Illicit Artifacts Read online

  But of course, even though they’d been told the truth—well, mostly the truth—about her illness, they probably all just assumed she was covering up a stress leave. In their position, that’s what she’d assume too.

  Maybe she should just play along with it. Tell him she was waiting for her psychiatrist or something. That might get rid of him faster. She dragged her attention back to his words. Something about provincial testing and his class’s scores.

  She glanced down at her mobile: 7:32.

  “Sorry—are you meeting someone?” Phil asked, looking chagrined. “I should have asked instead of parking myself here like an idiot.”

  Jess smiled. The words “just a friend” formed in her mind, sliding down the space to her tongue, but she couldn’t say them. She couldn’t lie anymore. The weight of secrecy crushed her from the inside.

  “You’re not an idiot,” she managed. “I was glad to see you.” And she was, in a way—if only to force herself to confront the truth about what she cared about. Math scores weren’t high on her list.

  “I have to get going anyway. Don’t want to be late for homeroom.” He got up from the table, shooting her an apologetic smile.

  She waved as he wound his way through the tables to the door.

  Homeroom. She mulled the word over in her mind. Such an adolescent word. She wondered how many times in her career she’d said it, like it meant something, like it had weight and importance. Get to homeroom. Homeroom teachers, please send down attendance folders. Locker assignments will be given out in homeroom. She repeated it in her mind until it stopped meaning anything at all.

  *

  Jil came out of the bathroom at the coffee shop and spotted Jess right away. She sat with her hand wrapped around a large cup of coffee, her short blond hair illuminated by the early morning sun, staring out the window, as if waiting to catch a glimpse of Jil.

  Jil just stood watching her for a moment, hidden partially by the cream and sugar stand.

  Jess took a sip of coffee and looked at her watch. A patron came in the door and nodded to Jess. She flashed him her professional smile. Jil had seen it so often when she was undercover at St. Marguerite’s. So often.

  Her principal’s face. Her wall of secrecy.

  Now she shifted in her seat, orienting herself toward the other man, closing herself off to anyone else.

  If Jil had walked in the door right then, she would have kept walking—straight up to the counter, not pausing to say hello. She would have kept up their façade, not compromised Jess’s job. She would have waited until the man left, then joined her.

  Really, though, she could have sat down. Could have pretended to be Jess’s neighbor or a friend catching her at 7:30 in the morning, before they both had to get to work. But Jil didn’t lie well, and even acting out a lie, without having to say anything, made her belly twist.

  Funny, for someone who had to go undercover so often to have such a problem with deception.

  For a minute, she considered getting into the coffee line. She could do just what she’d thought of instinctively—order, wait out of sight. Neither of them had seen her. Then, as soon as the coast was clear—

  She kicked herself mentally. What the hell am I doing?

  With a shake of her head, Jil walked the three steps to the side door of the coffee shop and out to the parking lot.

  In her car, she took out her mobile and texted. I’m sorry to have to cancel. For a moment, she hesitated. Should she add something else? Try to make an excuse? Her mind rejected creativity. She just couldn’t come up with something else. Why bother? Jess could never truly be hers.

  She hit send.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  How to catch a counterfeiter? Jess wondered. If she were even in the region.

  Googling “art counterfeit” would hardly do.

  Then she remembered something Lily had said about art tours. What exactly was an art tour?

  She looked that up instead.

  Hm. People opened their homes—well, estates, it seemed like—for the public to view their art and artifacts. She found a list of forthcoming tours on the site, along with the regions and prices.

  Prices weren’t bad.

  She had to start somewhere—why not here? She might meet some interesting people.

  Or open a can of worms she had no business even holding in the first place.

  For a moment, she considered calling Jil, but what could she say? Besides, Jil should be the one to call her. She’d been the one who canceled, so she had to be the one to close the gap, if she wanted it closed.

  In the meantime, the waiting would drive her crazy, and if she couldn’t work, she needed to occupy herself. Otherwise she’d be a lonely, unemployed woman housebound with chronic pain.

  To hell with that idea.

  An art tour was scheduled for this weekend, Friday through Sunday.

  With three clicks, she signed up and printed her itinerary.

  *

  Jess boarded the bus to the tour and found her assigned seat. The bus ride would take two hours. That didn’t seem too far if she could stand up and walk around.

  “Excuse me, you’re in my seat.” A large man with a dripping nose loomed over her.

  She glanced up at him. “I don’t believe so. My ticket says B, and this is B.”

  He gripped his ticket in his hand and stared at it through thick lenses. “Damn. I specifically asked for an aisle seat. Windows make me nauseous. Would you mind trading with me?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” she said. Being boxed in by this guy wouldn’t help her cause at all.

  He sighed loudly. “Great. Just great.”

  She moved back as much as she could to let him in, but even so he stepped on her foot—heavily.

  “Sorry,” he muttered as he stripped off his coat, jarring her again with his elbow. “This is why I like the aisle seat.”

  Jess rolled her eyes and settled back in her chair. Three days on a bus with this guy? Maybe she could trade seats at the first stop.

  “So is this your first tour?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

  “No.” He turned to look out the window.

  She rolled her eyes and settled into her seat, then put in earphones and turned on her music to block out the sound of him sighing in her ear.

  When they arrived at the first house, he stood up abruptly, almost crashing into her.

  She gave him a look. This would be a long day.

  She barely made the bus on time the next morning, and when she slipped into the seat next to Bernard without saying good morning, he turned to her. “Rough night?”

  “Didn’t sleep well,” she muttered.

  He gave her a sly grin. “Oh. I see.”

  If only it had been sex that had kept her awake, and not her hips and back and every other fucking joint in her body that had flared up from a day of walking and sitting in a bus.

  “Can we just ride in peace, please?” She closed her eyes and sighed. Her stomach churned acid from missing breakfast—that, and the handful of pills she’d taken last night.

  “You want a muffin?” Bernard held out a dented chocolate muffin, still wrapped in plastic. Looked like he’d nicked it from the breakfast buffet and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. But it was in one piece, and she wouldn’t have anything until lunch, so…

  Gingerly, she took it from his fingers. “Thanks.”

  “Some mansion yesterday, right?” She opened the plastic wrap and took a small morsel from the muffin top.

  “A whole lotta marble for no reason,” Bernard grunted.

  She smiled in spite of herself. The floors, the walls, the bathrooms…all a pristine alabaster marble that was supposed to be beautiful, but she could think only about how cold it would be on your feet every day.

  “Did you see that Rembrandt above the fireplace in the library?”

  “Yeah. It was well done—for a Rembrandt.”

  That seemed rather an odd assessment of a famous ar
tist.

  “Not a Rembrandt fan?” she guessed.

  “Oh, I’m a Rembrandt fan. But that wasn’t a Rembrandt.”

  The tour guide had said Rembrandt. And she recognized the style—Lily had taught her a thing or two during their time together. “I’m confused. What do you mean?”

  He turned, giving her a quizzical look. “It wasn’t real.”

  A faint feeling of déjà vu overtook her. “How do you know?”

  He took another muffin out of his pocket and unwrapped it. “I can just tell.”

  He knew more than he’d said.

  “Tell you what, you tell me what you know, and I’ll give you the aisle seat on the way home.”

  She’d just have to take an extra long bath. Her body was already a mess. It would be hard to make it worse.

  “Fine.” Bernard wiped his nose on his handkerchief and leaned in. “I figure it’s not really a secret anyway. But all the same I’d appreciate if you kept it to yourself.”

  Jess crossed her fingers under her purse. “Agreed.”

  “I can tell because I have studied a lot of replicas. I even have a few myself.”

  She nodded to encourage him. “Where did you…come across them?”

  He squinted at her for a moment, as if deciding how much to trust her. “I wanted a Picasso. They’re not the most expensive pieces in the world, but I couldn’t afford the real thing, and a print just doesn’t have the same quality. So I asked around at a studio tour a couple of years ago and I found this woman.”

  “Do you remember her name?”

  “Mila. Never did give her last name. She was talented, but a little bit—I don’t know—odd.”

  “Well, I guess you would have to be a bit odd to work as a forger.”

  “It’s only forgery if you try to sell it as real. If you admit it’s a replica, then it’s called a replication.” He looked intent about this point.

  Jess nodded. “And replication is legal?”

  “Well…I guess that depends.” He eyed her suspiciously. “Are you a cop or something?”

  Jess laughed. “Hardly. I’m a high school principal, if you really want to know.”

  “A principal? Well, good for you, I guess. How do you have time to be on an art tour?”

  Jess shrugged. “Turns out I needed a break.”

  “You’re kind of young to be burned out, aren’t you?”

  “Tell it to my arthritis.” She tried to smile, but didn’t quite manage.

  “Arthritis?”

  “Rheumatoid arthritis, yep. It’s a bitch.”

  Bernard looked at her in surprise. “My mother had that. But she didn’t get out much. She could barely walk. She had fingers that were all curled over. Seemed like it was pretty painful though she never said much about it.”

  Jess shrugged one shoulder. “Some days, it certainly is. Keeping active is the best way I know how to beat it. Hence the annoying aisle walking.”

  “Sorry,” Bernard muttered. “I shouldn’t have bugged you so much about the seat. I thought you were just being a pain, but I guess you really did need it. You can keep it. No charge for the chat.”

  Jess stood up. “No, a deal is a deal. You’ve told me what I wanted to know and I’m a woman of my word. You take the aisle.”

  Bernard stood up to let her move over. Then he leaned in. “That’s nice of you. Thank you. I’ll gladly let you out if you want to walk around.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Listen, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I think I know where you might be able to find this girl. Mila.”

  “Where?”

  “She hangs out at this club in the art district. The Cracked Palette?”

  “I don’t know it, but I can find it.”

  “They have a get-together once a month. Some sort of wine and cheese. I think that’s where she gets most of her clientele.”

  “Thanks. I’ll look into it.”

  “Good luck.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jil stuck a bag of popcorn in the microwave for dinner. At the sound of the kernels leaping against the paper bag, Zeus roused himself from his bed and loped into the kitchen. He looked at the bowl Jil had put on the counter, then tilted his head toward her.

  She rolled her eyes and took down a glass pie tray from Elise’s top cupboard. “Can’t you catch kernels like every other service dog?”

  He grumbled. Sometimes she swore he talked to her.

  Bowl and plate in hand, Jil led Zeus to the living room, then settled down on the couch and flicked on the TV. Zeus sat at her feet, and she put down his pie plate of popcorn. He ate each piece delicately, and she gave up channel surfing to watch him devour his snack.

  “And in a record-breaking sweep, detectives at the Rockford Police Department have reportedly arrested Duncan MacLeod, on charges of counterfeiting artwork, theft, and trafficking of stolen property. Police were tipped off to the location of a warehouse containing several million dollars’ worth of forged and stolen materials. MacLeod was arrested earlier this evening in his home in South Rockford.”

  Jil almost knocked her popcorn over, she sat up so fast.

  Zeus sat up, responding to her agitation. He whined.

  “Shh, shh.” Jil patted his head and he settled back down.

  “An interview with lead detective, Nicolas Fraser, will air tonight at eleven.”

  She sat down slowly. That hadn’t taken him long.

  *

  Jil presented her identification to the corrections officer and waited.

  Would they let her in? Would they ask her a hundred questions about her motives and intentions?

  “You’re here to see Mr. MacLeod?” The gatekeeper said. “What makes you think he’ll agree to see you?”

  Tell the truth as far as possible. Jil remembered her basic training. She didn’t need to lie. “I need to ask him some questions about a private case I’m currently trying to solve. Theft.”

  “Was the theft reported to the police?”

  Jil winked. “Not all reports are taken seriously.”

  The corrections officer rolled his eyes. “Ain’t that the truth?” Then he snapped back into his serious face. “Let me see if MacLeod will agree to the visit, and we can take it from there.”

  They brought him in to the visitors’ area in handcuffs, which the CO fastened to the table.

  “Do you know how many visitor requests I’ve had?”

  “Well, given that you’re probably the most notorious boss of organized crime in the city, I’d guess—none.”

  A slow grin lit his face. “You’re right. My no-visit list is three times the size of this table.” He leaned forward. “So how did you get in?”

  “Well, I’m a former police officer, so I think that probably helped.”

  “You think I don’t have former POs on my payroll?” MacLeod’s dark eyebrows drew together until they formed one giant caterpillar across his forehead. His large brown eyes, which seemed to have gone slightly rheumy with age, still held her full attention. He crossed beefy arms over his broad barrel chest, and his gray beard brushed the top arm at the elbow. “I’ve got everybody from priests and doctors, right down to the guard I just bribed so they wouldn’t record this conversation.”

  She didn’t know exactly what she wanted to ask, but for now, it seemed best to keep him talking.

  He studied her for a moment. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, Jil?”

  Why was she here exactly? To counter-spy on Nic?

  “The detective who arrested you…?” She let the question hang.

  “Fraser?”

  “Nicolas Fraser. Did you know him prior to this?”

  MacLeod chuckled again, but didn’t answer. She waited him out.

  “I can’t tell how much you know and how much you’re bluffing, girl,” he finally said, a grin on his face. “But you tell Fraser that I’ll be sure to say hello to his dead daddy’s ghost if I get shivved here in prison waiting for this bogus tria
l.”

  “Nobody’s going to shiv you, Duncan. You’re worth more alive than dead to most of the inmates here.”

  He guffawed. “You’d make a great squint for me some day.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  “Aye, I know that much. Your foster mother was one hell of a woman.”

  “Seems you liked her a lot.” She paused. “From the tape I overheard.”

  His mouth drew shut, and, like a string pulled him from the ceiling, he sat up in his chair. As she waited, he licked his lips. “What tape?”

  “The one Elise left me.”

  He kept his face straight, impassive, but a muscle in his jaw twitched, and she knew she’d surprised him.

  “Why?”

  He just stared at her.

  She stared back. He couldn’t admit to anything without incriminating himself more, so she didn’t expect him to volunteer the information. But she was also coming at this from a personal angle, not from the side of the law.

  She’d given up that right when she’d given up the badge.

  She laid her hands on the table. “Here are my terms. I get to interview you. In exchange, I agree not to share the tape with anyone else.”

  “That would assume I trust you to keep your word. I don’t even know you.”

  Jil shot him a look. “Really?”

  MacLeod shrugged a little, conceding. “Fine. You know, I always wondered why she’d bother to take on a foster child. Especially a fucked-up teenage brat. But then I realized—who would ever suspect a university professor with a kid?”

  Jil felt the air being pushed out of her lungs, like someone was squeezing her.

  The perfect cover.

  MacLeod smirked. “But you are just like her. I can see it now. You could have been hers. And Elise’s daughter would keep her word.” He looked as though he was puzzling something out. For a moment, she thought he might actually ask her a question back, but then he settled back down in his chair and waited.

  Suddenly, all the questions she thought she had for him fizzled in her brain. She’d been so sure that meeting him would open doors for her—doors to understanding Elise’s life, her choices—but now it seemed like she was intruding on something she had no business knowing. Something Elise purposely hid from her.