The Courbet Connection (Book 5) (Genevieve Lenard) (22 page)

“All the t-shirts you’ve bought are white, Nikki.”

She giggled. “I know.”

“I want another pair of blue pants.” Caelan pointed to a rack behind Nikki.

“No.” Nikki shook her finger at him. “You already have two pairs of blue jeans and a pair of blue pants. You need variety.”

“Why?”

I took a step back, allowing Nikki to answer that question. They walked towards the blue jeans, Caelan getting more animated in his desire for another pair of blue pants. Nikki’s
patience and kindness towards the young man caused a warm sensation in my chest. She looked happy and carefree as she rolled her eyes and started a different line of reasoning with Caelan.

The effect she had on people was fascinating. Within minutes of meeting her, both Daniel’s and Pink’s expressions had mimicked Vinnie’s. Affection, tolerance and amusement alternated with the suspicious looks they gave everyone else. I didn’t have to look far to see Vinnie. He wasn’t looking at Nikki and Caelan. Instead he was watching me. He gave an exaggerated eye roll, nodding his head towards the two young people and lifted his shoulders in a hyperbolic sigh.

I knew he didn’t mind Nikki’s enthusiasm. It was clear on his face. After an exaggerated wink, he turned back to survey the shop behind me. On the other side of the store, a two-year-old started screaming in a typical tantrum. I shuddered at the thought of having to deal with that kind of auditory assault on a daily basis. People who procreated had my admiration. Observation and academic knowledge informed me that parenting was not an easy life-long task.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

I turned towards the soft voice. A shop assistant stood a bit behind me, her uniform immaculate, her hair in a soft bun, her smile social. She was in her mid-twenties and stared at me as if she’d never seen another woman before. When she didn’t say anything else, I lifted one eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Are you Doctor Lenard?”

I frowned. “Yes.”

Her smile turned from social to real. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you. I didn’t know people like you existed.”

“People like me?”

Vinnie took a step towards me, but I shook my head. Nothing in this woman’s body language alerted me to any kind of aggression. She was curious and in awe. It caught my interest.

“Experts in body language. The man said you helped solve crimes just by analysing what people do with their hands and faces. Is that true?”

I barely heard the last part of her excited babbling. Cold entered my limbs and I took a shuddering breath. “What man? Who told you about me?”

“Oh, the big man who was here a few minutes ago.” She looked towards the open doors leading into the mall. “He said that you changed his life. You solved a crime that had affected him. He went on and on about how amazing you were.”

My mouth was dry. My fingers tingled from the adrenaline rushing through my body. I tried to ask one of the many questions that were rushing through my mind, but I couldn’t get my mouth to obey my mind. I was frozen. I couldn’t even call Vinnie.

“He was so deeply touched to see you again, he asked me to give you this.” She held out her hand. “He said that you knew him and would be so happy to see him again. But he didn’t want to impose while you were shopping with your family. Isn’t that just too nice for words? He said he knew that your husband was leaving soon and that you would be very sad.

“I told him that you’ve just been standing to the side letting your children shop. I was sure you wouldn’t mind the company. You don’t mind, do you? See, I told him so. He should’ve given this to you himself. But he didn’t want to. He said that you would know this meant he was grateful to you for giving him the opportunity to achieve his goals. Here, take it. Don’t you want this? The man said it had great value to him.” She pushed her hand closer, looking pointedly at the items she was holding out to me.

I stared at the watch resting on her open palm. Darkness surrounded me and I fought to keep it at bay. But Colin’s watch kept pulling the darkness closer. This was the watch I had given Colin for Christmas. The watch Colin had been looking for this morning while I’d waited impatiently for him.

An announcement sounded over the shop’s sound system. The shop assistant pressed Colin’s watch and a folded piece of paper into my hand. “Ooh, I have to go. Busy, busy, busy. By the way, the man said that his name was Du.. Duk… Duk-something. Ooh, I really have to go. Was so cool meeting you.”

I didn’t pay attention as she left. All that existed in my world at present were the two items in my hand. The watch was warm from her body temperature and felt like it was burning through my skin. Dukwicz had been here. He had followed us.

He had also been in my apartment. In my bedroom. He had gone through the drawer in my bedroom where Colin kept his watches. I found it most disconcerting that the watch he had chosen was a gift I’d given to Colin. Had he known that too? How much time had he spent in my apartment? He had to have been there the evening before while we’d still been in the office, working.

I managed to get my fingers to open the piece of paper. The handwriting analysis I would leave for later, but the aggressive strokes in the letters were impossible to miss. “
Doctor Lenard. I warn you. Buy something black. You need it soon. Got job to eliminate your boyfriend. It will give me happy. You and the kid I leave for later. Boyfriend soon. D
.”

I knew I was going to shut down. The darkness was too close now. Too safe. This man, this international assassin, had threatened the one person I’d allowed to break through all my emotional shields. I felt the hard floor under me and realise that my legs had folded under me. I was sitting on a dirty shop floor,
clutching Colin’s watch in one hand and crushing the note in the other.

“Doc G? Doc G!” Nikki’s voice came closer. “Oh, my God. Vinnie! Pink! Vinnie!”

I tried to focus on Nikki hand touching my arm then quickly moving away again after a quick apology. It didn’t keep the darkness away. I forced myself to listen to the tightness in her voice as she babbled. Still the darkness overwhelmed.

“I’m phoning Colin. He’ll be here soon. Just hold on, Doc G. We’ll get you out of here soon. Just hold on.”

I heard Vinnie ordering Colin to get here, then trying to calm a distraught Nikki. I lifted my hand towards the sound of Vinnie’s voice, hearing my own keening. His angry swearing somehow soothed me and I wished Vinnie would pry the items from my fingers. He didn’t. He told Colin to get here sooner.

When Nikki spoke again, her voice was thick with tears and close by. It sounded like she was sitting next to me. Instead of focussing on Mozart to calm myself and bring myself back, I found myself distracted by the need to comfort her. She sounded so lost, so young. I fought off the darkness. I couldn’t let her be alone. The realisation that she was sitting next to me, not knowing that I loved her devastated me. My keening became louder.

I should’ve told her when the opportunity had been there. She had given me her uncensored emotions, shared with me the depth of her feelings. I had not had enough courage to reciprocate. I did love her. I loved the lightness she brought into every single conversation. I loved the uninhibited manner with which she attacked life. I loved that she wasn’t scared of her own emotions and that she wasn’t scared to express them. She was braver than I would ever be.

In the background I heard sirens and shop assistants ushering people out of the store. Nikki never left my side. She spoke to
me, telling me that Colin was coming and he would make everything better. That I was going to be okay.

Only when I heard Colin’s voice did I allow myself to give in to Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.11 in A major. He would take care of Nikki. He would make sure she didn’t sound so scared.

“Nikki.” I waited until she looked at me. “None of this is your fault.”

It had taken an hour for me to return to reality and for us to return to Rousseau & Rousseau. Nikki had refused to leave, even when Colin had arrived. Vinnie had somehow managed to convince Caelan to return to the office with one of the GIPN members to help Francine. When I’d come to, Nikki had been crying. Vinnie had been angry.

He’d been against leaving the office from the beginning and was now in the conference room with Daniel, the leader of the GIPN team, to discuss protection for whenever we did have to leave. We would all have bodyguards until Dukwicz was found.

Colin was sitting next to me in my viewing room, looking at Nikki. She was on the floor between the two filing cabinets, her back straight, her body tense.

“I always push. I shouldn’t push. I should listen to you. You told me we shouldn’t go shopping. Everyone told me we shouldn’t go shopping.” She looked up from her hands. “I’m sorry, Doc G.”

“We all learned a lesson, Nix.” Even though Colin had been calm and in full control of the situation, there were still tension lines visible around his mouth.

As I looked at Nikki worrying a cuticle, all I could think of was my overwhelming concern in the shop. My heart felt as if it was pounding against my sternum and my breathing was
uneven. I wrote a few lines of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.11 in A major and took a bracing breath. “Nikki?”

She looked up, her eyes sad. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Colin inhaled sharply, but I continued looked at Nikki. Her eyes filled with tears and she scrambled to her feet. Two seconds later, I was enveloped in a tight embrace, warm tears dampening my shoulder. I swallowed against the need to push her away and scrub her tears off my skin. I hugged her back. After a long moment, she straightened and artlessly wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “You’re the best, Doc G.”

This emotional moment overwhelmed me. The pride and deep affection visible on Colin’s face as he looked at me, then at Nikki, added to my desire to escape. I was terrified that I would say or do something that would negate what I’d just declared. I felt ill-equipped for moments such as these. Ideally I would avoid them, but I never wanted Nikki to feel rejected.

“Yo! Sailors!” Francine’s strange address from the team room broke the moment and filled me with immense relief. “Get your hardy-har-har butts in here. We have something!”

Nikki giggled, the intensity of the last hour instantly lessening. Francine called us again and we got up. Nikki walked into the team room, but Colin held me back. He turned me to face him and waited until I looked at him.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” My voice cracked.

“For giving Nikki a gift bigger than you can ever imagine.”

He was wrong. I could imagine it. For the first nine years of my life, I’d longed to hear those words from my parents. When I’d realised they would never be spoken, I’d blocked that desire. I didn’t expect the young woman teasing Caelan in the team room to enter my life and remind me how valuable those words were. Especially coming from someone we looked up to.

“Are you two coming or not?” Francine’s impatient tone draw me from my thoughts. I gave Colin a small, genuine smile. He kissed me on my nose and followed me into the team room.

“Tell them what you told me, Caelan.” Francine had been working with Caelan when Colin and I had returned to the office. Caelan hadn’t even looked up from the computer when we’d walked to my viewing room. “Go on. Tell them.”

Colin and I were standing in front of Francine’s desk. Manny was also in the team room, seated at the round table, his body language distancing himself from us. I wondered if he did that to make Caelan feel more at ease. I suspected Manny would take offense if I asked him.

Caelan stopped rubbing the hem of his t-shirt. “Fifteen months ago, I saw an artwork sold on Silk Road. It was
A Bay with Cliffs
by Gustave Courbet. The highest sea cliff is in Kalaupapa, Hawaii and is one thousand and ten metres high. I thought it was interesting that someone would sell art in a place where criminals hang out. Then I wondered if they were criminals, so I looked for more artwork. There is a lot of crap being sold. A lot of it. Those pieces are easy to find. The more interesting pieces were the ones not so easy to find.”

Manny grunted and slid down the chair into a low slouch. His brow was lowered in frustration, one arm folded across his chest, the other hand in a fist, pressing against his mouth. He was trying to prevent himself from speaking. Knowing him, he was most likely trying to control his many impatient questions and orders. Caelan was oblivious to this.

“I saw a pattern quite quickly. On the second day of every month, a Courbet painting would go up for sale. They were not crap paintings. At first they were put up on Silk Road, but then it was shut down. As soon as SSS launched, I found a Courbet painting on the second day of that month. I didn’t know if they were real or forgeries. That was when I decided to get someone who would know.” He glared at Colin’s shoulder. “You were supposed to help me and tell me if these paintings are real or forgeries. But no. You haven’t even looked at the paintings.”

“How was I supposed to look at the paintings when you’ve been the one playing games?” Colin shrugged. “You seem more interested in manipulating us than in solving a mystery.”