“Let me go in first,” he ordered as they neared the small lane between the buildings where Old Bill made his home. “Stay behind me until I clear the gallery.”
Judith frowned at his grim face and taut, very domineering tone, but she didn’t argue with him. As they passed Bill, she paused. The veteran was lying under his blanket, covering his head with one hand, shivering a little in the thick fog.
“Bill, do you need another blanket? What happened to your sleeping bag?”
The world was gray and somber, the sea crashing angrily against the bluff where Ivanov’s car had gone over to the rocks below. Stefan took a long look around while Judith talked to the homeless man, aware, even as he studied rooftops and towers, that Bill made an attempt to sit up, coughed and lay back down.
“Do you need a doctor?” Judith asked.
Bill shook his head and waved her away, clearly as independent as ever.
Judith frowned at him. “If you aren’t better tomorrow, I’m bringing Lexi, Bill, and you know what that means. She’ll be making some horrible-tasting potion for you to drink and you’ll do it because no one can resist her, not even you.”
Bill made a muffled sound that could have been a snort of laughter or agreement. Stefan urged Judith forward toward the gallery by taking her upper arm and tugging with commanding strength. She shot him a scowl, her concern for Bill overriding her good sense.
His radar screamed at him, his muscles coiling, ready to spring into action. The weight of his gun was reassuring. He had a knife strapped to his calf, one in his boot, another up his sleeve and a small throwing knife taped between his shoulder blades where he could reach and throw in less than a second should there be need. With all that, he didn’t like Judith out in the open.
Now, Judith. Something’s wrong. I can feel it.
He hissed the warning into her mind.
Judith flashed Bill a smile and lifted a hand toward the older man, clearly still torn that she should insist on getting him medical attention.
He hates doctors,
she explained, but she began to stride toward the art gallery.
They’d gone no more than five feet, when two shadowy figures stood up on the enclosed porch where they’d been sitting in chairs. Stefan’s heart sank. He recognized the couple immediately. Inez Nelson and Frank Warner waited, both looking distressed. Inez clearly wrung her hands, twisting her fingers together in agitation.
“What is it, Inez?” Judith stepped forward, compassion in her voice, on her face and in the hand she put out to touch the older woman’s arm.
Stefan’s natural inclination was to shield Judith from the couple. His warning system was so loud he could hear it booming through the blood thundering in his ears. He crowded close to Judith, his body sheltering hers protectively as he reached around her to shake Frank’s hand. “Is something wrong?”
“I went into the gallery this morning to open up before you came,” Inez explained, “and . . .” She trailed off. “You’ll have to see. I’ve called Jonas.”
Stefan swore softly to himself. The last thing he needed was a meddling sheriff around. He followed Inez and Frank into the gallery, keeping Judith in front of him, so that anyone on the street with a gun didn’t have a chance to shoot her. Once inside, Stefan saw the damage immediately. Someone had dragged paintings off the wall and thrown them carelessly on the floor after taking canvases out of the frames and removing them from the stretcher bars.
“Who would do this?” Judith asked. “We don’t get this kind of vandalism here. If those canvases aren’t stretched soon, it will ruin the paintings. Most of those are oil, but a couple are acrylic and those will be more of a problem.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “All that work destroyed.”
Stefan stepped closer to the paintings strewn around. Each of them was a painting Judith had done. He went still. This was deliberate. Ivanov sending a message? He took a quick look around at the banks of windows. He suddenly felt as if Judith was very exposed. He took her arm and pulled her away from the paintings, back into the shadowy interior where it would be more difficult for a sniper to get a clear shot.
“Inez, they look like they’re my work,” Judith said, one hand going to her throat defensively. “Are they all my paintings?”
Stefan thought she looked very vulnerable, and his heart turned over. He curled his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him.
We’ll get to the bottom of this, angel.
“They didn’t destroy the artwork,” Inez pointed out hastily. “They removed the canvas from the stretcher bars. You can fix them, can’t you, Judith? After Jonas sees them, take them back to your studio and fix them before they’re ruined.”
“He’ll want to keep them for evidence,” Judith pointed out.
“Well, he can’t. He can photograph them and if that’s not good enough, too bad. We’ll let it go, because the gallery can’t afford to take that kind of loss,” Inez said heatedly. “And we’re not losing all of your work.”
“Could the vandals have been looking for something,” Stefan said, watching Judith closely.
“What could they possibly be looking for beneath the canvas?” Judith asked. “I stretch the canvases myself. They’re just wrapped around the stretcher bar and stapled with oversized stainless steel staples to keep the canvas taut.”
“Where do you get your stretcher bars?” Frank asked. He cleared his throat, glanced at Stefan and then at Inez. “Remember, Judith, the trouble I got into a few years back.”
The Russian mob had gotten their hooks into Frank and had run stolen treasures through his art gallery. He’d gone to prison for his part in the smuggling operation.
Judith shook her head. “The stretcher bars can be picked up anywhere—at any art supply store. There isn’t anything special about them.”
“The canvases?” Inez asked.
Judith frowned. “Like most artists, I stretch my own canvas so I purchase rolls of canvas from an art supply store. Sometimes I reuse canvases, but again, there’s nothing special about them.”
Stefan could feel her mind working, puzzling, trying to figure out why her work was chosen to vandalize while all the other artwork remained intact. On high alert, he felt the twinge of power that seemed to precede Jonas Harrington as he entered the gallery. Keeping his arm around Judith, he observed the sheriff who immediately put his arm around Inez to comfort her, but his sharp gaze went to Stefan and the way he was holding Judith so protectively.
“Have you heard anything on Levi?” Jonas greeted Judith. “I meant to check on him yesterday, but time got away from me.”
“He’s back home,” Judith said. “Limping around, but he’s fine.”
Jonas kept his gaze steadily on Judith. “That storm the other night, Hannah said it wasn’t natural. The surge of power was outrageous and the combination of wind, water and even earthquakes didn’t make sense. Some people reported seeing a tower of flames.”
Stefan tightened his arm around Judith.
Be very careful, angel, he’s fishing.
He felt the hesitation in her. She didn’t like to lie. She pressed her lips together and then sighed. “You know Rikki has an affinity for water. Levi was in danger. I think emotions were running high and for a good reason. That man had been here before hunting Levi.”
“We found a mess inside the small house Ivanov had rented,” Jonas said. “Blood everywhere. Too much blood and it was human. Someone died in there and it wasn’t pretty. There were shreds of material from a down jacket, very old jeans and a sleeping bag.”
“Oh no,” Inez said in horror. “Has anyone been reported missing?”
Jonas shook his head. “Not so far. And Danny and Trudy Granite’s dog was killed as well the same night. Their son, Davy, was devastated.” His piercing gaze jumped to Stefan. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“How would I know?” Stefan countered a little belligerently. He was Thomas Vincent, an American businessman about to buy an art gallery that had been vandalized.
“Just being thorough,” Jonas said.
“I’m about to make an offer on this gallery,” Stefan said. “I think it’s fairly common knowledge in this town that I’m here for that purpose. Quite a lot of property is involved. This art gallery and building, but Frank also is thinking of selling the entire next block with those buildings as well. Maybe someone here doesn’t want an outsider to make that purchase.”
Inez gasped and clutched Frank who leaned into her, his arm circling her waist.
“I can’t imagine anyone would want to sabotage the deal,” Frank said firmly, more for Inez’s benefit than from conviction.
“Something like this wouldn’t scare me off,” Stefan assured. “Judith can stretch the canvases again and the paintings will be fine. I intend to make an offer as soon as I’m finished going through the inventory and books.”
Judith glanced at the two acrylic landscapes. “I need to work on this artwork fast. Jonas, I’ll have to take all the damaged paintings back to my studio with me.”
“I’ll get to work photographing everything,” Jonas said immediately. “Why don’t you go get some coffee, Inez? This shouldn’t take too long.”
Stefan had to hand it to the sheriff. Inez was not a young woman and she was truly distressed. He guessed that financially, she and Frank needed the gallery to sell and they were both afraid, in spite of his assurances, he’d back out of the deal.
“Come on,” Judith said, taking charge. “Let’s all go down to the coffee shop. We can visit while Jonas is working on this. Frank, I can fix the paintings, so no worries.”
She flashed a smile at the couple, but Stefan could feel anxiety. As always, in public, Judith hid her emotions, refusing to allow them to spill out and affect others around her. She kept that control very carefully. He ran his hand lovingly down her spine just to remind her he was there and knew how concerned and distressed she was that someone would do such a thing to her work.
He doubted Ivanov had vandalized the paintings. It wasn’t the exterminator’s style. He’d never even think about such a thing unless it was bait to draw everyone into a building to blow it up around them. And that meant only one thing. Jean-Claude La Roux had made his way to Sea Haven. He hadn’t wasted any time. If he was searching Judith’s paintings, removing the canvases from the stretcher bars, that meant he’d hidden the microchip in between the canvas and the stretcher bar. Judith must have taken the painting with her when she left.
Why? Why, if she was running for her life, would she take a painting with her? That made no sense to him. If she’d known about the microchip, and had deliberately taken it with her, why hadn’t she tried to sell it on the black market? His life was about to become very complicated. Judith had to be questioned and she wouldn’t like that he had misled her, failing to admit he was working for the Russian government to recover the microchip.
The four of them left Jonas to his work, stepping outside onto the covered porch. The fog had come in even thicker, turning the world into a thick gray mist. The outline of trees and buildings were shadowed and vague. The knots in Stefan’s stomach hadn’t let up and the tension in him coiled tighter than ever, knowing he was going to have to get Judith home and find the microchip. Aside from the threat of Ivanov, La Roux was lurking around. He was certain of it.
Judith drew her sweater closer around her. “It’s definitely cold today.”
“And a little dreary,” Inez added. “I don’t mind the fog as a rule, but when it’s like this, you can’t see anything, it can get depressing.”
Frank wrapped his arm around her shoulder and smiled down at her. “Not if we’re home watching an old movie and eating popcorn.”
Inez brightened immediately. “That’s true. And on a stormy day, we can find the old-fashioned scary films, like Hitchcock’s. I love those.” She turned a smile on Stefan. “Do you enjoy old movies?”
Entertainment films weren’t shown to the boys and girls training in the camps he’d grown up in and his job didn’t exactly send him to the theaters often. He gave a casual shrug. “The movies I’ve managed to see, I’ve really enjoyed. Watching old films when it’s foggy or stormy out sounds good to me. I’m ready to settle down and enjoy life a bit.”
It was surprising to him when he said the words, how much he meant them. He was more than ready to trade a life in the shadows for a life with Judith. A real life. The home, the kids, the farm, traveling to kaleidoscope conventions, he wanted the entire package.
“Do you work a lot?” Inez asked as they started down the sidewalk in the direction of the small local coffee shop.
“I travel a lot for work,” Stefan admitted. “It can get old. It’s time I settled down.”
His radar refused to fade away. The fog was a definite problem when he needed to see an enemy coming toward him. He didn’t like the closed in feeling the blanket of heavy mist gave him. Every step he took added to that coiling tension. He was missing something important and his warning system was screaming at him to heed it. Judith and Inez chattered away, and he tuned them out, listening for telltale sounds, running footsteps, anything at all that might tell him there was danger close.
Ivanov had been wounded, there was no doubt in his mind that Stefan’s bullet had taken him down, but there was no way he’d gone over the cliff with that car the way the cops thought he had. Stefan didn’t believe it for a moment. He’d escaped and slipped away to another lair, shedding his skin and growing a new one in the way he’d been taught.
His mind began a rapid assessment, fitting pieces together, all the while his warning system shrieked at him.
Where’s your sleeping bag, Bill?
Judith’s voice. Shed his skin, grow a new one. A soft sound penetrated the thick layer of fog. Muffled. Stealthy.
Found material that could have been a sleeping bag.
Jonas’s voice.
Instincts shouting to be heard, Stefan shoved Judith and Inez backward hard enough for them to fall to the sidewalk in a heap, even as he flung his body into the small opening between the two buildings. The sound of a gunshot was loud, reverberating through the narrow passageway. Far away, he heard yelling, a high-pitched scream, even as something smashed into his chest, driving him backward. He refused to go down, refused to black out, refused to let panic take him when he couldn’t breathe. He dug his heels in, and dove forward, tackling Old Bill.