Page 101 of Forging Caine

Like Dom said, he’d told alotof people about his plans. One of them must have told Fiori.

“I figured Brenton’s small enough. It’s only got one ZIP code and I knew the street name, so I hoped someone would get the letter to them.”

“And 13 Fell? Is that related to the Gardner?”

“No.” His head flinched back slightly. “It’s this address on Fellsmere Court.”

Dammit. I had the wrong Fellsmere.

A tiny smile appeared, and he hunched his shoulders like a mischievous kid. “I stole the stamps from the library down the hall and slipped my guard long enough to make the envelope at an art supply company.”

I’d always thought Cam-ron was out of touch with reality. A grown man who relied too heavily on his mother to run his business and his life. He didn’t seem to understand people or the world around him. He had talent, considering what a good job he did faking the original Chagall and based on some of his paintings I’d seen at Mason’s Gallery. But the ingenuity to get that letter to Ferraro’s wasn’t something I would have expected from him.

The door swung open, and Zane appeared, brandishing the bottle of water. “It’s cold. Princess.”

“Thank you.” I smiled politely, despite wanting to throw the bottle at his miserable, cocky face. “And Cam-ron, thanks for showing me the other paintings. You’re doing great work.”

He nodded and attempted to return to his worktable, but Zane caught him to continue the lesson.

Chapter 34

Samantha

Icouldn’tletCam-ronrot here. He was out of his depths.

One more life on my hands.

But I knew whereGrainfield at Middaywas, along with at least four paintings from Elliot’s files. We had a link between Fiori and the pawnshop. Better yet, we had someone who’d been working in his smuggling operation and wanted out.

We had evidence. And we had a star witness. I covered my cheeks, feeling a warm flush coming over them. Even if that star witness was Cam-ron Parker, we had one.

And—oh fuck—a dead conservator. Maybe not dead. Maybe working with the police? No, if he was working with the police, Elliot would have known.

I had to do something. Had to tell Elliot. But how?

Where was Antonio? We needed to talk about this. Needed a plan of action.

Antonio. My eyes darted to the door where he’d left. What if he gave Fiori bad news? What if Antonio was wrong and Fiori wasn’t a man of his word? Hell, he’d had me drugged and carried off to a helicopter in the middle of the day at a yacht club. That wasn’t a man who gave two shits about other people or his word.

I scanned the open browser windows on the computer and clicked on YouTube, navigated to the video of Lucy at the museum where she was talking about indigo.Help me out, Lucy.Give me an idea. She’d worked through so many mysteries and puzzles with me, and she always gave me the answer.

The video switched to her parents, strolling through the museum. Her mother said, “The Baroque period began in the sixteenth century and made its way to Holland in—”

My inner detective jumped. That was it. Sixteenth century Baroque. It was a running joke between me, Lucy, and Alice at the Ferraro’s office. I could email her a coded a message. Get the FBI here.

I pushed back from the desk and stood. This was a stupid idea. It was too risky. Fiori may not have had cameras all over this place, but there was no way he didn’t monitor the communications.

Although a YouTube comment might go unnoticed, especially if I could write it in a way that looked like I was asking for help. The video was about the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which had an extensive Rembrandt collection. I could ask them a simple question. Easily explain it away if I got caught.

“What are you doing?” Zane’s glasses were up on his head again, his face inches fromStorm on the Sea.

“Work.” I shook my head and sat, pausing the video, electricity and fear surging through every cell of my body. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to be my father, leaving for one more job and never coming home. My sister didn’t even know where I was. Had the kidnapping made the news? Were people looking for us?

Wait—I had an Internet connection. I could find the answer to that easily.

All the major news and news-ish sites had covered it, showing the same phone video over and over. It started after I was unconscious. Someone running had taken a shaky video from hundreds of feet away, so we were little more than blobs on the screen. It ended as the FBI agents arrived.

My heart wrenched watching the bodyguard run with me over his shoulder. Two gunmen, people running and screaming, and then Antonio. He scrambled to catch me. No one would have recognized us from the blurry video, but I recognized Antonio. He faced the guns, demanding he go with them. And he picked me up from where the guy had tossed me.

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