Page 176 of The Chase
Retribution where there is none.
Recalling his words, the meaning sent a shiver through me.
I opened the door and walked right into another hallway. There, at the end, lay a chrome door. And it looked heavy on its hinges.
I hurried toward it.
My fingers brushed over the control panel and I tried to guess the combination. A sense of futility caught in my throat along with guilt for violating his privacy, and after all he’d done for me.
All the wonderful work he was doing for others.
But I’d come too far...
“Jade,” I whispered. “Open the door.” I glanced behind me.
A trickle of sweat ran down my spine.
Raising my voice a little, I said, “Jade, I need you to open this door.” I rested my forehead against it, questioning what the hell I was doing.
A noise startled me and I listened out for another. “Jade, open the fucking door.” The lock clicked.
I shoved it open.
The deep-boned chill of air-conditioning hit me and it reminded me of the same coldness of a gallery.
He who is about to win, salutes you.
My hand cupped to my mouth—
Walter William Ouless’sSt. Joan of Arcrested upon a stand to the left of the room.
Moving closer, my chest heaved as I took in Joan’s beautiful expression of faith, and the bright red sash across her. Closer still I recognized that minute spiderweb of cracked paint in the left hand corner of her canvas, right above Ouless’s signature.
Turning, my gaze roamed... A Rembrandt.
Monet. Vermeer.
All of them originals.
All of them on the list of paintings stolen. I snapped my head around, frantically looking for the Titian, but couldn’t see it.
I gasped—
There, in the center upon a marble stand sat the Maxwells’ Tibetan singing bowl and around its rim ran a swirl of lilies and lying beside it was that familiar gong.
The silence shattered with my sob.
He’d stolen it from them. Used me to access the room and then pretended he had no interest in it.
The air was suffocating. I had to get out.
I rushed across the room and slid out the door, quickly closing it behind me. Heading back down the hallway, through his office and on through the house.
My palm clamped over my mouth—Tobias was in the kitchen.
He’d opened the fridge door and was peering in and was basked in a fluorescent white.
Expressionless, he turned to look at me.
