2
The youth drop-in center where I taught painting classes was housed in a former butcher shop on a sketchy street in the North End. My grandfather started the art program to give disadvantaged youth the opportunity to explore their creative side.
On something other than the sides of buildings, as Tanner liked to add.
The drop-in center sat between boarded-up shops that weren’t always as vacant as they should be, so I liked to park my car where I could keep an eye on it through the center’s large front window. But tonight, Nana’s silver BMW occupied my usual spot. This can’t be good.
Yes, Nana continued to sponsor the art program in Granddad’s honor, but she never visited. The neighborhood made her acutely uncomfortable.
Not that I blamed her. I was a gun-carrying federal agent, and the hair on the back of my neck had prickled more than once when leaving at the end of a class. I pulled in behind her car, my stomach churning. Finding the secret passage had roused too many memories of Granddad’s murder. I wasn’t sure I could keep my emotions in check if I had to face her.
I inhaled a fortifying breath and cast a fleeting glance at the men loitering in the alley. The bells above the door jingled as I opened it.
Nana grabbed my arm with a surprisingly firm grip and tugged me toward the office. “I need to talk to you.”
I tossed an apologetic glance to my assistant, who was setting art supplies on the easels for the arriving students. Nana had never been one of those bake-you-cookies and read-you-stories types. Her elegant clothes and perfectly coiffed hair had made her seem unapproachable somehow. That and her sharp tongue. As a kid, I’d always been on pins and needles the second I walked in the house and caught a whiff of her flowery scent. Even at twenty-eight, I still harbored my old trepidation. And it was doubly annoying that Tanner had noticed how she pushed my buttons.
I hung my jacket and purse on the coat tree next to the office door. Nana closed the door behind us, then twisted closed the blinds in the window overlooking the main room.
Oh no, whatever bee was in her bonnet was worse than I’d feared.
She turned to me, her ruby-red lips quivering. “I need a favor.”
Whoa! I’m sure I must’ve looked like one of those bulgy-eyed cartoon characters, because for a few seconds all I could do was stare at her. “From me?”
“It’s for a friend.”
I squinted at her skeptically. For a friend was usually code for it’s for me, but I don’t want to admit it.
Apparently reading my thoughts, she let out a disgruntled huff. “For Gladys Hoffemeier. Someone stole a painting from her house.”
Ridiculously, my heart lifted. Not that I was happy her friend had been burglarized, but that Nana would actually come to me. She’d never expressed much regard for my career choice. “Has Gladys reported the theft to the police?”
“No.” Nana’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Her son is on the force and she doesn’t want him to know.”
“Why?”
“That’s not important.”
It was if she suspected him. “When did this happen?”
“She’s not sure. It could’ve been more than a fortnight.”
Intrigued, I sat behind the desk and pulled out a pen and paper. “Which painting was stolen?” I’d been in Mrs. Hoffemeier’s mansion as a child. Her art collection was quite valuable, so chances were good the painting was worth over 100K and the investigation would fall under my jurisdiction. I hoped so, because I didn’t want to face Nana’s agitation if I had to tell her the theft was a police matter.
Nana pulled the paper and pen away from me. “The investigation needs to stay off the record.”
The demand wasn’t one I hadn’t heard before. Rich folks hated to admit to being hoodwinked in any way that might undermine their social standing, but Nana’s friend or not . . . “Until I know the facts, I can’t help her. Or make any promises.”
Nana returned the pen and paper. “Okay, okay. It’s her Degas.”
No way! My insides did a little happy dance. Could helping Nana and solving the mystery of the Degas I’d recovered this afternoon be this simple? “Do you know the painting’s title?” I asked, imagining pride in my grandmother’s eyes as I presented her friend with her missing Degas.
“No. But the burglar left a forgery of it in its place, if that helps.”
Wow, forgeries were turning up left, right, and center. It must’ve been better than the Renoir at the drug dealer’s for Gladys not to notice the switch.
Then again, maybe she was having financial trouble and swapped it out herself. It’d explain why she was reluctant to report the crime.
“Were you the one who noticed the switch?” I asked. Nana had always loved to scrutinize what hung on others’ walls. She might’ve trotted out the fact that her granddaughter was an art crime detective to elevate her ability to help, clueless that our help might be the last thing Gladys wanted.
“No, the appraiser did.”
“An insurance appraiser?”
“No, he works for one of those big New York auction houses.”
So Gladys had been hoping to raise some money. “Is she sure the painting she has now is a substitute? Unscrupulous dealers have been known to pass off forgeries to unsuspecting buyers.”
Nana shot me an indignant look. “Of course she’s certain. And the appraiser said the paperwork she had appeared in order.”
Outside the office, the noise level rose, my students no doubt growing impatient to start. “Listen, I need to teach my class now. How about you make arrangements for us to visit Gladys tomorrow so I can examine the fake and get the full story from her?”
“No, that’s no good. If you investigate on the bureau’s time, they might ask questions. We’ll visit her tonight after you finish here.”
“Uh . . .” Any other night, my FBI agent alter ego—not to mention my little-girl desire to please my grandmother—would’ve pounced at the opportunity. But after today’s bomb scare, I desperately needed downtime. “I can’t tonight. I already have other plans.”
“Work-related?”
“No.”
“Then change them.”
I stiffened at her demanding tone. “If I’m to investigate the theft, I do it officially. I can see her first thing in the morning.” Sure, Nate would understand if I bailed from our movie night and I was eager to see if Gladys’s missing Degas was the same one I’d found, but where the investigation was concerned, Nana needed to know I was in charge.
Nana let out a disapproving tut. “You always were a contrary child.”
I ignored the sting and forced a smile. “You can let her know I’ll stop by at nine tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, yes.” With a dismissive wave, Nana let herself out my office door and tripped over someone’s foot. “Who are you?” she demanded of the guy crawling past the door on all fours.
By the time I hurried out behind her, the guy was sitting on his heels below my office window. “What are you doing?” I demanded. He looked like the beach-bum actor Owen Wilson with his shaggy, windswept blond hair, distinctive nose, and quirky smile.
“I’ll tell you what he was doing. He was listening in on our conversation.” Nana smoothed her hair bun. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Family,” the man chortled once Nana was out of earshot. “They’re always throwing how we acted as kids back in our faces.”
So he had overheard the conversation, but was it because he’d been deliberately listening? “And you are?”
He pushed to his feet. “Ted.”
“Ted who?”
“Ted’s Pest Control.” He spoke in a southern drawl that even sounded like the comedic actor he looked like. He poked his head into my office and flicked the light switch, eyeballing the fluorescents. “I noticed the lights flickering and thought you might have mice chewing your wires.”
I glanced at my assistant.
She shrugged, which I took to mean this was the first she’d noticed him. Our art students stood behind their easels, watching us curiously.
“I appreciate your offer to help.” I walked Ted-with-no-last-name toward the door. “Do you have a business card? I’ll pass it along to our board chair.” After dusting it for fingerprints.
“Nah, sorry.” He perused the students’ artwork hanging on the walls as I urged him along. “These are good.” He pointed to one by Tyrone, my best pupil. “That one looks like a Basquiat. Who did it?”
I pointed out Tyrone, whose chest had visibly swelled at the comparison of his work to that of the first black contemporary artist to skyrocket to success in the art world. Tyrone resembled a young Will Smith and was as gifted an artist as his likeness was an actor.
I snagged a couple of fundraiser brochures from the stack by the door and pressed them into Ted’s hand. “Perhaps you’d be interested in being a business sponsor? Oh wait, I think I gave you two.” I attempted to reclaim the top one, sure to sport a clean thumbprint, but he held firm.
“No problem.” He stuffed both in his pocket. “I’ll share them around.”
Right. Or he was onto my amateur attempt to get his prints in case there was something to Nana’s suspicions.
My stomach growled as Nate opened his apartment door in response to my knock.
His rumbly laughter welcomed me inside. That and the delicious aroma wafting from his kitchen. “Are you ranivorous?”
“If that’s a new way to say starving, yes. I didn’t have time to grab dinner before going to the art class.”
“I guess Mr. Sutton didn’t relay the word of the day to you yet?”
“Uh . . . no. Should I be . . . horrified by what I just said yes to?” Mr. Sutton was my elderly next-door neighbor on the second floor, a retired English professor who delighted in helping us expand our vocabularies with a new word each day.
Nate relieved me of my bag, still chuckling. “Only if you don’t like eating frogs.”
“O-kay.” Not exactly the chicken wings I thought I smelled, but . . . “Can’t say I have a position either way on that one. I’ve never tried them.”
My Aunt Martha toddled out of Nate’s kitchen. “Well, today’s your lucky day.” She held out a platter of—
“Ew, ew. Ew! They still have their little webbed feet attached.” I suddenly didn’t feel hungry.
“That’s what I said,” Nate replied. “They’ve got to feel weird going down the throat.”
I shuddered.
Aunt Martha shook her head at us as if we were wimps. “You two need to learn to live a little.” She used to live in the apartment I now shared with her cat, Harold, and often returned to visit everyone, especially Nate, her favorite apartment superintendent.
“In my day,” she went on, “I was game to try just about anything. Sometimes didn’t have much choice.”
Aunt Martha was my mother’s never-married aunt, of an age she wasn’t willing to disclose. Once upon a time, she’d been the secretary to a wealthy business tycoon and, if the tales could be believed, had traveled the world with him. Not that Aunt Martha would lie. She just liked to embellish a little.
“It’ll be good practice for you, Serena,” Aunt Martha went on. “You never know when you might have to go undercover and pretend to be a wealthy, caviar-and-frog-leg-eating art collector.”
I clutched my stomach. Caviar? Okay, now I just wanted to gag. “I’m pretty sure I could just say I’m allergic.”
“Or a vegan,” Nate suggested as if he had firsthand experience at getting out of such sticky situations. He lifted the movie from my coat pocket and grinned. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”
“Oh my, look at the time.” Aunt Martha set the plate on the kitchen table and hooked her coat over her arm. “I need to get home.”
It was hardly a secret that if I let Aunt Martha pick a man for me, the movie-star-handsome Nathan Butler, with his pale blue eyes and sandy brown hair, would be her first choice. Thankfully, Nate seemed as comfortable as I was with ignoring the innuendoes and merely enjoying each other’s company with no strings attached.
Nate handed Aunt Martha back the plate. “Why don’t you take the frog legs up to Mr. Sutton before you go? I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of them, given his word of the day.”
“If you’re both sure you don’t want to try them?”
“We’re sure,” we said in unison as I opened the door for her.
Aunt Martha tsked. “Your loss.”
After I’d closed the door behind her, Nate said, “People say they taste like chicken.”
“Yeah, people say a lot of things. Doesn’t mean they’re true.”
Nate ushered me to the sofa.
The table in front of it was filled with a platter of cheese and crackers, a bowl of popcorn, a pitcher of lemonade, and . . . a plate of chicken wings! “Can I kiss you?” I burst out, whirling about to thank him. I gulped at the sparkle in his eyes. Talk about a Freudian slip. No, what was I saying? That would mean I wanted to kiss him.
Harold wound himself around my legs, purring loudly.
I snatched him up. “Hey, big guy,” I cooed, burying my heated cheeks in his fur. “Let me guess, Aunt Martha brought him down?”
“I don’t mind.” Nate must’ve guessed that I’d grabbed Harold to subvert any attempt to actually kiss me, because he popped the DVD into the player. “This way Martha doesn’t have to choose between visiting me and Harold.”
Harold had been Aunt Martha’s cat and was one of the reasons she’d begged me to take over her lease when her temporary, post-hip-surgery stint at my parents’ house turned permanent. My stomach grumbled once more, winning me a chuckle from Nate.
“I guess it’s trying to tell me something.” I tried to put Harold down, but his claw snagged in my long hair. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.”
Nate clasped the cat’s paw and gently freed the lock of hair, his warm breath teasing the wisps fluttering at my cheeks.
“Thank you.” I looked up, and my breath caught. I teetered, our lips mere inches apart.
Nate tucked the lock of hair behind my ear, his dimples winking through the whiskers dusting his cheeks. And for an eternal moment, time seemed to be suspended.
Then the movie company’s theme song blasted from the TV.
I sprang back, dropped the cat, and scooped up a cracker and cheese instead. I stuffed them in my mouth. “Mmm, thank you for this.”
“I thought you might be hungry.” Nate’s wink did funny things to my already-flummoxed tummy. Now there was a word of the day for Mr. Sutton.
Nate reached for the lemonade pitcher. “Martha heard you almost got blown up at a drug bust today. That true?”
I shook my head in disbelief, surprised that she didn’t stick around long enough to grill me about it herself. “Where does she hear that stuff?”
“So it’s not true?” Nate paused in the middle of pouring a glass of lemonade, his gaze snagging mine.
I should’ve known he wouldn’t let the evasion slide. I sank my teeth into my bottom lip. “I think I’ll plead the Fifth on that one.”
His chuckle sounded forced as he finished filling the glass. “I’m glad you’re okay. What were you doing at a drug bust anyway? I thought you were on the major theft squad.”
“They thought they’d uncovered a stolen Renoir in the raid, but it turned out to be a forgery.”
Nate’s head cocked sideways. “So why the glint in your eye?”
“I don’t have a glint in my eye.”
“Yeah, you do. The kind you get when you’re on a new art case.”
“You’re making that up.” I didn’t know how to read his mischievous look as he stretched out on the other end of the love seat, propping the popcorn bowl between us.
He grinned at me unrepentantly. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t look as if it’ll amount to a case for me. Like I said, the painting was a forgery.” Except maybe for that Degas painting. Nana would be so pleased if I recovered her friend’s stolen piece.
Nate tossed a kernel of popcorn in his mouth, still looking far too amused. “Uh-huh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Holding my gaze, he leaned closer. “That little smile you just cracked, not to mention the glint in your eye, tells me you’re on to something.”
I rolled my eyes and popped another cracker into my mouth. It was downright unnerving how adept Nate had gotten at reading me. Made me seriously question my aptitude for the latest undercover gig the director of the Art Crime Team had conscripted me for.
“Aren’t you going to track down the forger? Chances are good he’s local, don’t you think?”
I gnawed on a chicken wing to rein in the smile tugging at my lips. It was too much to hope for to imagine the Renoir had been copied from the original. But if I could find out who forged Gladys’s piece, chances were good that I could convince him to tell me who bought it.
Nate’s eyebrow lifted expectantly as I took my time wiping sauce from my fingers.
“Copying paintings isn’t a crime, but yes, I plan to try to find the forger. There’s a professor at Wash U who’s made a study of forgers. I’m hoping he might be able to identify my artist.”
“You talking about Ledbetter?”
“You know him?”
“The newspaper had an article about him a few weeks ago. He’s on a sabbatical in Italy for the fall semester, studying the masters.”
My chest deflated a little too audibly.
Nate’s expression turned sympathetic. “I guess the FBI won’t pay for you to hop a plane to Italy to pay him a visit?”
“Hmm.”
“Hey, I know where you might score a lead.” Nate snatched up the remote and flicked off the TV. “Let’s go.”
“Go where? I thought we were watching a movie.”
“We can do that anytime. You have to set the bait before news of the FBI’s find hits the streets.”
“Bait for what?”
Now look who was sporting a giddy glint in his eye. “And where are we going to set this bait?” I asked, deciding to humor him.
“The Grotto. It’s an underground bar popular with the avant-garde crowd.”
“If it’s so popular, why haven’t I heard of it?”
“We’re talking the kind of experimental art someone would need a crane to steal.”
“Ah. And how do you know about it?” Hanging out at a bar didn’t fit the impression Aunt Martha had given me of her favorite apartment superintendent.
“My brother went through a stage where he thought he might like to be an artist.”
“Interesting.” Nate didn’t talk much about his family. I knew his brother was his only living relative, and that his grandfather had bequeathed them each a couple of valuable paintings. And that his brother had sold his to live the good life, while Nate held on to his. “What happened?”
“He realized the term starving artist was coined for a reason.”
“Ha! But you think someone at the bar might know a good forger?”
“A guy’s got to eat, no matter how progressive his views on art.” He stuffed what was left of the chicken and cheese in his fridge and covered the rest of the snacks with plastic wrap. “Sometimes that means painting a portrait for a business mogul, sofa art for a furniture store, or a copy of a soon-to-be-ex-husband’s six-figure Monet.”
Goosebumps rippled my arms. “Do I want to know how you know all this?”