3 The Braque Connection (32 page)

“Back down, supermodel.” Manny sighed. “We will still be working like we did before, looking into art crimes. The difference is we will be at the president’s disposal whenever he needs us. Previously, he had thought this arrangement only to last until we got Kubanov, but he wants us to continue. It will be a joint operation with GIPN, Interpol and the president’s office. Our next assignment will be to find Dukwicz.”

“I will not be party to some grand scheme to violate citizens’ rights, collecting all kinds of data on them.” Francine shifted her folded arms as emphasis.

“You hack into people’s computers and collect all kinds of data every day,” I said. “How is that different from what you just said? Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s off topic.”

More arguments exploded around the table. Francine hated the idea of anything more than a tentative working relationship with any government. Vinnie refused to be under anyone’s authority. Colin scoffed at the notion of being subordinate to Manny. Things escalated until Francine slapped both hands on the table. “Would you please watch your language, people. We have a young person here.”

“I’m not that young, you know.” It was the first time Nikki spoke since we had entered my apartment. “My dad was a criminal. The people I grew up with used words much worse than that.”

“But these are adult words.” Francine’s concern was interesting.

“In four months I will be an adult.” She looked at Manny. “That also means if you think of putting me in some kind of system, I will disappear for the next four months.”

“You are still a minor, Nikki.” Manny tempered his tone, but residual anger in his voice from his argument with Francine and Vinnie caused Nikki to tuck her elbows into her body and lean deeper into her chair.

“You can’t make me do something I don’t want to.” Her answer communicated more than the words. Had she been a willing participant in her life and education in the United States? Or had all decisions pertaining to her life been made regardless of her desires?

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

She blinked a few times, her micro-expressions telling me she had not expected to be asked for her opinion. “I want to stay with you.”

My
masseter
muscles responded to my shock, lowering my jaw to an open-mouthed expression.

“Um, Nikki and I chatted a lot.” Colin winked at her. He liked her. All his nonverbal cues told me that. “She wants to move back to France, but doesn’t want to go into the system.”

“What are you saying?” There was too much communication in his expression.

“I won’t mind if Nikki stays with us until she goes to university.”

“With us?”

“I promise I won’t touch anything.” Nikki’s eyes were wide with expectation.

“That would be impossible.” I saw the devastation on her face. Again I had not phrased my thoughts correctly. “I mean it would be physically impossible to not touch anything.”

“I don’t think anyone has to make any decisions tonight.” Phillip’s calm voice penetrated the building panic in me. Colin put his hand over both my hands gripping my left knee, and squeezed.

“If it’s okay with Jenny, you can stay here tonight. Once we’ve all slept enough and are able to take a step away from our emotions, we’ll talk about this again. Okay?”

Nikki looked at me until I nodded stiffly. Her torso collapsed slightly as she exhaled deeply. She smiled and started eating again.

I worried about having another guest in my home. Vinnie and Francine started arguing again about being in a team with Manny. That led to insults being thrown around, Phillip watching with amused interest. A year ago I would never have entertained the thought of being comfortable with a house full of arguing people. Now it caused a warm feeling. Was this what people felt when they talked about home with a wealth of emotion in their voices?

I watched Francine flirt with Manny until he was red in his face from annoyance and embarrassment, Nikki telling Phillip about her university plans, and Vinnie adding to Manny’s annoyance. Colin was leaning back in his chair, his arm draped over the back of mine. I was too tired to see any significance in this domestic scene other than a growing concern about the arguments after a day of such emotional intensity.

I turned my hands around and interlaced my fingers with Colin’s. His other hand cupped my shoulder and squeezed lightly. Without giving logic time to interfere with what I knew needed to be said, I looked at Colin. “If you still want to, we can break through the wall.”

His eyes widened and his mouth went slack as he blinked a few times. It had gone quiet around the table, but I didn’t want to look away from Colin’s expression. I needed to know that his reaction was true.

“Well.” He cleared his throat.

I resisted the desire to fold into myself. “Should I not have said this?”

“You should absolutely have said this.” He pulled me closer and lowered his face until we were almost nose to nose. “I love you too.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You did.”

“You are reading nuances into my words.” I leaned a bit back to look at his expression. As always he waited for me to look my fill. He truly believed that with my agreement to joining our apartments, I had declared my love for him. My mouth was dry, my voice hoarse. “You’re right. I love you.”

“Maybe we should continue this discussion later.” He didn’t show discomfort for being overheard. I saw desire.

“He wants you to be alone, so he ca—”

“Nikki.” Francine voice was heavy with warning.

I still didn’t look at anyone but Colin. “I’m sorry. I will say this later.”

“Bloody hell.” Manny threw his napkin on the table. “Do you want us to leave?”

Colin rested his forehead against mine and chuckled before he turned back to the table. “No, Millard. Finish your food.”

“Well, I kind of lost my appetite.”

“Ooh, more for me.” Francine leaned over to take a piece of toast from Manny’s plate, but he tapped her hand with his fork. She teased him about sharing a lazy breakfast with him some day in the future, his cheeks coloured and again teasing, arguments and insults were exchanged.

I sat back, comforted by Colin’s touch. I liked that we were going to remain a team. Despite the incessant arguing, we worked well together. At least, as far as I understood team dynamics. I decided to invest in a few books on this topic for further research. This thought gave way to another type of research awaiting us if we were to find Dukwicz. We didn’t even know his first name. I also fretted about the missing 3D printers, about Nikki and my promise to Hawk.

In the last year I had lived on the edges of panic more often than before. The immediate future didn’t seem to offer a reprieve. Not only had I publicly declared my emotional vulnerability towards Colin, but I had agreed to join our apartments. Add to that the possibility of Nikki moving in and my breathing became shallow, my heart racing. Convinced that the next few months were going to be challenging, I mentally flattened an empty music sheet. A notable difference was the lack of emotional and social isolation I felt as I started writing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major.

The
Gauguin Connection

First in the Genevieve Lenard series

Murdered artists. Masterful forgeries. Art crime at its worst.

A straightforward murder investigation quickly turns into a quagmire of stolen Eurocorps weapons, a money-laundering charity, forged art and high-ranking EU officials abusing their power.

As an insurance investigator and world renowned expert in nonverbal communication, Dr Genevieve Lenard faces the daily challenge of living a successful, independent life. Particularly because she has to deal with her high functioning Autism. Nothing - not her studies, her high IQ or her astounding analytical skills - prepared her for the changes a
bout to take place in her life.

It started as a favour to help her boss' acerbic friend look into the murder of a young artist, but soon it proves to be far more complex. Forced out of her predictable routines, safe environment and limited social interaction, Genevieve is thrown into exploring the meaning of friendship, expanding her social definitions, and for the first time in her life be part of a team in a race to stop more artists from being murdered.

The Gauguin Connection

First in the Genevieve Lenard series

Excerpt

Chapter ONE

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Lenard.” The stranger held out his hand expectantly. His rumpled overcoat and the dark circles under his eyes gave the impression that he hadn’t slept in days. Even his voice sounded exhausted, despite the crisp British accent. The tightened muscles of his unshaven jaw, his stiff neck and pursed lips sent a very obvious message.

“It’s Doctor Lenard.” I kept my hand to myself. “And you’re not.”

“Not what?” The dishevelled stranger pulled his hand back. His lips moved from a simple disagreeable pucker to a full-on sneer.

“Not pleased to meet me.” I had lost count of how many times I had witnessed the corners of someone’s lips drawn sideward toward the ears to produce a sneering dimple in the cheeks. The vast majority of those expressions had been aimed at me.

“Genevieve, play nice.” Phillip Rousseau’s voice carried enough warning to pull my focus from the angry middle-aged man. Despite his French background, Phillip pronounced my name in a manner more familiar to English speakers. I had insisted on that pronunciation. It might be thought as callow, but it was my small rebellion against a pretentious sophistication forced on me from birth.

Phillip had been my boss for six years and none of his non-verbal cues or voice inflections was unknown to me. At present he was annoyed by my lack of sociability. He moved from behind the conference table. For a moment I thought he was going to position himself between me and the other man. Most people couldn’t handle me and some outright avoided me, but somehow I had never managed to rattle Phillip. Or rather, never managed to rattle him too much.

Since my first day in this exclusive insurance company, he had also taken on the role of a buffer between me and the other staff. Something I was sincerely grateful for. I didn’t like working with other people. My boss came to stand next to me, far enough that I didn’t feel crowded, but close enough for me to smell his expensive aftershave. As usual he was wearing a bespoke suit with a price tag that could feed a medium-sized African family for a year.

The stranger was studying me. My immaculate appearance, all the way down to my matching handbag, was not endearing me to him. Phillip should be glad that I possessed enough restraint to not comment on the man’s lack of grooming in this elegant conference room. At least I had made some effort this morning with my appearance in an attempt to blend in. I doubted the stranger had made an effort in decades.

Ignoring the guest, I lifted an eyebrow at Phillip. “What am I doing here?”

“Okay, everyone, let’s start over. Nicer.” Phillip gave both me and the stranger warning looks and sighed. “Genevieve, this is Colonel Manfred Millard. He is the Deputy Chief Executive for Strategy at the EDA.”

“The European Defence Agency?”

“You’ve heard of us before.” A surprised lilt changed his statement into a question.

I gave him an impatient look. He was stating the obvious, so I moved on. “What is the EDA doing here, Phillip?”

“Let’s sit down and discuss this.” As the CEO of one of the most prestigious insurance companies in
Europe, Phillip was a master in mediation and negotiation. Competencies I admired but had no desire to emulate. At times his unending patience frustrated me beyond my limits and I had a suspicion that today was going to be one of those days. Phillip pointed to the chairs at the far end of the conference table, where a few open folders and piles of documents were in obvious use. Phillip and Colonel Millard must have been here for a while, discussing whatever it was that now required my presence.

I followed the two men and moved to the chair Phillip indicated to me. Both men sat down and Phillip started organising some of the documents into a folder. A photo lying on top of another pile of official looking reports caught my eye. The moment I focused on it, I knew I had made a mistake. A monumental mistake. The photo was sucking me into its depravity. Into its sadness. Its wrongness.

It was clearly a crime scene photo with markers pointing out things I had no interest in learning more about. A young girl, dressed in loose fitting pants, a colourful tie-dye T-shirt and a bright-green spring coat, spread open under her, was lying on the ground. If it weren’t for the hole in her forehead and the pool of blood framing her head like an evil halo, she would’ve looked peacefully asleep.

My heart was pounding in my skull and my breathing had become alarmingly shallow. Focussing on the simple task of inhaling and exhaling became a near insurmountable undertaking. The blood surrounding the unfortunate victim’s head kept drawing me back into the photo with a strength greater than the last two decades of training I had forced on myself. I could feel the warm stickiness of the girl’s blood between my fingertips. There had been days that I hadn’t wanted to train my mind, but the thought of feeling like I did at this very moment was what had motivated me to search, study, train and focus. A lot of good it was doing me now. I couldn’t snap out of this.

“What’s wrong with her?” The contemptuous stranger’s voice reached me through the thick muddiness in my head.

“Oh dear.” I barely heard Phillip’s whisper, but a second later he was next to me, mercifully not touching me. “Genevieve, sit down. Come now. Two steps to your left. Slowly does it. The chair is right behind you. There you go.”

I focused on my own gasping breaths and Phillip’s calm voice. If I held on for long enough, the black void threatening my peripheral vision might disappear. If I fought it, maybe it would not close in on me until the darkness swallowed me and spat me out hours later, unaware of what had occurred.

“I’m going to look in your handbag for your sheets. Stay with me, Genevieve.” I was genuinely glad that I had confided in Phillip the day my handbag had fallen off the chair spilling its contents and he had looked at me questioningly. The embarrassment of that day was nothing compared to what I was facing right now. I heard a rustle in my handbag and then the magical empty music staff paper appeared in front of me. “Here’s a pencil as well. Manny and I will give you a moment.”

The Gauguin Connection
is available as paperback and ebook.