The Black Sheep and the English Rose (8 page)

“You sound as if you know something about this.” He looked at Felicity, who'd straightened and taken a step back.

“Hardly, darling.” Rather than take offense, though, she laughed quite naturally. “Why ever would I want to part with something I worked so hard to obtain?”

It was a classic Felicity Jane response; confident and self-effacing, all at once. And yet, he wasn't buying it this time. “Money?” he said.

“I have more than I could spend in several lifetimes, so that would hardly provide motivation.”

“Maybe not for you, maybe for the Foundation. It can't be easy maintaining your ancestral holdings.”

She tilted her head. “Someone's been doing a bit of digging, too, I see. But to answer your query, no. The Foundation and my ancestral holdings, as you so quaintly call them, are maintaining themselves as well as can be expected, without my turning to a life of crime to help uphold them.”

So then why have you?
he wanted to shout. He'd already asked her once, outright, but she'd danced around the answer by turning it back on him. Perhaps if he hit close enough, he'd see the truth of it in her eyes. “Maybe it's the thrill of obtaining the piece, and, once secured, it no longer holds any fascination. So it would only make sense, then, to get rid of it. Enter John Reese.”

“I told you, we've worked together on Foundation business. And his work with, and for, them would pass the closest scrutiny.” She didn't respond to the rest, other than to say, “I thought we were in a race to track down the whereabouts of one Julia Forsythe? Surely your prurient interest in the motivation behind my recreational pursuits can wait until we've located our quarry.”

Recreational pursuits. “I am tracking. If you worked with John in the past as a client, rather than as a peer hunting the same piece, then it holds that you might know something of Miss Forsythe.”

She sighed. “I knew of John and his reputation—both good and bad—prior to this little adventure, yes, but, and I say this for the last time, I've never purchased anything from him personally, regardless of provenance. I've never dealt with Miss Forsythe in any manner. Anything else?”

She held his gaze with ease, her tone flat, indicating her displeasure with the direction of his questioning, but nothing more. Or less.

“But you know of her?”

She shook her head. “I know of her kind. There are a lot of less-than-scrupulous art dealers in the world. In this city alone, in fact. It doesn't say more or less for her that I've not heard of her. She could be quite the big thing in the States, for all I know.”

Every question he asked seemed to net him no information, other than to add more questions to his list. It was frustrating on several levels, mainly the one that needed to be successful in solving this case in order to do the right thing by his client…and the other part of him that wanted to understand her better. Instead, he was more confused than ever. Instinct told him there was a lot more at play here than she was letting on. But that could be wishful thinking, based on the near constant hard-on he'd been sporting since seeing her again.

“So, what's next, Mr. Holmes?”

Finn turned his attention back to the report. With a little more time, he could get quite an extensive dossier on Miss Forsythe, but time was a commodity he didn't have. He was also itching to do a more thorough search on his current partner-in-not-quite-crime. Though not so much for the purposes of the case at hand. If he'd been smart, he'd have dug more deeply a long time ago. And he'd been tempted many times over the intervening years to do just that. Mostly it had been fear of what he'd discover, and what it might lead him to do about it, that caused him to opt to leave himself in the dark. What he didn't know couldn't hurt either one of them.

But now that he'd made a more direct connection, one he couldn't ignore, it was well past the time for burying his head in the sand. Or anywhere else. It was time for answers. One way or the other, he'd get them. Just as soon as he found Julia Forsythe.

“What's the next step?” she asked.

He started tapping at the keyboard again. “Next, we search for any information pertaining to previous visits she's made to the city.”

“And you're going to get this—wow.” She leaned over again as information began scrolling onto the screen. “How in the name of heaven can you access flight information like that? Particularly after 9/11?”

He leaned forward to get a closer look. “She's a regular visitor, it seems. Comes to the East Coast, New York City in particular, half a dozen times a year or more. All in the past two years since going into the art business.” He scrolled down. “Bingo. I love the Internet and travel package deals.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I don't have to dance around Homeland Security and flight databases. Avalon Travel's Web site is much less secure.”

“Avalon Travel?”

“Small San Francisco agency, it appears. They book her flights and hotel.”

“Hotel?” Felicity repeated.

He felt the sudden spike in tension and smiled. “And car rental.” He tapped a few more keys, then abruptly pushed his chair back. “Come on.”

“You don't think she'd still be there, do you?”

“Nope, she checked out earlier today.”

“But—wait up a second, will you?” She kicked off her heels and grabbed them before hurrying up the steps behind him. “Where are we going?”

“Airport.”

“She has a flight leaving tonight? Which one?”

“Yep.”

“But airport security, you can't get out to her gate—”

“It's a private airfield, but we're not going there. At least not yet.” He held the front door for her, never more thankful for Felicity's limo sitting curbside, awaiting its mistress's next whim. “She has to return her car first.”

Felicity paused. “Who rents a car in the city?”

He gave her a sardonic smile as they climbed in and closed the door. “I don't know. Someone who wants to avoid using public forms of transportation for whatever reason?” He stretched out his legs. “You tell me.”

“It's true, I use my own town car, but it's not quite the same as driving yourself about in this horrible traffic. Given the alternate forms of transportation, I'm simply surprised Miss Forsythe would choose to squire herself about.”

He shrugged. “Maybe she likes to be in control of things.”

“Perhaps. With all your whiz-bang technology, can you find out how many miles she put on her little rental?”

Finn sat up a bit straighter. “Why?”

“If the mileage seems exceptionally high for around-the-town driving, it could be worth noting.”

“Meaning you think she rented a car to do out-of-town business, while in town?”

Now it was Felicity's turn to shrug.

Finn pulled out his iPhone and tapped at the screen. “Hopefully those are questions we'll be able to ask her ourselves.”

“How close are we cutting it?”

“Too close for comfort, but unless she drives like she's in an Indy race, we should cross paths.”

Felicity settled into her seat and crossed her legs. Finn kept his attention focused on the small, illuminated screen.

“Do you think it's coincidental that she happened to be in town at the same time as our Mr. Reese?”

“I'm not a big fan of coincidence.”

There was a pause, and he looked up to find her smiling. “And yet, here we are.”

“Hardly the same thing.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Perhaps.”

“Meaning what?”

“I've been in New York many times in the past two years. And yet, our paths haven't crossed until now. Are you saying you showed up in New York, in my hotel room, by plan?”

“No, I was tracking Reese—”

“Did you know I was in the hunt this time?”

“I—” He faltered. He hadn't known. Not for sure. But he'd hoped. There had been only a few times that his cases had involved something she might have also had an interest in. Each time, he'd certainly wondered if she'd pop up, had even anticipated the moment.

“So…a coincidence, then,” she said.

“Only in that I wasn't intending to cross your path, but it's not all that surprising that I did. Given what we found in Reese's hotel room, I highly doubt it was just coincidence that he and Julia Forsythe ended up in the city at the same time.”

“I don't know about that.”

“Reese was trying to secure a big exchange at Antoine's, which fell through. I seriously doubt he just bumped into Julia in the hotel bar on the way back and figured, what the heck, might as well have a little fun.”

“I simply meant that you bumped into me, and with a little less restraint, we might have left similar evidence behind. Perhaps more.”

Finn couldn't exactly refute that statement. “You think they've worked together before, or knew of each other, happened to bump into each other at a time when he had no time to spare, and couldn't resist temptation?”

Felicity's smile was both knowing and challenging. “You tell me.”

“What I think, is that maybe they were working together all along, and what we saw in the hotel room were the remnants of a celebration of a major deal being made.”

“Which fell through.”

“We don't know if they had that celebration before or after his dinner at Antoine's.”

“Except for the ice. And the still damp towels.”

“Not entirely conclusive.”

“True, I suppose. But not likely.”

“Did you have any information on Reese flying out tonight?” Finn asked.

“No proof, but I hardly think he'd stay in town. He's based in London, so it's the perfect time to get a flight over.”

“I haven't been able to track anything down.” He went back to tapping on his screen. “He's a lot more circumspect in how he makes his travel arrangements than Miss Forsythe.”

“Wouldn't you think, if she was a high stakes roller, or in any way associated with one, she'd be more circumspect herself?”

“Not if her traveling to New York was already a well-established routine, which it was. Deviating from that suddenly would have looked more suspicious.”

“If she flies privately, that takes a pretty good travel expense account. She's done well for herself, but that's pretty steep. Reese, on the other hand…”

Finn looked sharply at her, then clicked back to the reports he'd downloaded onto his iPhone. “She didn't always. Fly privately, I mean. That was noted on the last two trips, and this one. No other details about the flights, just a note from the agent that private arrangements were made. By noting the time of the car rental return, you could guess the flight times. The drop-off location is a private field just outside the city.”

“So, maybe we'll get two for the price of one,” Felicity said.

“The big question is, do they still have the stone?”

 

The driver pulled in past a small discreet sign announcing the private field. They passed a small restaurant and gift shop, then a gas station. A few minutes later, they were pulling up at a small building with a car rental sign on the front. Just beyond, he could see the shadows of the larger plane hangars. The tarmac was just to their left, and the runways just beyond that.

When the town car came to a stop, Felicity didn't wait for someone to come open her door. Finn barely caught up to her at the rental agency door. There was a woman in a red blazer behind the counter inside. “I'd prefer it if you let me handle this one.”

Felicity smiled sweetly at him. “You think I can only make things happen when there are men involved?”

He pushed open the agency door for her. “No. I just think I can make things happen better when women are involved.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“What? No smart retort?”

She brushed by him, leaving a brief whiff of lavender in her wake. “No.”

When had she put that on, anyway? It was incredibly…lingering. Not to mention arousing. “Because?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Because you might be right. This time.”

He laughed, and they shared a smile that was both knowing and intimate and made him desperately wish they were anywhere but where they were. They approached the desk together. “Excuse me,” Finn began, before Felicity could start in. “We'd like to rent a white Lexus. Two door, if you have it. Would you happen to have one available?”

The young woman smiled rather mildly at Finn. “I'd have to look, sir.”

“Thank you, Andrea,” he said, catching the tag on her blazer pocket. “Much appreciated.”

Clearly not impressed with his attention to detail, much less charmed by it, she gave a rather short glance Felicity's way, then began tapping on the monitor screen in front of her.