet curls, then sat on the bed with the room service menu. If she was going to be left behind, she was at least going to dine like a queen.
There was a knock on the door, which wasn’t surprising to her in the slightest. As a rule, she never remembered to put out the “do not disturb” sign.
“No, thank you,” she yelled.
A second knock, and she hopped up to answer it. The hotel must have thick doors, which was probably a good thing after the amount of noise she and Rowan made last night. The thought brought a smile to her face, but instead of housekeeping, there stood a silver-haired man in a jacket and tie.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I am Ambassador Enzo de Toffoli. I have come to speak with you about Rowan Mitchell.”
There must have been some miscommunication. “Rowan just left to meet you, he’s not here.”
“I came to speak with you, miss. May I come in?”
Me?
Why the hell did he want to talk to her?
She thought of the bed, messy from her lovemaking with Rowan, her clothes mixed with his on the floor. “Uhm…”
“Please.” His lips formed a hard line. “I have something you must see.”
Becky stepped back and let him enter the room.
“You are…” He seemed to struggle to choose the right word. “Friends with my son-in-law.”
“Yes.” She looked at the picture on the wall.
“What is your name?”
“Becky O’Connor.”
“Becky.” He opened a brown briefcase she hadn’t noticed he was carrying. A sick feeling a dread settled deep in her stomach. “Rowan is not who he seems.”
Well hell’s bells, I know that already.
“You have fallen for his lies, just like my daughter, and now she is missing, possibly worse.” He closed his eyes. “Rowan is a criminal. He is a murderer. I suspect he is responsible for their disappearance.”
She stood up quickly. “That’s bullshit. He’s trying to find them.”
“Is he? Tell me, what has he done?”
Becky thought of the time they spent at the cabin, working to find the password, but she said nothing.
Enzo stood. “He ran away. He hid in the woods.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I’ve been watching him.”
A sense of violation wafted through her like nausea. What exactly did that mean? Had he been watching them when they thought they were alone?
“I’d like you to leave,” she said.
“I have evidence.” He opened his briefcase. “If I can save another woman, then maybe my Tamra’s disappearance will not have been in vain. You know her kidnapper was an art thief.”
“Yes.”
He threw an envelope on the desk and gestured for her to open it. “Rowan Mitchell is an art thief.”
Hundreds of pictures were inside, the group like stills from a video camera. They showed Rowan dressed in black, in what looked like an art museum. “What are these?” she asked.
Enzo picked up the pile and held them out to her, then fanned through them quickly.
Just like an old movie projector, the images before her become one animated film.
Rowan took a painting off the wall, then a guard emerged, brandishing a weapon.
The guard fell to the ground and Rowan knelt beside him.
A blond man who was also wearing black emerged from off-camera and gave Rowan a high-five.
Becky couldn’t breathe. “I don’t understand. What is this?”
“The robbery of the Uffizi, a year and a half ago.”
Enzo put the stack of photographs down and picked up an envelope. He pulled out a newspaper article. “This is the man who was killed during the robbery.”
Her eyes glazed over as words jumped from the page. Father of three. Devoted husband. Burglary gone wrong.
“Another guard was bound and gagged. He managed to free himself and reactivated the security cameras that Rowan and his partner had disabled.”
“How did you get these pictures?”
“The theft took place at the museum where Tamra works as a curator. The chief of security shared them with her after he met Rowan at the company Christmas party.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why didn’t the security guy go to police, if he thought he’d figured out who did it?”
“He did. They referred him to Agent Marco Santini at the FBI.”
I have a cousin named Marco.
Becky’s head dropped into her hands. “Oh, my God…”
Rowan snapped his harness to the cable and deftly descended into the rotunda, his soft shoes landing on the polished marble floor with barely a sound.
The motion sensors and surveillance cameras had been disabled through the computer control system with a password given to him in an email.
Rowan didn’t know where it came from, but he didn’t really need to know, either.
All that mattered was access. Access was ninety-nine percent of the fight.
Getting inside and actually lifting the precious paintings from their gilded nests was simple compared to creating the opportunity to do so.
He gestured to his partner and waited as the other man dropped like a spider into the great hall.
Ruud was his name, a Dutchman, more than that Rowan didn’t know.
They’d been introduced only three days prior at a clandestine meeting in the Italian countryside.
It was the first time Rowan met the man who would become his father-in-law. Enzo had stood tall in a plaid button-down shirt that seemed somehow too casual for his regal bearing. “We move on Thursday,” he said.
“We need to study the layout, the security systems, that’s not enough time,” said Rowan. Thursday was only two days from now.
“It has to be Thursday, that’s when our man is working. You will learn what you need to know quickly. You will disable the interior security systems before you go in. Only the perimeter alarm and the door and window sensors will remain for you to deal with.”
“What about guards?” asked Rowan.
“Two. One circles between the rotunda, the fountains and the long gallery, the other handles the mezzanine and the first floor. I’ve been assured the upstairs guard will not be coming downstairs, so you have only to handle the downstairs guard. He is armed, of course, as you both will be.”
“If we fire a weapon in there, it will trip the alarm,” said Rowan.
The Dutchman addressed him for the first time with a smile. “So don’t fire your weapon.” He laughed.
Enzo lit a long thin cigar and took several quick puffs. “The downstairs guard must log in at the security station between midnight and twelve-o-five. You will slip into the rotunda when he is gone, and wait for him in the shadows. Tie him up. Take his radio and weapon.”
The instructions played in Rowan’s mind as the nylon rope in his hands caught the security light.
He wound the rope around the guard’s wrists as the guard grunted in pain, whether real or fake, Rowan couldn’t tell.
Ruud held the guard in an effective choke hold, his wiry arm keeping the other man quiet.
Rowan taped the guard’s mouth, wrapping the roll completely around the other man’s head before tearing off the end and moving to bind his feet.
Once the guard was secure, they moved into the long gallery and zeroed in on their target.
There were several pieces they hoped to acquire this evening, but The Lady in the Long Blue Dress was number one on their list. Valued at more than seventy million dollars, it was easily one of the most valuable paintings in the museum.
Rowan stepped over the rope that separated it from the visitor’s area and spread his arms wide to lift the heavy gilt frame.
He felt it slip from its hook and exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Despite his knowledge of the security systems in place, he half-expected some loud alarm to go off when the painting was taken down from its perch.
They worked quickly to strip the canvas from its frame, then rolled it and secured it in a long tube from Ruud’s duffle bag before moving on to the next painting, a small portrait of a girl by Renoir valued at more than twenty million.
They worked in silence, deftly packaging the masterpieces and moving to the next until they had exhausted their list.
“Upstairs,” said Ruud with a wide smile and a challenging nod.
“We got what we came for.”
“I want the Degas.”
Rowan didn’t need to ask which one. It was one of the master’s most famous works, and a personal favorite of Rowan’s.
It was dangerous to deviate from the plan and he knew it, even as the adrenaline in his body said he was up for anything.
He felt an answering smile touch his lips. “Okay, but it’s the last one.”
An expressway loomed in the distance, its on and off-ramps seeming to tangle together like worms in a can.
Rowan was standing in the parking lot of what had once been Pat’s Family Diner, the pavement beneath his feet now cracked and buckled, dotted with piles of melting snow, watching the traffic and wondering what the hell happened to his father-in-law.
Enzo was late, more than forty minutes, and he wasn’t answering his cell phone.
Rowan might have been concerned, but his mind kept returning to memories of with night with Becky—the eagerness of her body, the soothing calmness of her soul.
It was as if with one night she had tempered the bitterness that had haunted him and brought back a piece of happiness he thought was lost forever.
He remembered her face, all flushed, her lips falling open.
Why I am in an empty parking lot, while she’s alone in our hotel room?
“Screw this.” He climbed in the car and started the ignition, already imagining what he would do to her when he got there.
A silver sedan pulled into the parking lot, stopping some thirty yards away, and Rowan cursed out loud. Enzo got out of the sedan and began walking, his trench coat flying behind him in the warming wind like a cape.
Rowan stepped out of his car. “What happened to you?”
“I was tying up some loose ends.” He withdrew a long, narrow box from his breast pocket and peeled off a layer of cellophane. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Agent Mitchell.”