Page 112 of Possession

“It has a ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“No.”

“Hater.”

He laughed and curled his arm around my hips in a rare gesture of affection. I slipped my fingers into his hair as he leaned against my chest. We seemed to only get our fix of skin contact when we were all the way naked.

“That glass—the stained panel…”

He sighed. “It’s late, Ms. Copeland.”

“It’s important, Blake.”

“I told you I purchased it.”

“Why?”

He eased back, though his fingers weren’t exactly gentle on my hips. “What do you mean, why? I saw it in the gallery, and I wanted it. I wanted a piece of the past to remind me?—”

He stopped himself for some reason. The easy smile was gone now. I curled my fingers into his shoulder. “Remind you of what?”

“Remind me that I had to work hard to leave behind my shithole life. That as beautiful as glass work was, I had to find my own way.”

And it wasmywork that would do that? I didn’t know how that made me feel. “Phil never paid me for that work.”

“Makes you wonder what else she’s been up to.”

“How many more artists were never paid?”

Blake’s shrewd eyes bore into mine. “We might just have the missing puzzle piece to link these accounts.”

“Could she be using the gallery to…” I wiggled my fingers. The word was right there, but it sounded like it should be part of some Tuesday night procedural, not my life. “It sounds so unbelievable.”

“To launder money? It’s a time-honored tradition.”

How many other artists had been duped? Believing they’d never sold a piece only to have Phil use them to move money around.

Art was subjective. A stupid little bust could go for tens of thousands of dollars just because a curator said so. I needed to get into the computers.

There was a wealth of information we could access if I could just get my hands on one of the iPads in the gallery.

“Christmas.” I slapped Blake’s arm. “Christmas!”

“Pardon?” Blake’s eyebrows snapped together. “It’s nearly four in the morning, Ms. Copeland. I can’t begin to follow the trail from laundering to Christmas at this hour.”

I inched back and rolled off the bed to the drawers on my side. I fished through the mail I kept in there and spotted the white and red envelope. I waved it at him. “Lady’s Bay Gallery is having its annual Christmas party for patrons and artists. That would be me and you, pal.”

“Again, you’re going to need to connect the dots.”

I crawled across his lake-sized bed and knelt in front of him. “Sorry. My inner dialogue is not playing nice with my mouth.”

“I don’t even have a response to that.”

“Phil’s entire computer setup is based on an iPad network. If I could just smuggle one of those suckers out, maybe Jack and Lucy could do that hoodoo stuff and find a connection.”

His brow smoothed and then immediately beetled again. “It’s too dangerous.”

“This is the least dangerous move we’ve got, Blake. The party is Friday night. We go, we schmooze, we dance a little. I have this amazing red wool cape that has pockets that could fit a small child. Or in this case, an iPad.”

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