Page 102 of Ruthless Cross

"How would you know that?"

"I know who the artist is, Flynn."

His breath caught in his chest. "How? No one else in the art world knows—unless, it's you."

"It's not me. I only discovered the information six weeks ago. I've been debating what to do with it."

"Debating? You know the identity of a serial killer, and you don't know what to do about it? I really never knew who you were, did I?"

"I couldn't exactly go to the FBI with my information, could I?"

"Cut to the chase? Who's the artist?"

"Before I tell you, I have some conditions."

"I should have figured," he said shortly. "You never do anything for nothing, do you?"

"I need you to let me go when this is all over. Let me disappear, the way I did before."

Flynn stared at his father for a long minute. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you're my son."

"That doesn't mean anything to me anymore." Despite his harsh words, he wondered if that was really true.

"It means something to me. I never stopped loving you or your mother, Flynn, but I couldn't go to jail. I couldn't survive in a cell. I'm claustrophobic. I'd have been panicking from the second the doors clanged shut."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have been a thief. You could have run a legitimate art business, but you had to steal, sometimes right out from under someone's nose. What was it that drove you? Money, greed, excitement?"

"All of the above. It was money in the beginning. You know that my father was a painter, but that he died young. I was only fourteen when I had to start taking care of my mom and younger brother. We had no money, no food in the fridge, nothing. We were on the verge of being homeless. Then I went to a party at a rich kid's house and I saw a painting by Laraine Simone and another by Falcon Holt, and I thought how easy it would be to take them and sell them. I knew their worth because I knew art."

"You did it that night?" he asked, wishing he wasn't so interested in his father's history.

"No. I slipped into the house three days later when the family was at my friend's soccer game. The thrill of that theft was amazing. I found a friend of my father's, who ran a gallery, and told him the paintings had belonged to my dad, but we needed money. He felt sorry for me and asked me no questions. He paid me seven thousand dollars for both pieces. I told my mother I had made the money working after school. That paid the rent for the next several months. When that ran out, I looked for more items to steal. I got more daring and bolder the longer I did it. By the time I was in my twenties, I had developed a network of dealers to sell to. But I needed a front, so I opened the gallery."

"Did Mom ever know what you were doing?"

"She had no idea. I'm a very good liar," he said pragmatically. "I'm an even better thief."

"You also apparently have no conscience."

"I was stealing from rich people and selling to other rich people, and those buyers didn't give a damn about the provenance of the art. Their private collections were filled with stolen art. And sometimes I stole back from them, because they could hardly report the crime, not when they'd willingly bought a stolen painting in the first place."

"I don't know what you want me to say. You're a thief and a criminal, but what you did to me and Mom was even worse. You left us with nothing—you, the man who allegedly got into stealing because you wanted to take care of your mom and brother. What about your wife and son? Why didn't we matter? The government froze your assets. We lost the house. We ended up with nothing."

"I know that the first few years were difficult," he admitted. "But I started sending money to your mother as soon as I could."

His jaw dropped at that fact. "You never sent money."

"I made deposits into her banking account every couple of months. They looked like they were coming from the publishing house, who was buying her books."

He stared at his dad in amazement. "She told me a small press bought her books. Did she know you were the press?"

"No. I hired someone else to run the company. He published your mother's books, getting them into print and digital. He inflated the sales and paid her based on really good terms. Of course, he couldn't go too big or it might have drawn attention. I knew the feds were watching her. I assumed she was using some of that money to support you, Flynn."

He shook his head in disbelief. "And she never knew?"

"No."

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