Deceptive Read online

  “He’s not available. Can I have him call you back?”

  “Ah, can you get in touch with him? It’s kind of an emergency.”

  “No, I’m afraid not. What’s your name again?”

  “Zoe. Zoe Hunter.” Jack threw his gaze up to the ceiling and turned away from her. “It’s related to an investigation. An old case.”

  “Oh, well, you’d better call the Bureau. Didn’t you know? Mort’s retired.”

  “No. I didn’t know.” Zoe took a deep breath. “Look, are you his wife? Because it’s really important that I talk to Mort. It will only take a few minutes...”

  “Wife? No, honey, I’m the house sitter. Mort and Kathy are on a Mediterranean cruise. I’ll tell him you called next time he checks in. But it may not be for a while. They wanted a real vacation with no interruptions, so he had his calls from his cell phone forwarded to the house phone. I’m sure he’ll get back to you.”

  Zoe ended the call. “Mort’s on a cruise.”

  “Thank God. Zoe, there were real estate flyers in the bag with Lucinda’s body. I saw them when I zipped the bag up.”

  Zoe put her hand over her mouth then whispered through her fingers, “My prints will be on them.”

  “You don’t want to call that other agent, do you?”

  “Sato? No. He never liked me. He’d have me locked up before Lucinda’s body was even out of the ground. There’s no one else we can go to. What are we going to do?”

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  She knew what he was thinking. “We have to find that painting, don’t we?”

  Chapter Six

  ––––––––

  ZOE spun away from him, her hands pressed to her forehead. “But how? It’s impossible. All we know is that some person with red hair used my name and offered to sell a painting to a gallery in Paris. We can’t find the painting from that.”

  “He said it was a Monet.”

  “Even with that, there’s got to be hundreds of Monet paintings.”

  “And he said the name of the gallery. Gallery Twenty-Seven.” Jack grabbed a pencil and the magnetized notepad hanging on the refrigerator door. “Let’s get everything, every little detail he said down on paper. He also mentioned the name of the painting.”

  Zoe leaned on the island beside him, latching onto the activity. Anything was better than helpless worrying. “I can’t remember exactly. The whole conversation was surreal. I was so focused on making him understand we didn’t have it, that I don’t remember all the specifics. Wasn’t it something...military?”

  “Yes.” Jack tapped the pencil against the paper several times. “Marine. That was it.” Jack shot her a smile as he jotted it down. “What else?”

  “Okay.” Zoe studied the new drywall on her ceiling as she thought. “He talked about cities: Freeport, Geneva, and Singapore, but the way he said it...was weird. Something about us having the painting in Freeport, in Geneva or Singapore, which doesn’t make any sense.” She pushed away from the island and retrieved her new computer, which only took moments to bring up a browser.

  While she typed, Jack added words to his list, reading them out. “He talked about the financial transactions, Verity Trustees, and the twelve million dollars.”

  Zoe’s fingers paused. “That worries me. What if the FBI isn’t finished investigating? What if Costa set me up? It would be just like him—use the money from the scam to buy world-class art and finger me as the culprit.”

  “I meant what I said. I don’t think the FBI is going to buy a false trail like that, not after the way this whole case has gone. For all we know, the case is closed, and he just said that to scare you.”

  “He wasn’t lying about anything else.”

  Jack reached for her hand. “Let’s go one step at a time.”

  Zoe squeezed his hand. “Right. Find the painting. Simple. Easy,” she said with a bogus, breezy tone that she didn’t feel. “Mark that off our list, and then we’ll worry about FBI investigations.”

  Jack leaned over and kissed her hard on the mouth. “You’re lying through your teeth,” he said, keeping his face close to hers. “But very brave.”

  She couldn’t help smiling back at him. “Foolhardy, probably.” He leaned forward and they kissed again, this time slowly, lingeringly.

  Jack pulled away. “Much as I’d like to continue this, I don’t think this an ideal time to get distracted.”

  Zoe felt as dizzy and as disoriented as she had when she had woken up in her car earlier that afternoon. How could that happen when only their lips had touched? She hadn’t moved her arms to reach for him. Her fingers were still poised on the computer keypad. She cleared her throat, torn between not wanting to let on how much that kiss had rocked her and wanting to throw her arms around Jack. But she wasn’t sure she could handle what would happen if she pulled him back to her, so she went with option A. “Right. Business before pleasure and all that.” She scanned the search results and clicked through a few articles.

  Jack sent her a look. “Don’t tempt me.”

  “I thought you were wooing me. Is this wooing?”

  “No. This is flirting, an essential part of wooing. Now, did you find anything?”

  “Yes, I think so. Freeport is a city in the Bahamas, but when I combine it with Geneva, I get some interesting results. Freeport, either in a compound form or separate in two words, has another meaning, an economic free-trade zone.”

  “No taxes?”

  “Exactly. There’s a huge warehouse-type place in Geneva and one in Singapore, too, where collectors keep art and apparently lots of other things like gold bars, wine, even luxury cars.” Zoe shook her head as she read through one of the articles. “Can you imagine? A warehouse full of tax-free luxury goods? It sounds like if you sell something on the premises, neither the seller nor the buyer pays taxes or custom duties. Listen to this line.” She read aloud, “Free ports like the one in Geneva are ideal for art collectors who are not interested in displaying their art and need a secure storage location.”

  “Sounds like the go-to place for stolen art.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Zoe sat back. “Of course, there’s no way of knowing if the painting is there. I’m sure Mr. Gray—whoever he is—would use a place like this, but for all we know, Anna might have it under her bed.” Zoe forced her thoughts away from all the thousands of possibilities of where the painting could be. She blew out a sigh. “This is why he gave us three days, for the travel time. So we could go and get it from Geneva or...wherever.”

  “Three days is a good thing.”

  “I hope it’s enough. What’s next?” Zoe asked, nodding at the list. She suddenly was very aware of the seconds ticking by.

  “The painting and the gallery.”

  “Okay, Marine,” Zoe said as she typed.

  Jack pulled out his phone. “I’ll search for the gallery. That shouldn’t be too hard to run down.”

  Zoe frowned at the computer screen as she studied images of galleons and stormy seas. “Fifty-six million results for ‘Marine painting.’ ” She tried again, using the search term “Marine by Monet.”

  Jack said, “I’ve got the gallery. It’s on the left bank, open Tuesday to Saturday. Owner is Henri Masard.”

  “I found it.” At her slightly strangled tone, Jack looked up. “Marine is in the FBI stolen art database. The Monet—along with several other valuable paintings—was stolen from a museum in Rio de Janeiro during Carnival in 2006. Hasn’t been seen since.” Zoe shifted the laptop so Jack could see the landscape, a sweep of a deep blue bay rimmed with land in neutral tans, yellows, and greens that transitioned to a pale wedge of a low, white escarpment that stretched out into the water forming one arm of the bay.

  Jack came closer to look at the image of the painting on the computer. “It makes sense.”

  “Of course. I should have seen that one coming.” Zoe slid off the barstool and paced as she spoke. “He was a criminal. Of course he wouldn’t do something a
s out of character as buy something legitimately for sale. No, it had to be black market art.”

  “Zoe,” Jack leaned forward. “This is actually good.”

  “How? How can this be good?”

  “If we find it, there are two parties interested in it—the FBI and Mr. Gray. Now, I may be way off base here, but I’m assuming that since Mr. Gray wants a stolen painting, he’s probably involved in other illegal activities that would interest the FBI.”

  “You mean besides murder?”

  “We know about Lucinda’s murder and a stolen painting, but I’m willing to bet that those aren’t his first forays into illegal activity.”

  Zoe walked slowly toward him. “You’re saying that if we find the painting, we can use it.”

  “It’s leverage.”

  “With the FBI and with Mr. Gray.” They smiled at each other for a second across the island. Then Zoe said, “We need to know more about Mr. Gray.” She’d climbed halfway onto the barstool before it hit her. She stopped, leg dangling. “Jack. The people. We’re looking at this the wrong way. It’s not the painting, it’s the people we need to focus on.”

  “You’re right,” Jack agreed. “We need everything we can get on this Darius Gray.”

  Zoe shifted her weight fully into the barstool and began typing. “Let’s see what Google has to say about him.” She summarized as she scanned. “Okay, he’s in the import/export business, but he was arrested over a year ago.” She swiveled the laptop so Jack could see a news article with a photo that showed a nearly bald man with circular glasses and neatly trimmed gray beard, who wore a three-piece suit while being escorted out of an office building between two police officers.

  “Not what I expected him to look like,” Zoe said. The image she’d had in mind of him ran more along the lines of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. “This guy looks more like a college professor than a criminal. But, no matter what he looks like, he’s apparently got some really good lawyers,” Zoe continued. “He was charged with money laundering, tax evasion, and handling stolen goods. He was convicted on the tax evasion and money laundering charges and went to prison in January.”

  “So maybe not such great lawyers,” Jack said.

  Zoe held up a finger. “He got off on a technicality during the appeal.” She clicked on another article, this one with a picture of Gray waving to the camera, a smile splitting his beard, as he stepped into a limousine. “He’s been out of prison for two weeks, which explains why he’s just now coming after the painting, I guess,” Zoe said.

  Jack nodded. “I suppose a federal trial and prison time would take priority over recovering a painting that you’d been swindled out of.”

  “But if he’s fresh out of prison, why would he come after the painting?” Zoe asked. “Wouldn’t it be smarter for him to wait? Wouldn’t the FBI—or whoever investigated him before—have an eye on him?”

  “You’d think they would, wouldn’t you?”

  “As close as they’ve watched me, trying to get to you, I can’t believe they’d wouldn’t do the same thing to him. This is the third time he’s been arrested, the second time he’s gone to jail, and the second time he’s walked away.”

  “Maybe he feels invincible,” Jack said. “Like he can get away with whatever he wants.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s not enough. We don’t even know if the authorities are still interested in him.”

  “Wait—I know someone...” Zoe’s voice trailed off as she typed.

  “Who?”

  “There. Message sent,” Zoe said. “If there’s anything else to find out about Mr. Darius Gray, Jenny will dig it up. She’s got contacts in the FBI—she’s a friend of Mort’s. I can’t believe I didn’t think of her a minute ago.”

  “Who is this again?”

  “Jenny Singletarry. You remember her, the reporter who broke the story about the fraud. I answered a few of her questions once the FBI cleared you.”

  “You talked to the media?” Jack’s tone implied it was equivalent to spreading the plague. “And you emailed her now?”

  “Yes. She was so persistent. I figured if I talked to her, gave her a little info, she’d move on. It worked. It was a fair article, and I haven’t heard from her since. Well, except for her Facebook friend request, which I accepted.”

  Jack rubbed his forehead. “Well, we can’t undo it now.”

  “She’s good, Jack, and I trust her.”

  Jack waved his hand. “It’s done. Can’t change it. Got to move on. Maybe she’ll find something useful, if she’s got the resources you say she does. It’s always good to know what kind of person we are dealing with.”

  Zoe sat up straight. “Jack, we do know the person we’re dealing with,” she said, excitement quickening the pace of her words. “Not just Gray. Anna. We know Anna has the painting. Mr. Gray doesn’t know that. He thinks we’ve got it. We know who really has it.”

  Jack nodded. “Find Anna, and we find the painting—at least we hope. I see what you’re saying, but I doubt she is broadcasting her presence.”

  “I agree. She probably isn’t tweeting about her day, but I think I know someone who can help us find her.”

  “Who?”

  “A reformed hacker.”

  ***

  SPECIAL Agent Greg Sato leaned back from his desk and stretched. He’d tweaked a muscle in his lower back, and it was tightening up like a rubber band snapping back into shape after it had been stretched to full length. He shouldn’t have pushed so hard during his run last night, but the half marathon was two weeks away and he needed to get his miles in. As he stretched, he glanced at the wonder kid, who was hunched over a nearby desk. Supposedly a Golden Boy and a fast burner, Dirk Sorkensov was the youngest agent Sato had ever worked with. He was so shiny and fresh-faced that the corners of his eyes didn’t even wrinkle when he smiled. And he smiled a lot. Good-humored to the point of irritation, Wonder Kid could always find the bright side to any situation.

  Too many cases? Job security, he’d pronounce cheerfully.

  Called in to work the weekend? Bonus! Overtime.

  No witnesses? A challenge.

  Sato was beginning to think Wonder Kid had been promoted because of his upbeat, always positive attitude.

  Sato twisted slowly to the left, felt the tension release a bit, then turned to the right and watched Wonder Kid, whose attention was equally divided between a file on his desk and his cell phone, which he checked every few minutes.

  Sato finished his stretch as The Kid closed the file with a whistle. “Man, this reads like a novel.” He stood and came over to Sato’s desk, bringing the file with him. “Fascinating.”

  Sato grunted. He hadn’t thought he’d miss his old partner much, but this was one of those days when he wished he could exchange The Kid’s puppyish enthusiasm for Mort’s silent world-weariness. Must be his back making him cranky. Sato didn’t need to see the name on the file. “The Andrews case? Yeah.” The Kid shot a quick look at his phone as he handed Sato the file. “Anything?” Sato asked with a pointed glance at the phone.

  “No. Just Braxton Hicks.”

  “Oh.” Sato had no idea what Braxton Hicks were, but The Kid’s wife—wife! He looked as if he was barely old enough to have a high school diploma—and she was pregnant. Sato figured Braxton Hicks had to be something to do with the pregnancy. Before The Kid could enlighten him, Sato said, “The one disappointment of that case was the low arrest rate. All the big fish got away.”

  “Dying isn’t exactly getting away.”

  Sato shrugged. “No arrests.”

  “Well, here’s a chance to change that.” The Kid held out an additional stack of papers. “Got the report on the transfers of the money from the scam.”

  At least The Kid liked reading reports and getting into the hard evidence as much as Mort had, Sato thought. Sato preferred to focus on more intangible things: attitudes, relationships, and connections. “It’s about time.”

  Sato took the papers and skimmed them
as The Kid said, “The ex of Jack Andrews. Zoe Hunter.”

  Sato went back to the first page and read through them again. “Zoe Hunter managed to siphon off several million dollars from the scam and then got it into an off-shore account in a roundabout way that took us months to trace? Then she bought something from an art dealer?” He shifted in his chair and his back tweaked, but he barely noticed it. “Interesting. Let’s go see her.”

  Chapter Seven

  ––––––––

  JACK parked in front of a modest one-story brown brick rancher. They climbed out and walked up the sidewalk between low boxwood hedges. “This is where your hacker lives?”

  “Reformed hacker.” Zoe handed Jack one of the bags of Chinese takeout as her phone chimed, signaling she had a new text. “That’s weird. The message space is blank. There’s only a photo attached.” Zoe opened the link and frowned. “Why would Helen send me a picture of her house? I know what it looks like.”

  Jack shrugged. “Maybe she sent it to the wrong number.”

  “No, wait. It’s not her number. I don’t know who sent this.” As she spoke another blank text with a picture attached popped up. The next photo was another of Helen, this time standing on her porch, signing for a UPS package. A third photo arrived, Helen walking into the building where she worked at the county offices. The next message didn’t have a photo. It read, “Don’t forget our agreement. We know where your friends live and work.”

  Zoe’s stomach flipped. “Oscar. It’s got to be him. That creep is following Helen around. He better not go near her. I have to call her—”

  Jack caught her hand as they arrived on the porch. “The less she knows the better.”

  “I know that’s how you were trained, but that doesn’t always work out so good. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  “What are you going to tell her? That a man is watching her? That’s not going to make her feel better. It will just scare her.”

  Zoe fingered the buttons on the phone. She didn’t want to frighten Helen, and she couldn’t order her to stay indoors without telling her everything that was going on.