Chapter 18
Rowan flew down the expressway, passing cars as if they were standing still.
“I’m an FBI agent with the Art Crimes Division, on my way to intercept a robbery in progress at the South Street Public Storage facility. The suspect is armed and dangerous. I need backup, quickly.”
A pickup truck in the left-hand lane was barely moving faster than the car he was working to pass. Rowan got up on his bumper and flashed his headlights. “Come on, come on, come on!” The truck sped up slightly and got out of the way, the driver gesturing obscenely as Rowan drove by.
“Sir, how do you know there’s a robbery?”
He disconnected the call and shot over two lanes of traffic, his exit looming around the next curve. A light at the end of the exit ramp had just turned red and he slowed to a roll, then ran the light as he crossed the intersection.
The storage facility was up a few blocks on the right.
He was sweating, possible scenarios zipping through his brain. The building was closed, which meant Enzo would have to break in—not a difficult task for a man who had broken into some of the most secure buildings in the world.
From what Tamra told him in the park, Rowan knew there was an exterior gate with a keypad and another keypad to access the indoor units. The Madonna was in a climate controlled unit on the third floor.
Enzo had a head start, but he didn’t have the access codes or the key to the unit.
The facility would have security cameras, but it was highly unlikely anyone was watching the feeds in real time.
The only thing that might slow down the old man was if the keypads were wired to an alarm system, but even that was well within Enzo’s capabilities.
Rowan cursed under his breath as the storage facility came into view, and parked on the street beside the building. He retrieved his gun from the glove compartment of the car, checking to make sure it was loaded before heading toward the building at a jog.
Becky wouldn’t be happy if she knew he still had his gun in her car.
A six-foot black gate surrounded the property. Rowan’s code wouldn’t work after business hours, so he used the keypad as a foothold instead and quickly scaled the fence, a task made simple by the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
He moved to the front entrance, the second keypad mounted on the brick wall just to the right of the door.
There were several small lights on its face that he knew should be lit, their darkness a confirmation that Enzo was already inside.
Rowan pulled on the door and it opened easily, the hinge squeaking loudly and making him cringe.
Inside were a small lobby and an elevator, with a long hallway of storage units in either direction. Reaching inside his jacket, Rowan touched the metal of his handgun and froze.
He was back in the museum, Ruud at his side, egging him on to go upstairs.
I want the Degas.
The thunderous crack of his gun firing, the recoil. He smelled gunpowder, heard the sound of the guard’s body landing in a heap of bones and muscle on the marble floor a split second before the alarm began to screech.
It was as real as if he were there, the moment resurrected from his memory in living color, taunting his present intent. He had to go upstairs, find Enzo and the Madonna, but his feet were glued to the floor, heart racing.
I can’t do this.
A mechanical whoosh came from the elevator, forcing him to act, his wild eyes searching for a place to hide.
There was nowhere.
The elevator chimed, signaling its arrival. Memories dissipated, leaving a simple choice to live or die. Rowan grabbed the butt of his gun and trained it on the elevator doors, his fingers steady, his aim true.
He rested the pad of his finger lightly on the trigger, sweat appearing on his forehead. The doors opened with a loud rattle.
The elevator appeared empty. He took two steps closer to be sure no one was hiding in the corners, and was kicked hard in the back from behind.
He was thrown to the floor of the elevator, hands sprawled in front of him.
How could I be so stupid? How long had he stood in the lobby, memories overwhelming him as he considered what to do next?
It had seemed like mere moments, but it had been long enough for Enzo to see him.
Scrambling to his feet, Rowan turned and saw the doors closing behind him, the big man from the ski lodge smiling broadly in the lobby beyond.
Rowan’s hand shot out, the doors squeezing his fingers before reversing their course. The other man took off running for the front door, and Rowan moved to follow him, then stopped short as understanding registered in his brain.
The big man was a distraction, an attempt to clear a path for Enzo’s escape. He wouldn’t be traveling in Enzo’s wake. No. Enzo was here, and so was the Madonna Fornirà.
Enzo’s still in the building.
Rowan opened the stairwell door and raced up the steps two at once.
He got to the third floor in record time, carefully checking the hallway before slipping into it, gun at the ready.
Halfway down the hall, a single orange garage-type door was rolled up a foot off the ground and Rowan inched toward it.
Flattening himself against the wall, he hooked his shoe on the edge of the door and pushed it up hard with one motion. Gun drawn, he turned to look into the small, empty space.
Sirens wailed in the distance as Rowan doubled back to the stairwell. He again heard the sound of the elevator as it rushed past his floor on its way up higher.
The roof.
It was as accessible to a cat burglar as the front door.
Again he raced up the steps, losing track of what floor he was on. A final half-flight of stairs ended abruptly at a dark metal door, a thick chain hanging from the horizontal crossbar and swaying slightly. He pushed the door open with one hand and stepped outside, leading with his weapon.
Enzo stood before him with his arms held high, pointing his own gun at the sky, a large tube resting on the ground at his feet. A single siren wailed loudly in the cold night air. “I just want to talk,” Enzo said calmly.
“Put the gun down, slowly.”
“We can be partners.”
“I said put it down.”
Enzo didn’t move. “Together we’d be unstoppable. First the Madonna Fornirà, then anything we desire. With your connections…”
Rowan stepped closer, closing the distance between them. “No.”
“Afraid they’ll find out?” he gestured to the police cars below. “All I have to do is throw this tube onto that roof over there. You tell them you saw Cosmo take it and we’re free.”
“You’re not going to be free for a very long time.”
The older man’s face fell. “I’m sorry to hear you say that, Rowan. I always liked you.”
“I always thought you were an asshole.”
The moonlight caught the sheen of metal as Enzo twisted the gun and pointed it at the younger man.
Rowan could see the guard from the museum in his memory, two separate moments merging into one fateful scene.
Rowan fired once, right on target and without hesitation, directly into Enzo’s shoulder muscle, exactly as he had shot the museum guard.
Enzo dropped to the ground, screaming in pain. Rowan kept his gun trained on him as he neared the edge and yelled to police on the street, “We’re on the roof!” A flashlight beam turned toward him and he knew he had been heard.
“I have diplomatic immunity,” said Enzo. “You can’t touch me.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The door behind them burst open, officers racing onto the rooftop and taking over. Rowan gave his gun to a CSI and slowly backed toward the stairs.
It’s over.
Enzo was in custody, the painting was safe, Tamra and Anthony had been found. Rowan made his way slowly down the stairwell, the rhythm of his footsteps calming his frenzied nerves.
An hour later, as he sat in a warm police car parked outside the storage building, Rowan was finally handed the tube that contained the painting.
The Madonna Fornirà.
The Madonna will provide.
It was a promise, a comfort, a message. Emotion sang deep in Rowan’s belly and he longed to see the painting with his very own eyes, hold its skin in his hands just this one time. He spoke to the officer in the front seat. “Yo, you got a pair of gloves?”
Then he was pulling the canvas out of the tube, gingerly unrolling the top of the painting like a father holding his newborn son. In the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles, he unfurled the portrait just enough to get a close-up view of the face he had worked so hard to protect.
Recognition was a shock.
The image in his hands looked just like Becky.
With her elaborate robes and gilded aura still rolled up and out of view, the resemblance was incredible.
The funny little grin on her full lips, the graceful curve of her feminine neck, the shape of her nose.
This was the woman he loved, the woman he would always love.
The corners of his own mouth turned down harshly and he let the canvas curl up on itself once more, his gloved hand covering his mouth.
Is this what the Madonna was giving to him? A gift from the heavens, a love like no other, true and proud and more than he had ever hoped to receive. His eyes gazed out the window at the lamp-lit street, a sliver of the night sky visible just above the storage facility.
Thank you.
Emotion sang within him, his eyes stinging as he shook his head and laughed, quietly at first, then louder.
At the darkest hour in his life, Rowan Mitchell had been given the world.