"And the jewels, when did you discover those had been swapped?"
AJ shrugged. "Well, as soon as we discovered that one painting was a forgery, we looked at the other painting and pulled all the jewels in the collection, and we found they were also forgeries. They were replaced with emeralds and rubies and diamonds, but lower quality ones. Gems where clarity wasn't as good., Whoever arranged for the heist paid a pretty penny for those replicas, but in the thousands, nothing in the millions range."
“And the jewels had also already been authenticated and prepared for viewing?"
“Yes. We got lucky. We would have handled them with care and shown them off to the public. Replicas."
I tried to tamp down my excitement. Maybe I could turn this into a genuine lead. "That's exactly what my jewelry forgers have been doing as well. Replacing priceless pieces with less expensive pieces. So you said it was the Wilson crew and they were caught?”
AJ nodded. "Yes. The assistant curator didn't want to give them up. But once we started looking in the right places, tracking his movements in Monaco and France and Italy, they were able to piece things together and caught most of the crew. But there was one forger who worked for them that we did not catch.”
I sagged. I couldn't help tugging on that little string of hope. "And the forger, tell me the one you caught wasn’t the jewelry forger? Maybe he got away?"
"Sorry, but it was. The art forger is one of the best artists I've ever seen in my life. The curator had done a few of the pieces himself, but a few of the others required a skillset even he didn’t possess. To be able to replicate the Thomas Ackerman. That's just brilliant. The forger could have been an artist in their own right."
"Were most of the authentic pieces recovered??"
"Yes. If I hadn't tripped, we never would have known. We would have returned the collection, and then obviously the shit would have hit the fan. As it was, it was ugly, but we were able to recover the jewels and both paintings, thanks to the authorities. They hadn't hit the black market yet."
I sighed. “This is extremely helpful, thank you. Did you notice anything else unusual around that time?"
She shook her head. “No. And thanks to my brother, we were able to repair our relationship with the family that loaned us the pieces, and everything turned out okay. But that feeling of being duped, you don't shake it."
I slid my gaze to East. "Believe me; I know all about that."
The MO was the same as my cases. But if all of them but one had been caught and the only one who hadn't was the art forger, where were my fake jewels coming from? And where were the originals disappearing to?"
"I wish I could tell you more. I still think about it. I got lucky. It could have been a lot worse."
I frowned as I looked at my previous notes. "And nobody died? Nobody was injured, shot, anything?"
She shook her head. "No. Nothing like that. Nothing violent."
I sighed. Because the crew that had been recently forging jewelry all over Europe had no compunctions on killing.
Either my forgers were copycats, or something else was going on.
Nyla
It was easy to talk to East. Too easy. Despite myself, I liked him.
Beyond the charm and the witty comments, and that panty-melting, crawl-your-way-out-of-your-own-clothes kind of smile, he was thoughtful. And he listened. I watched him with his sister and Margaux.
I paid close attention as they talked. And as AJ walked me through the ins and outs of catching the forger, with the devil being in the details and everything from the stroke to the feeling of the painter at the time being a clue, I observed that East was a voracious learner. I would have expected him to be impatient, blasé, cynical. But there was something about him that was always eager to know more.
“You’re awfully quiet. Overwhelming, is it?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s good. My brain is just running through all the scenarios, the forger’s signatures. It’s a lot. But it’s giving me a lot of avenues to investigate. I just need to piece it together.”
“Glad to give you a good starting point.”
We were walking along the streets of Le Rocher, Monaco’s old town. The peach, vanilla and terracotta colored buildings and tight winding streets made me feel like I was transported back in time to long-ago centuries.
East had driven over to this part of town and then called someone to come and get the car so we could take a walk, which seemed like a fantastic idea at the time. But now I saw it was dangerous because next to me, East was almost irresistible with his long-sleeved summer sweater sculpting the muscles at his broad shoulders, showing off the breadth of them, his casual slacks that emphasized the model-like legs, and with his hair a little windblown and smelling like ocean breezes.
But you will resist him, because you don't need that pain.
That was true. And he wasn't hitting on me.
Why isn’t he hitting on me?
And then my memory, of course, helped me out. When I'd met him at the benefit, he had told me he would not lay a hand on me until I asked him to. Well, good thing I had zero intention of doing that.
"A penny for your thoughts?" he asked.
"Sorry, I'm just running the case in my head."
"I’m glad AJ was helpful."
I felt the injection of adrenaline in my blood. “Oh, she was more than helpful. I’m really impressed. The painting was flawless. I mean, at the end of the day, if something can be replicated to that level of detail, is that actually a replica, or is the creator a true artist?"
He angled his head and regarded me, eyes dancing, lips twitching in a suppressed smile.
