This painting, however, was altogether unappealing. He recalled what he had read about it years earlier: Van Gogh had begun it while spending time in the French city of Arles, where fruit orchards grew in abundance. When Van Gogh left for Saint-Rémy late in the spring, he took the painting with him and finished it there, working on it from memory. The world knew the piece as Orchard in Blossom. Fourteen months ago, it had been stolen from a private collection in Madrid. Florin’s friend had purchased it soon after on the black market and immediately displayed it here at his primary residence.
He never had seen the charm in Van Gogh, preferring Monet’s use of light and more realistic use of color tone to the brighter, more emotional exhibitions of the Mad Artist. Still, Florin thought there was something strangely empowering about viewing an original face to face. Especially one in a private collection, where a gallery attendant wasn’t watching you with a distrustful eye or nudging you onward so the next eager patron could get a hurried glimpse of his own.
Florin turned aside from the painting and took a seat on one of the couches. He checked his watch—and waited.
Chapter Eighteen
Her skin didn’t itch anymore if that was saying anything.
Kathleen watched her captor enter the room again and make his way to the other side of the room. He stopped in front of the painting of the cypress tree. Without turning around, he said, “Kathleen, did you know that the Roman poet Ovid spoke of a young prince from Keos named Kyparissos?”
She sensed the question was rhetorical, so she did not answer.
He continued. “Kyparissos was fortunate enough to be loved greatly by Apollo. And Kyparissos had something that he loved deeply himself. It was a stag, and Kyparissos had tamed it himself. One day, as the story goes, Kyparissos was out hunting and spied his prey through trees. He made his approach and cast his hunting javelin, making a direct hit. He ran to his quarry only to realize with great horror that he had killed that which he loved more than anything in the world, his treasured stag. He became inconsolable and prayed to Apollo, asking for his permission to grieve for all eternity. Apollo then transformed him into a cypress tree. Even to this day, the cypress tree is planted in cemeteries.”
Kathleen’s captor turned away from the painting and casually moved across the room. She was sitting in the oversized chair beside the bed, so he stopped in front of her and crossed his arms. “Kathleen, what is that you love more than anything in the world?”
“I’m not giving you Luganov,” she said simply.
“I know, Kathleen. You know it and I know it. So then what is someone like me supposed to do? I still need Simon Luganov. That has not changed. You won’t give him to me. That has not changed.”
“What’s behind door number two?” she asked, referring to their earlier conversation when he had alluded to two ways of extracting the information from her.
“Yes, door number two.” He said it slowly as if pondering the course of action. “I have been patient with you. I have tried to go about this so that no one gets hurt. But… that is not the way you want to go. So you have forced my hand. We are going to have to put your beloved stag on the table and then ask who holds the javelin.
Kathleen’s eyes narrowed as she tried to discern the object of his allegory.
He reached into the pocket of his shirt, brought out his phone, and tapped the glass. “Perhaps you will find this interesting.” He turned the phone around and held it in front of her face. He watched with delicious pleasure as Kathleen’s eyes adjusted to the picture and her curious expression quickly turned to alarm.
“What is this?” she exclaimed.
“You tell me, Kathleen.”
Kathleen looked back at the phone. It was a video of Zoe at The Wayward Reef. She was sitting at the bar eating a sandwich. Roscoe was talking with her. Denny came out and joined the conversation.
“No,” she said firmly, but it came out as a plea.
He brought back the phone, tapped the glass again, and held it back out.
Another video of Zoe. She was pumping gas. Kathleen squinted at the video—she didn’t have her reading glasses. She knew that place. It was the Shell station near Jewfish Creek Bridge. She passed it every day on her commute into Key Largo.
“Would you like to see the metadata, Kathleen? It will show you that these were taken not two hours ago.”
“No,” she said quietly. Her heart was racing. She honestly had not seen this coming. She understood now that she had been too nearsighted, not understanding how badly this man wanted Luganov.
He pulled the phone back and brought up a photo. “Brown hair, pretty eyes. Zoe is what, seventeen years old?”
For the first time since her forced arrival here, Kathleen’s voice became tight, strained. “You leave her alone.”
“I would be happy to. I do not wish to involve children in adult affairs. But know that whatever happens to her is entirely up to you. You have the javelin, Kathleen. You can set it down in the grass, or throw it at your precious stag. Either way, the choice is yours.” A thin line of humor ran through his voice. He was enjoying this. “You have one hour, Kathleen. One hour to decide the fate of your daughter. Choose wrongly and she will suffer—very, very badly.”
She said nothing. He pocketed his phone, and his next words held no humor at all. “You have one hour. One hour to make your decision.” Then he left without another word.
Kathleen stared at the floor for a long time, her eyes wide with fear as she tried frantically to think herself out of the crucible in
