Collection (12 page)

“No, no. I feel that a meal is far more civilized when a bit of formality is observed. Since I know you must be eager to return, we'll have a shorter service than I usually enjoy.” An array of dishes were served and cleared without Jane eating. She had lost her appetite, and the sticky sweet scent of the flowers was mingling with the smell of bleach in her nose. The other guests seemed oblivious. Lucien spoke to Raleigh about art, and Portia would chime in occasionally. Jane did her best to seem blank, to fade into the background. She was tired enough that it wasn't that difficult. Finally, the dessert was served.

Raleigh grinned as the plates were set in front of each of his guests. “Jane, I notice you haven't eaten much. I do hope you're not abstaining to slim your figure, or some such nonsense. You're quite lovely as you are.” He raised his wine glass to drink.

Jane managed to smile back. If Raleigh wanted to think she was a vapid trophy for Lucien, she wouldn't correct him. She couldn't tell him that she wasn't hungry because she kept imagining Sam's brains spraying out of his head. “No, I'm just a bit tired. It's been a long day.”

“It has indeed. Oh, I almost forgot!” He stood and waved over to one of the security guards. The man approached him with Jane's purse. He took it from the guard and handed it to Jane. “I imagine you'll need this back.”

Jane had to concentrate to speak to this man without seeing Sam Sullivan lying on the floor in a pool of his own fluids. She swallowed. “Thank you, I thought it was lost.”

Raleigh sat and took a bite of his cake. He chewed slowly and then spoke. “It wasn't lost. Jane, I confess that I was a bit curious about you.” He daintily wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin. “I didn't know Lucky had a girlfriend, and I needed to know if you were someone who could be trusted. I still don't know if you can be trusted, but from your driver's license and cell phone, I know where you live, who your friends are, and how to find your family. I prefer to be discreet, but let me be plain to you now. I will kill you and everyone you love if you tell anyone what happened here tonight.” Raleigh deliberately made eye contact with Lucien. This message was for both of them.

Jane looked at the little cake in front of her. It had white frosting and a real flower on top. She wanted to scream. Why didn't she throw her bag when she was being chased in the museum parking garage? Maybe someone would have found it and figured out that she was missing. At least she wouldn't have exposed Sadie and her mom and sister to this maniac. She wanted to grab the little dessert fork and stab it into Raleigh's eye. Instead, she looked him straight in the eye and answered.

“I don't ever want to talk about anything that happened. I just want to go home.” She must have hit the correct note, because Lucien seemed to relax a bit. Jane hadn't noticed before, but he had tensed up when Raleigh had handed back her bag.

“Good girl. That won't be a problem. The plane is waiting for you and Lucky.”

Lucien stood. “Thank you for dinner, Raleigh. It was excellent as always. I'll let you know if I secure any of the items on your new acquisition list. In the spirit of our previous dealings, I hope our business relationship continues. However, if you need to speak to me again, please know that kidnapping isn't necessary. I have nothing to hide. My greed does not exceed my common sense.”

Raleigh stood and shook his hand. “I apologize for my methods, Lucky. I want what's mine. I think you can see now that there isn't anything I won't do to make certain that I get it, and
only
I get it.”

Within twenty minutes, Lucien and Jane were boarding the plane again. This time there was nobody using a gun to get her to climb the stairs. She was going willingly and quickly, before Raleigh changed his mind. As she sat down she realized that she was still wearing Portia's dress. That meant that her dress, or the dress she had borrowed from Sadie, was back at the house of horrors. Oh, well. She could always replace it given enough shifts at the bar. The door to leave this nightmare had been opened, and she was determined to go through it before it closed again.

Raleigh didn't even bother to send a bodyguard with them, and Lucien and Jane were the only passengers on the plane. As soon as they took off, Jane curled up and fell asleep in her seat. Lucien was left to keep himself company for the flight home. As the lights of Cuba faded behind them, he held his head in his hands. Sam's death
was preventable. There must have been something he could have done. Sam didn't know Raleigh like Lucien did. Bullying wasn't any way to make Raleigh do what you wanted him to do. Letting Raleigh have his own way was the only thing that had allowed Lucien and Jane to leave that evening.

What a mess. Lucien wished he could have spoken to Sam. Raleigh wouldn't have harmed him if he'd given up the painting without a fight. Raleigh was a collector with an all-consuming drive to possess. If he couldn't have a thing, he truly didn't want anyone else to have it either. Finding out that another Vermeer, identical to his own, was on the market infuriated him. He took his anger out on Sam.

Lucien also regretted not getting rid of Jane's bag when he had the chance. Now, Raleigh had all he needed to track her down and even harm her loved ones. He should have anticipated Raleigh's interest in her. Despite their history of working together for the past few years, Lucien had been careful not to give too much information to Raleigh about where he lived, places he frequented, or people he knew. Much to his annoyance, Raleigh only knew Lucien's phone number, and little else about “Lucky” the smuggler.

They always arranged to meet at a neutral location so that neither one of them felt vulnerable. In a public location with witnesses, there was little opportunity for either one of them to take advantage of the other. As far as Raleigh knew, Lucky always dealt fair with him. They were on equal footing in all of their past transactions, and Raleigh didn't like that. He was used to being in charge, knowing all the angles. If there was one thing that Raleigh disliked, it was ceding control to anyone else, regardless if he believed their motives were suspect or not.

It was clear that Raleigh was going to use Jane to keep Lucien in check. Jane didn't realize that her involvement with Lucien wasn't over as long as Raleigh thought she provided leverage over Lucien. If he was going to make things right, Lucien had to convince Raleigh that Jane was not going to make trouble for him. This was difficult because Jane's connection to Lucien both endangered and protected her. As long as Raleigh thought they were “together,” he wouldn't hurt her unless he needed to hurt Lucien. If they weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, Raleigh had every reason to get rid of her. Having
seen how Raleigh gets rid of people firsthand, Lucien didn't want Jane to meet the same fate.

Jane slept through the bumpy ride as the plane landed. Dawn was just beginning to break. When they stopped at the end of the runway, she woke up. Lucien looked at her and saw a scared young woman that he had to protect.

“What are you looking at? Am I drooling? Was I drooling?” Jane tried to put herself together. “Are we back?”

Lucien tried to appear casual as not to scare her about the fact that Raleigh probably wasn't done with either of them. “Yes, we're back. If you could use your cell phone to call a taxi, I'd appreciate it.”

Jane smiled for the first time in several hours. Being on solid ground in the United States restored her spirits despite her still haggard condition. Lucien looked as if he'd just been to the spa. For the first time in many hours, Jane felt like she was in control of her life and the sensation was exhilarating. “Well, I guess it's my turn to rescue you, huh?”

They got off the plane as quickly as they could and made their way to the small terminal. Jane checked her phone for messages, and her inbox had several texts from Sadie. In the last message, Sadie wrote that she suspected a Hotlanta hook-up. Jane texted back that she was okay, and that she'd tell her all about it when she got home. Now all she needed to do was think of a good story to tell to Sadie that didn't involve airplanes and paintings and dead guys.

The airport was within an hour of downtown Atlanta, and they were able to call a local cab to take them back. It was going to cost a bit, but it was the quickest way to get away from the airport. Lucien gave the driver his address first so that he could get enough money at his house to pay the fare, and Jane didn't argue. It was the least he could do. For being a man of the world, Jane was surprised that Lucien didn't carry a wallet or a phone. “Why don't you have a wallet or a phone with you? Did Raleigh keep it?”

“No. I didn't bring it with me when I left home yesterday morning. I don't carry a wallet because I don't like carrying anything with my name on it. I don't have my phone because I prefer to be unreachable when I'm at a museum. I enjoy my time alone too much to allow it to be interrupted by any and every distraction. The world's not going to fall apart if someone can't reach me for a few hours.”

Jane realized that she had intruded on his ‘alone time' at the museum. Maybe that was why he had bitten her head off. “Well, a phone might have been useful when we were stuck in that awful house.”

Lucien was mindful of the cab driver. “It might have, but Raleigh would have been…disappointed if we'd left before his party.”

“Yeah. Disappointed. I guess I know not to disappoint him.” Jane's mood was immediately dampened by the memory of Raleigh's threat to her. She hoped that she could become as indifferent to the circumstances of Sam's death as Lucien already was. There had to be some way to tell the police about what happened. Maybe she could contact them anonymously, but not until she knew her family and friends were safe.

They drove to a part of town that Jane was unfamiliar with. The homes seemed to hide behind tall fences and obscuring landscape. Eventually they turned down a road and Lucien had to tell the driver where to turn to get to the driveway of his house. Suddenly there was a gate in front of them, and the car stopped. After a moment, the gate opened on its own. Lucien told the driver to keep going. They crested a hill and Jane nearly gasped. Lucien's ‘house' was a huge antebellum mansion. It was two stories tall with massive wraparound porches. Jane couldn't count the number of windows. It was in excellent condition with gleaming white paint. Jane turned to Lucien. “Business has been good for you, hasn't it?”

Lucien smiled. “It's a family home.”

“Which family? The Hiltons?”

Lucien didn't respond until the cab parked in front of the grand entrance. “Would you like to come inside for a moment?”

Jane was determined to get back to the museum to pick up her car, but this house was amazing. She figured that a few minutes checking out the inside wouldn't set her back too much. She told the cab driver she'd be right back with the money. The cab driver had decided that he'd wait all day for the owner of this house. Lucien offered her his arm up the stairs, and Jane accepted in the spirit of southern hospitality. Since moving to Georgia from Wisconsin she had occasionally witnessed the grandeur of the old South, but nothing like this. She could smell magnolia in the air, and the wind caused Spanish moss on the oak tree limbs to leisurely sway.

Lucien opened the door and Jane was pleased to see that the inside of the house did not disappoint. There was a huge wooden staircase leading to the upper floor and light flooded in from the windows. The wood floors shone and fresh flowers decorated nearly every horizontal surface. All of it looked original and very well-maintained.

“Wow. This is beautiful. I thought Atlanta burned when Sherman came through, did he skip this one?”

Lucien's face darkened a little. “That was a bad time. People had to do what they could to survive. I guess it was worth it.”

Jane was distracted from asking what he meant by the sound of high heels approaching. A woman appeared through a door to their right. She was older, and Jane was somewhat amused to see that Lucien appeared to live with his grandmother.

“Lucien, I'm glad you're back. I imagine there's a good reason for not letting us know where you've been?” The woman looked Jane up and down, and Jane couldn't tell if she was speculating about her time with Lucien or her bedraggled appearance.

“Laurel, I've had a very long night. Is there any way we could put this off until later this evening?”

“I suppose so. Would you and your friend like to join us for breakfast? We're having waffles.”

Lucien answered before Jane could.

“No, that's okay, she's had a long night too. I just have to get some cash for the taxi, and then Jane will be on her way.” He walked with Laurel to a nearby doorway but turned to Jane just before he went through, “Wait here for just a moment, Jane. I'll be right back.”

Jane was glad Lucien had declined the invitation for breakfast, she wasn't willing to wait much longer to get back to Branley. On any other day, she would have been glad to stay a few hours to look around the house. Everywhere she looked there were paintings and sculptures interspersed with fresh flowers and elegant furniture. It was like a museum. To keep herself from getting lost among the objects, she found a bench in the foyer and sat down to wait until Lucien came back with the cab fare.

Lucien went straight to the library. Laurel followed closely on his heels. He opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a ten thousand dollar banded stack of cash. “Not now, Laurel, I mean it.”

Laurel's voice was less genteel now. “Who is that woman and why have you brought her here?”

“She's just a college student who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm trying to get her home.” Lucien peeled a few hundred dollar bills off the stack and put the rest back in the drawer.

Laurel closed the door behind them. “You didn't have to bring her here.”

“No, I didn't, but I know what you're thinking and she's not up to anything.”

“You don't know what I'm thinking, and I'm certain you're up to something.”