The Collector (41 page)

Chairs, sofas in quiet colors providing seating. Tables, cabinets, commodes from the simple to the ornate gleamed with age. A small fireplace filled with a display of bright orange lilies was framed with malachite.

And everywhere was art.

Paintings from faded religious icons to old masters to contemporary filled the walls. Sculptures, smooth marble, polished wood, rough stone, stood on pedestals or tables.

Objets d'art glittered and glowed in displays or on shelves.

“Oh.” Julie laid a hand on her breast. “My heart.”

Bastone chuckled, drew her in.

“Art is another song that must be sung. You agree, Ashton? Whether the song is of woe or joy, of love or despair, of war or serenity, it must be sung.”

“Art demands it. And here, you have an opera.”

“Three generations. Lovers of art, and not one artist among us. So we must be patrons and not creators.”

“There's art without patrons,” Ash commented, “but the artist rarely thrives without their generosity and vision.”

“I must view your work when we are next in New York. I was intrigued by what I saw on the Internet, and some made Gina sigh. Which was the one,
cara
, you wished for?”

“
The Woods
. In the painting the trees are women, and at first you think, oh, they are captured, under a spell. But no, you see when you look deep, they are . . .” She fumbled, spoke to Bastone in Italian. “Yes, yes, the casters, the magic themselves. They are the woods. It's powerful, and ah, feminist. Is that correct?”

“There's no wrong, but you saw what I did, and that's a great compliment.”

“You may pay me the great compliment of painting my daughters.”

“Ah, Gina.”

She brushed her husband aside. “Giovanni says I shouldn't ask, but if you don't, how can you get what you want?” She winked at Ash. “We will talk.”

“But you're here to see the gaming prize.”

He led them to a painted vitrine with serpentine-fronted shelves and a collection of jeweled and enameled boxes.

He lifted one out. “A lovely piece. The cigarette case is gold-mounted, enameled citrine, fluted, with the cabochon sapphire as the thumb piece. You will see it carries the initial of Fabergé workmaster Michael Perchin. A great loss for the Martins.”

“It's beautiful.” Lila looked up from it, into Bastone's eyes.

“And the cause of a feud between the families, so I have no American wife.” He winked at Gina.

“Signor Bastone.” Lila laid a hand on his. “Sometimes you have to trust.” She shifted, just a little, looked at Ash. “You have to trust. Signor Bastone, do you know a man named Nicholas Vasin?”

Though his face stayed completely composed, she felt his hand flinch under hers. And saw the color drop out of Gina's cheeks.

“The name is not familiar. So.” He placed the case down carefully. “We have so enjoyed your company,” he began.

“Signor Bastone—”

“We appreciate your hospitality,” Ash cut in. “We should make our way back to Florence. Before we do, you should know my brother Oliver acquired certain documents and an objet d'art while working on Miranda Swanson's estate sale, her father's property—her grandfather's before him. My brother acquired this object for himself, not for the uncle, the company he worked for.”

Ash paused only a moment, noting the hard lines in Bastone's face.

“At one time the Martin family owned, privately, two of the lost Imperial eggs. One was lost in a poker game, the other my brother acquired as Miranda, it appears, had no knowledge or interest in what she had. My brother, the uncle he worked for and the woman he lived with are all dead.”

“I'm very sorry.”

“The documents, now in my possession, clearly describe the egg wagered and lost in a poker game to Antonio Bastone. The Nécessaire.”

“I don't have what you're looking for.”

“Your wife knew the name Nicholas Vasin. She fears it. With good reason. I believe he had my brother killed because Oliver had the second egg—the Cherub with Chariot—and foolishly tried to negotiate for more money. He was reckless, but he was my brother.”

“You have suffered a tragedy. My condolences.”

“You know my father, my mother. You would have done due diligence on all of us before you allowed us into your home, knowing we had an interest in that long-ago wager. Believe me when I tell you I did the same on you and yours before I brought my friends here.”

“We're pleased to offer you hospitality, but we know nothing of this.”

“The woman Jai Maddok kills for Nicholas Vasin. She put a knife in the side of the woman I care about.” He glanced at Lila. “And got punched in the face for it. We're going to fight back, Signor Bastone. The police, in New York and internationally, are aware of her, and of Vasin. They're going to pay for what they've done to my family. Will you help me?”

“I don't have what you seek,” he began, only to be interrupted by his wife. She spoke in rapid and fierce Italian, her face lit, her eyes fired.

As they argued, those hot eyes sheened with tears, but her voice remained strong, furiously so, until Bastone took her hands, gripped them, brought them to his lips. He murmured to her now, nodded.

“Family,” he said, “is all. My Gina reminds me of this. You came here for yours. I've done what I've done for mine. I need air. Come.”

He strode out, circling back the way they'd come.

The table had been cleared in their absence. He strode past it to the end of the terrace, which overlooked the glory of the Tuscan summer.

“We knew the Martins had two eggs, as my grandfather had seen both. Jonas offered him his choice of them for the wager. My grandfather was young when he won the Nécessaire, not yet schooled in such things. But he learned quickly—his first piece of art, you see, and his first love of it. The feud grew. A wager is a wager, yes, but this was not the boy's to bet or lose. But my grandfather would not return it, even when offered double the wager. It became a thing of pride and principle, and it's not for me to say now who was right or wrong. It became ours. My grandfather kept it in his own room. This he would not share.
My father stood with his when his time came. So it came down to me. It had been ours, a private thing, like the art, for three generations.”

“The beginning,” Lila said. “The rest, his love of art, his careful collecting of it, came from that one piece.”

“Yes. After my father's death, after some time passed and my own children began to grow, I thought of this. Do I pass this down to my sons and daughters, then to theirs? Gina and I talked, many times. And we decided this was not a private thing. It belonged once to another family, and was taken from them like their lives. We thought to arrange for it to be donated to a museum—loaned perhaps in the name of our family and the Martins. The story is good, the young men, the poker. We must decide how this is to be done, which museum. And we think, after all this time, are we certain? We must have the egg authenticated—discreetly, privately.”

“Frederick Capelli,” Lila said, and he turned to her sharply.

“How do you know this?”

“He was killed yesterday, by the same woman who killed the others.”

“Good.” Gina lifted her chin in defiance. “He betrayed us. His own greed caused his death. He told this Vasin of the Nécessaire. Vasin sent this woman to us, first with an offer to buy the egg. We had decided to do what we felt right and good, so we would not sell. She came back to offer more, and to threaten.”

“My wife, my children, my grandchildren,” Bastone continued. “Were any of their lives worth this one thing—this thing we would be paid handsomely for? I ordered her away, told her I would go to the authorities. That night she called. She had our grandson. She had gone into my daughter's home, taken her youngest child while they slept. Our Antonio, only four years old. She let me hear him call for his mother, for me, promised she would kill him, causing him great pain if we did not give her the egg. She would take another child, kill, until we
did what she wanted. She invited us to contact the authorities. She would simply gut the boy and move on, and come back another time for the next.”

Julie stepped over to Gina, offered her a tissue as tears fell down her cheeks. “You gave her the egg. There was no other choice.”

“A business venture, she called it.
Puttana.
” Bastone spat it out. “They gave half the offer they had made.”

“We told them to keep their money, to choke on it, but she said if we didn't take it, sign the bill of sale, she would come back for another.” Gina crossed her hands over her heart. “Our babies.”

“It was business, she said. Only business. Antonio had bruises where she'd pinched him, but he was safe. Before morning, he was home again, and safe. And they had the cursed egg.”

“You did what you needed to do,” Luke said. “You protected your family. If this Capelli went to Vasin, he must have known the story—the poker game.”

“Yes, we told him all we knew.”

“Which must have led Vasin to Miranda—and she'd sold the second egg to Oliver. When did all this happen?” Lila asked.

“June the eighteenth. I will never forget the night she took him.”

“From here to New York.” Lila looked at Ash. “The timing works. It would've been clear Miranda didn't know what the egg was, and she would've said she sold it. Maybe Capelli tried to broker the deal with Oliver.”

“And Jai stepped in, working on the girlfriend. They set a price, then Oliver pulled back, tried to squeeze out more. Did you go to the police,
signore
?”

“They have what they want. They have no reason to hurt my children.”

“I would kill him if I could.” Gina fisted her hands, lifted them. “Him and his bitch. She put bruises on our baby, took the little lamb he slept with. He cried for it until we found another.”

“She likes her souvenirs,” Ash muttered.

“Ashton, I will speak to you as I would my own son.” Bastone laid a hand on his arm. “Your brother is gone. Give them what they want. It's an object. Your life, your lady's, your family's—they are more important.”

“If I thought that would be the end of it, I'd consider it. She didn't have to hurt your grandchild. She put bruises on him because she enjoyed it. She failed to get the egg from Oliver, and now from me. That will require payment. The only way to end it is to stop her. To bring both her and this Vasin to justice.”

“Is it justice you want or revenge?”

“It's both.”

Bastone sighed, nodded. “I understand this. I fear you will find Vasin impenetrable.”

“Nothing and no one is. You just have to find the weak spot.”

Lila spent most of the drive back to Florence scribbling in a notebook. The minute she walked back into the suite, she headed for her temporary office and laptop.

She was still working away when Ash came in with a tall glass of the sparkling juice she enjoyed.

“Thanks. I'm putting everything on paper—sort of like an outline. Characters, what we know about all of them, events, time lines, the connections. It helps me to organize it.”

“Your version of a spreadsheet.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She sipped the juice, watching him as he sat on the side of the bed. “Julie and I aren't going to have time to look at wedding dresses in Florence.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, don't be. I'd already figured the same. And God, Ash, we've had a couple of amazing days—wonderful days, productive days. Are we leaving tonight? She wouldn't expect that. We'd be back in New York while she's still looking for us here. It would give us some room.”

“We can leave in three hours if that's enough time.”

“Packing up is one of my specialties.”

“We'll come back, after this is finished.”

“I won't say no as I now have a mission to spend a night hunting for these secret bakeries Luke told me about. And he was right. The Bastones did what they had to do to protect their family. If she'd hurt a little boy . . .”

“I'm going to say this even knowing your answer. But I'm going to say it, and I need you to think before you answer. I can get you somewhere safe, somewhere they won't find you. If I could believe making a deal with Vasin would end it, I'd make the deal.”

“But you don't believe it, and neither do I.”

“No, I don't believe it.” And that clawed at him. “She understood the Bastones' weak spot, and she hit it. I think she understands mine.”

“Your family. But—”

“No. She's already killed two of my family, or had a part in it. That didn't work out for her. You're my weak spot, Lila.”

“You don't have to worry about me. I can—”

He took her hands, squeezed them to stop her words. “She hasn't come after me directly. It's not how she works. With Oliver, she used Sage. With the Bastones, their grandson. She's gone after you once already.”

Lila lifted her fist. “That didn't work out for her either.”

“You're my weak spot,” he repeated. “I asked myself why was it I wanted to paint you the first time I saw you. Needed to, even with everything else going on, I needed it. Why is it every time I think of starting a new work, it's you.”

“People in intense situations—”

“It's you. Your face, your body, your voice in my head. The feel of you, the sound of you. Your sense of right and wrong, your wariness of saying too much about yourself, and the fascination of peeling those layers back to reveal them myself. Even the baffling way you
figure out how to fix things. All that makes it you. You're my weak spot because I love you.”

Now something squeezed at her heart, a mix of fear and joy she couldn't decipher. “Ash, I . . .”