Using an alias, Agent Mellissa Fischer, Sin called Sea View and asked for Joel’s phone and apartment number.
“My gosh, he’s suddenly popular,” the receptionist said. “Please hold, and I’ll ring him for you.” A few minutes later, she was back on the line. “He’s not answering his phone, can I leave him a message?”
“No thank you,” Sin answered, “but I have one more question before you hang up. You mentioned he’s been popular lately. What did you mean?”
“Who are you again?” the receptionist asked.
“Agent Mellissa Fischer, with the FBI. Would you like my badge number?”
Sin could hear the receptionist huffing. “No, that’s fine. The weird thing is, he never has guests, but in the past couple of days he’s had two. One yesterday afternoon and then one last night.”
“A woman?”
“Yes.”
Sin hung up. “Shit!” She dialed Ashley’s number, but it went to voicemail. She then typed out a text. “It’s Agent O’Malley, call me!”
Reading it over, Sin rewrote it. If Joel had Ashley, she didn’t want him to know she was alive. “It’s Agent McGuire, please call right back. I have vital information.”
Within five minutes, her phone rang.
“Agent McGuire, have you found George?”
Sin had Fletcher answer the phone so Ashley wouldn’t freak at the sound of her voice. “Ashley, you’re speaking to Agent Fletcher. I want you to listen and not say a word. Are you somewhere you can talk privately?”
“Yes.”
Fletcher handed the phone to Sin, and nodded.
“It’s Agent O’Malley.”
“Oh my God, I thought you were dead. I thought I was all by myself. I thought—”
“Ashley, I need you to calm down and listen,” Sin said. “Where are you?”
“I’m in my car. I’m sitting outside the gates leading to Water’s Edge.”
Sin threw her head back and mouthed, “Fuck.”
“Please don’t go on the campus. I need you to meet with us.”
“He has George,” Ashley cried. “I know he does.”
“How do you know?” Sin asked.
“Meet me at the Pancake Palace on Crandon Boulevard in Key Biscayne, and I’ll explain.”
“We will be there in thirty minutes.”
When Sin slid into the booth, Ashley didn’t recognize her. She was wearing a bobbed, blonde wig with a dress that looked like it would be a better fit for Hershey, Pennsylvania than Key Biscayne, Florida. Ashley was about to give her the boot when Sin spoke.
“Just smile like we’re old friends.”
Ashley pasted a bizarre, awkward smile on her face and studied Sin.
“Damn, you look like one of those psycho clowns,” Sin commented. “Give me the smile you give people who walk into your gallery and ask questions about Miranda. That fake smile.”
Ashley’s expression changed to one that could light up a room.
“That’s better, now how about some coffee, and then we’ll talk about what the hell has been going on with George and Joel.”
“Sounds like a great idea,” Fletcher said, sliding into the booth next to Ashley.
“Yeah, I could go for some bacon, eggs, and pancakes,” Garcia said, sliding in next to Sin.
“Bacon?” Fletcher said in a heavy Aussie accent. “I thought you were Jewish?”
“Only on the holidays where gifts are given.”
“That’s enough, children,” Sin said. “Let’s order and then we’ll talk.”
Ashley told them about George being very upset after leaving the FBI field office. She told about how she tried to talk him down from his irrational thoughts, but that she was unable to talk any sense into him whatsoever.
“I tried to call him again an hour or so later to check on him, but I had no luck. I went to his home but he wasn’t there,” she said. “That’s when I went down and spoke to Bobbi at the gallery.”
“Was she talking in complete sentences?”
“Why,” Fletcher asked, “is she disabled or something?”
“Something like that,” Sin replied.
Sin’s sarcasm temporarily broke the tension at the table.
“When I couldn’t find George anywhere I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”
Sin glanced at Fletcher’s and Garcia’s cuts and stitches. “We were a little preoccupied.”
“I went to the FBI office,” Ashley continued, “and after I heard about the explosion, I decided to go see Joel.”
Sin decided to let slide the fact that Ashley had lied about not knowing where Joel lived. She needed Ashley on her side. “Did you see him?”
Ashley shook her head. “He never answered the door.”
“So how did you end up here?” Fletcher asked.
“Oh, I forgot the most important part,” Ashley said. “On my way out of George’s gallery, I found a painting of Miranda’s I’d never seen before. I asked Bobbi about it and she said a man dropped it off, saying that it was one of Miranda’s last paintings created before she died.”
“Is that common?” Fletcher asked.
“No,” Ashley said, shaking her head, “in fact, it has never happened. I know everything my mother ever painted, and I have never seen this piece before.”
“So, it’s a fake.” Sin was confused as to where this conversation was going.
Again, Ashley shook her head. “I don’t think so. It screams Miranda. It’s her style and her stroke. You can copy someone’s style, but it’s almost impossible to copy someone’s stroke. There are just too many nuances.”
“What are you saying, Ashley?” Sin asked.
“Remember when I told you that Joel was Miranda’s assistant? That he showed promise in his art, and she took an interest in him.”
“Yes.”
“I think Joel painted this piece, and I think it’s a hint for me to follow. It shows where he took George.”
“How can you be sure Joel painted it?” Garcia asked.
Ashley reached into her purse. “He left a card and asked for George to call him.”
She handed the card to Sin.
Sin read the card and her expression morphed from a woman in pain into that of a soldier ready for battle. “Eat up, boys. It’s time to go to work.”
55
“I need to see that painting,” Sin said.
“It’s in the trunk of my car,” Ashley responded.
Sin, Fletch, and Garcia spent the next few minutes getting an art lesson as to why Ashley thought it had been painted by Miranda or Joel, but Sin still didn’t know how the painting told Ashley where
