Page 87 of Devious Gambit

“Oh.” She sighed as an unhappy expression washed across her normally bubbly face. I guess she was feeling lonely, like me. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Yes?”

She moved her chair closer to me and leaned in to say, “I wanted to thank you for-”

A sharp clanging sound sliced through her sentence, stopping her dead. A plump matronly woman aggressively rang the large dinner bell, and students promptly rose up from their seats to claim hot food on their plates. I hadn’t eaten at Kilbernie before and I wasn’t sure what the procedure was, so I just followed everyone else. Ten minutes later, I arrived back to my seat with a plate piled high in turkey, chicken, lamb, roast potatoes and some vegetables. I examined Becca’s lady-like portions and immediately felt like a pig. I might be a pig, but a genuinely hungry one at that.

“What were you going to say before?” I asked her.

“Oh nothing,” she said, shaking her curly head.

I couldn’t let it drop. “You were thanking me for something.” I was keen to know what it was because I couldn’t remember doing anything that entitled me to be thanked.

“I’ll tell you later,” she uttered, glancing at the students coming and going excitedly around us.

I picked up a chicken leg and ripped the meat off with my teeth, Paleolithic woman style, and not giving a damn.

“You were there that night,” Becca’s voice was so small it was barely audible.

She was playing with the green peas on her plate with a fork. She seemed a million miles away again. She was so dreamy; she could easily be my sister from another mother. “At Stads?” assuming she was talking about when she came in with her friends on one of my late shifts.

“No. That night by the gym.”

I stopped chewing the roast chicken stuffed in my gob. “The Friday?”

She nodded.

“You were a witness?”

She glanced about to examine how close fellow students were to us. “It was me,” she whispered. “And it was you who stopped it before it began.”

THIRTY FOUR

Jace

“I must say Mr. Harrington is very pleased to get his Klimt back,” my father stated after taking a sip of cognac. We were seated in the formal dining room. Everyone, including Max, managed to show up for the important announcement. As per Luxon style, there was feast made for kings and queens spread out on the table. None of us pilgrims really cared for fancy food. We prefered traditional rustic roast turkey and stuffing, a leg of ham, yams and sweet potatoes. There’s likely to be a ton left over that could feed a small village, that the Luxon’s would live on for the next few days. My family were wealthy, not ridiculously filthy rich, and weren’t the type of folk to flaunt their wealth.

“It’s worth a few mil, ain’t it. Help them to pay off some shady debt. Cody said their family owed the mafia some money or something.”

My father cut the ham on his plate into perfect slices. “The line of casinos the Harringtons and Torrios set up together died before it left the ground. It’s likely to be debt created by that venture, unless I’m mistaken.” He gestured to my grandfather for his input.

The Harringtons and Luxons had been friends and business associates for forever; however, the Harringtons had a likening for the underbelly of life and dabbled in shifty shit with the Torrios, Chicago mafia.

“I have no idea,” my grandfather answered, nodding towards my grandmother. “We’ve never been a fan of the crass, glitter and gold.”

“Speak for yourself,” my grandmother hit and swallowed down gulp of sherry from a crystal glass.

Everyone cracked up.

“Has the Klimt been valued?” Mom asked me.

“It’s only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it,” my grandfather interrupted.

“They’ve got a buyer willing to pay one hundred and fifty million, so I guess that’s how much it’s worth,” I answered, at least that’s what I thought Cody said. He might’ve exaggerated the mafia part to get the ball rolling. Fuck that. I swigged the last of the bourbon in my glass, hoping to stifle the irritation punching holes in my stomach.

My grandfather added, “It’s still a mystery as to how Heinrich managed to break into the vault where the Harringtons art collection was kept. Some say,” a roguish expression blazed across his face, “he had inside help.”

“I guess we’ll never know,” I said, catching Max glance at the time on his phone. “How’s business?” My dad and grandpa barely said a word to him from the moment he arrived, whereas my mom and grandma were a little warmer.

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