Heroes In Uniform (233 page)

Tilting her head courteously, she seemed to accept his compliment at face value, or accept the society dance the way they’d both been raised. Her baby-pink sweater was cashmere, her A-line skirt mauve-colored tweed. Everything screamed conservatism, except for the scalpel-edged glint in her eyes.

Turning her head, she faced Dancer with another predatory smile. “And who are you?”

With his floppy red hair and freckles, Steve Dancer looked more like a Catholic schoolboy than an FBI Special Agent. Something that usually worked to his advantage. Right now Pru Duvall looked like she dined on Catholic schoolboys for breakfast.

He walked over and shook her hand. “Special Agent Dancer. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Duvall.” Marsh had a sudden vision of Huckleberry Finn being made into a fashion accessory by Cruella De Vil.

“And this is Geoffrey Parker, Brook’s PA.” She wiggled her fingertips in the aide’s direction and he nodded briefly, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. “I’ve stolen him for the morning.”

The perfect society hostess, Pru rang for coffee and made herself comfortable on the loveseat opposite. Never mind they were here to interview her for something as tawdry as art fraud and theft.

Marsh waited for the coffee to arrive before he got down to business. He set down his dainty porcelain cup on its dinky saucer and felt like a bumbling giant. Dancer looked as uncomfortable with his, holding it protectively like a quarterback shielded a ball.

“Mrs. Duvall, Pru. I need to ask you about a painting you sold to Total Mastery Galleries last spring—it was on show at the same gallery opening you attended the other evening.”

She waved her hand in a way that suggested talking trade was crude. “I have a business manager who handles all that. Geoffrey can give you his card.”

“Your business manager will need to answer some pretty serious questions, Pru. Possibly criminal.” Marsh watched her pupils dilate.

“Why?” Geoffrey ventured, trying to diffuse a potentially volatile situation.

Marsh drew out a photograph of the painting from his jacket pocket. Slipped it onto the table. “Do you recognize it?”

She shook her head.

Despite his many years being a lawman he couldn’t read her. “Blue Steel Trading Corporation sold the picture for a fraction its actual worth, about six months ago.” He didn’t mention that the painting was a suspected Vermeer and worth much more.
De Hooch
was valuable enough. And regardless, it was stolen.

Pru picked up her own coffee and sipped delicately. “What does my having an incompetent business manager have to do with the FBI?”

“The painting was actually stolen in February nineteen-ninety from Admiral Chambers.” Marsh watched for a reaction.

“That old coot?” The light in her eyes was cold, but she laughed. “He probably lost it in a poker game after drinking too much and forgot about it the next day.”

Marsh had figured Brook and Pru Duvall might know the admiral, though laughter wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.

“Be that as it may, he reported it stolen and your company sold it to Total Mastery Galleries this year. We need to know where it’s been the last decade and, more importantly, where you obtained the painting.”

The lines around Pru’s eyes creased infinitesimally. More power to plastic surgery. “Like I said, Marshall.” Her fingers gripped her cup lightly, tendons straining beneath her pale skin. “My business manager handles all that.”

Geoffrey cleared his throat, but Marsh ignored him.

“Are you telling me you have no knowledge of this painting?” He tapped his fingers on the photo she hadn’t even glanced at.

Pru picked it up and made a big show of focusing, as if she needed glasses. Marsh bet his badge her sight was 20:20, laser-quality.

“I don’t pay much attention to art.” She raised a brow and looked straight at him as if daring him to disagree.

“Can you tell me why you were at the gallery opening on Friday night then?” Picking up his ridiculous cup of coffee, he finished it in one gulp.

“We received an invitation. We went.”

“So you don’t actually know the Faradays?”

Something altered in the light of her eyes. Leaning forward she held his gaze. “Have I done something illegal,
Special Agent in Charge
Hayes? Because if you are hinting at indiscretion on my part I’ll call my lawyer.”

Marsh had wondered when the big guns would be drawn. Seemed they’d reached Pru Duvall’s very low tolerance for the US justice system. And she hadn’t answered the question. Although given her impatient nature maybe that wasn’t such a surprise.

Geoffrey moved toward Pru. “I’ll get you the contact information you need, Agent Hayes.”

Interview over
.

Marsh tilted his head. His smile was sweet as honey. “I’m sure your business manager can clear up any misunderstanding.” He stood. “I certainly don’t want to cause trouble for Brook so close to the race for nomination.” His smile was flat.

Dancer hid a guffaw behind a cough and drew Pru’s attention. She stared at him the way a cat scoped out a mouse.

“That’s a bad cough you’ve got there, Agent Dancer,” she purred. “I hope it doesn’t turn into something nasty.”

Dancer sobered quickly. “I’m always extra careful with my health, Mrs. Duvall.”

“Good.” The reply was accompanied by another icy smile. Prudence Duvall was hiding something and he was going to find out exactly what it was. As they left he eyed the
Meissen
vase. Marsh hoped Dancer had bugged the witch.

Her Last Chance: Chapter Eight

Josie combined work with a pilgrimage. The Statue of Liberty loomed overhead, three hundred and five feet, two-hundred and twenty-five tons of American pride. Designed by the French. Celebrating independence from the British.

And didn’t that say it all.

Oil pastels made her hands greasy. Her sketchbook rested against a mini-easel Elizabeth had bought her a couple of Christmases ago, expensive as hell, and not something Josie would ever have indulged in.

Her mood plunged. The scent of brine was thick in the air, but when she closed her eyes for a split second she was back in Montana and Andrew DeLattio had her crowded into the back of his van, his hand up her shirt as he taunted Elizabeth on her cell phone. She missed her best friend. Thanked god Andrew DeLattio had gotten his head blown off before he could hurt her again.

A shudder of revulsion snaked down her spine. He was dead, dammit, and the Blade Hunter was going to join him in hell.

A gull screamed overhead and broke her reverie.

Vince lay twenty feet away stretched out on the grass. He looked asleep, but she figured ex-Navy SEAL war heroes could look asleep without actually being asleep. Took years of training, but no one ever said being a SEAL was easy.

The sun felt hot on her cheek. She picked up a pale blue pastel, squinted at it then switched it for a darker shade instead. The sky was a brilliant ultra-marine. Pristine and perfect and peaceful.

A deception as every New Yorker knew.

Her mouth turned down at terrible memories that had changed her and her city forever.

They said that what didn’t kill you made you stronger but if that were true she wouldn’t be such a coward about everything that really mattered.

Concentrating on the only thing she knew how to do well, she started shading in some of the background, having blocked out the statue and pedestal with broad strokes. There was something vibrant about the way the green of the statue shimmered against that bright blue sky and she wanted to capture it. Photographs helped, but she knew from experience they wouldn’t reproduce the colors exactly. Nor would pastel but she had her paints too. Using combinations of all three media she hoped to do the lady justice.

As a native, she’d been commissioned by the Tourist Board to do a series of NYC paintings. It was good reliable work in a career that rarely had good reliable work.

The first two paintings had been of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State. One, a close up of the art deco detailing; the other a monument to a more ascetic architectural period. Rubbing the bridge of her nose she sighed. It was hard to draw skyscrapers in this city—too much associated pain. She looked over her right shoulder at the place where so many people had perished and her throat closed.

Bracing her shoulders, she raised her chin. She wouldn’t be a coward because one man wanted to hurt her. People from this city were stronger than that. They weren’t easily cowed, especially when they had a hulking bodyguard at their beck and call.

Sleek gulls buzzed overhead. Determinedly she rubbed the pastel over the paper, getting on with her life. They’d catch this bastard and Marshall Hayes would get the hell back to Boston.

The oil pastel snapped beneath her finger. “Dammit.”

Concentrating on the statue, she picked up the pale green and a dark leaf-green that was almost black for deeper shadows, holding both in the same hand as she sketched in details. Grabbed cadmium-yellow and white, and with a couple of strokes gave Liberty her fire.

To get the sharp edge she needed for the spikes of the diadem, she pulled out her little penknife and sharpened the edge of an iced green.

“You have a permit for that?”

She jumped a half-inch off her seat. Marsh squeezed a hand on her shoulder and blasted a hole through her determination to keep things between them strictly professional.

Lines cut deeply around his mouth, sunlight molding his stubborn jaw. She rolled her shoulder away from his touch, didn’t like the fact she was so happy to see him. “You gonna arrest me if I don’t?”

“I do still have those handcuffs.”

Heat flooded her cheeks as unbidden memories rose. A whiplash of heat coiled low in her body, a touch-light to passion. The brightness of his gaze made her blink, his eyes more green today than brown—clear, complex, changeable. She knew he wanted to protect her, but those deep hazel eyes also promised something else. Soul scorching sex.

What single unattached woman in her right mind wouldn’t want to have sex with a rich handsome federal agent who’d promised to protect them from a monster? It didn’t make her a slut. It finally made her ordinary.

Taking off his charcoal-colored jacket he slumped on the bench beside her, his knees brushing hers. He stared at the sketch with a thoughtful expression, but said nothing, his frown intensifying with his silence. It took every ounce of control not to ask him what he thought. But her work had always been her own, not influenced by the opinions of others or the contrary moods of the market.

A bit like her.

The rumble in her stomach told her it was lunchtime. Unable to work with him watching, she packed away her pastels and placed the sketch in her portfolio. She looked around for Vince, but he’d taken off.

“You on duty?” she asked with a sinking heart.
Why else would he be here?

“He went for a walk.” The lines beside his eyes deepened as he squinted up at the statue. “I came to let you know I probably won’t be at your apartment tonight.”

Her fingers curled.
Dammit
, she wasn’t completely helpless. “I can go stay with Pete for the night—you remember Pete? My ex-roomie?”

A red line burned across Marsh’s cheeks. “There are some people you never forget—Pete and his lover definitely fall into that category.” He closed his eyes and a shudder rippled across his shoulders.

Neither he nor Pete would say what had passed between them. “You don’t like gay people?”

Marsh threw his head back and laughed deep and loud. His throat was pale bronze against the pure blue sky, his Adam’s apple clearly defined. Josie grinned. She didn’t remember the last time she’d heard him let loose with a laugh and despite trying to hold onto her irritation, she liked it.

“Gay doesn’t bother me one bit.” Then he shifted to face her, his thigh brushing hers as she held his gaze. “In fact, finding out your roomie was gay and not your live-in lover made my freaking day.”

She swallowed. “Oh.”

His smile told her he’d revealed more than he wanted to and changed the subject. “Vince said he’d stay over at your apartment, until I got back,” Marsh told her, “which could even be late tonight but will probably be tomorrow.”

“Okay.” There was a serial killer who had a blade with her name on it and, despite appearances, she wasn’t stupid. In truth she was unbearably beholden to them both and one day soon she needed to be brave enough to tell them that.

Bending down she finished packing her stuff into her knapsack. She had enough detail and color information to carry on the work at home. And she couldn’t concentrate with Marsh so close. That bothered her because normally nothing distracted her.

Spotting the urn at the bottom of her bag she paused. She’d planned to scatter Marion’s ashes to the four winds today. But she couldn’t do it. As much as she tried, as much as she’d promised herself, she still couldn’t let go of the past.

Pain welled up, but she didn’t want Marsh to sense anything was wrong. The fact that Marion was dead had a lot to do with him and she hadn’t even begun to deal with her feelings over that yet.

Maybe that was the reason she’d run so hard from him?
Punished them both for being alive when Marion was so horribly dead? Or maybe it was just good old-fashioned terror of getting involved and getting your heart tenderized with a meat mallet.

“Where are you off to?” she asked.

“Savannah.”

“Oh.”
What the hell was in Savannah?
She refused to ask, knowing how seriously he took his job. Craning her neck she stared up at the image of freedom and independence, ignored the gnawing under her heart at her lack of those qualities in her life. A pigeon landed on the ground in front of her, a puddle of feathers strutting and pecking for scraps of food.

“You ever been up to the top?” She indicated the malachite green Greek monolith with a tilt of her chin, surprised when he shook his head.

“No, but I know the arm has been closed to visitors since 1916 when German collaborators set off dynamite on the New Jersey shore.” His eyes held a wealth of sadness. “Terrorism is nothing new. You?” It was a lazy question, them sitting in the sunshine chatting, but this statue meant so much more to her than that.