The Courbet Connection (Book 5) (Genevieve Lenard) (4 page)

“What other kidnappings?” This got my interest. And my concern.

“A week ago, another boy disappeared from a university in Paris. They knew he’d been kidnapped, because there were signs of a struggle in his flat, his door was broken and some other stuff the article talked about.”

“And you allowed this article to influence you so strongly that you drew unsubstantiated conclusions about Pascal?” I lifted both eyebrows and stared at Nikki. “You are more intelligent than this.”

Michael chuckled at the same time as Rebecca gasped. Nikki just rolled her eyes. “At this moment, I don’t care how right your logic might sound. I’m going by my gut.”

“Vinnie should never have encouraged you to start that silliness.” No matter how I had tried to dissuade Nikki from being swayed by Vinnie’s lack of rationality, she had decided to practice following her intuition. They preferred to call it ‘following her gut’.

“Will you please check it out?” Nikki leaned towards me, her facial muscles contracted into an imploring expression. “Please, Doc G? Pascal might be an idiot at times, but I’m really worried about him.”

I weighed up the time it would take to look into Nikki’s suspicions. It didn’t take me too long to conclude that my time would be better spent following leads to Dukwicz’s whereabouts.

“Please, Doc G.” Rebecca’s quiet tone pulled me out of my thoughts. The concern on her face was as genuine as Nikki’s. I was convinced they were misguided in their suspicions.

Why then did I feel an uncomfortable urge to give into their irrational request? I had never before been this concerned with someone else’s happiness.

I shook my head and exhaled heavily. “I will not spend more than two hours on this undoubtedly fruitless search.”

“Thank you!” Nikki jumped out her chair, ran around to where I was sitting and hugged me. I felt crowded and the need to push her away caused me to close my eyes tightly. I forced Mozart’s Horn Concerto back into my mind until I could open my fists and pat her lightly on her back. Colin insisted that people appreciated a gesture of acceptance when they reached out. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Enough.” I gently pried her arms from around my shoulders until she straightened. “I can’t promise that I’ll find anything. I’m only promising to look.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

The sound of keys in the front door thankfully interrupted the moment. I turned in my chair just as the door opened and Colin walked in. He was dressed in a pair of designer pants and a dark brown linen shirt. He never looked like the thief he was, but rather one of the old-moneyed art collectors he had stolen for or from. Sophistication, strength and intelligence were all clearly communicated in his posture and other nonverbal cues.

His eyebrows raised slightly when he noticed everyone around the table. He locked the door behind him and smiled at Nikki’s friends. “Hi there. I didn’t know we were entertaining.”

“We’re not,” I said. “Nikki, Michael and Rebecca are supposed to be studying, but they’re arguing and sullying my apartment.”

“Our apartment.” Colin winked at me as he stopped by my chair. He leaned down and kissed me. “Hi.”

It had been very hard for me in the beginning to be comfortable with his spontaneous affections. I still found it disconcerting, but no longer wondered why he wanted to touch me or be close to me. I returned his soft kiss. “Hi.”

He straightened and gave Nikki a sideways hug, looking at her friends. “You are the two Nikki always talks about. It’s a real pleasure to meet you.”

Rebecca blushed and Michael swallowed. I could understand their nervous behaviour. Many women considered Colin extremely handsome. Most men found themselves intimidated. The two young people mumbled their greetings.

“So, what are you arguing about?” Colin took an empty pizza box and stacked it on top of another without making it look like he was cleaning up. There was no agitation in his actions. I was not capable of that.

“We aren’t arguing anymore. Doc G agreed to help us, so everything will be fine now.” Nikki took the boxes from Colin. “We’ll clean up. Please, leave this.”

Rebecca grabbed piles of papers, shuffling them until they could fit into her shoulder bag. “We’re done studying in any case. Right, Michael?”

Michael noticed Rebecca’s exaggerated head tilt towards Colin and me, and reached for his books. “Yeah. Sure. We were leaving.”

I slowly shook my head. “You are abysmal liars. Rebecca, your hand in front of your mouth when you are making a statement is a clear indication of your intention to hide what you are saying. Michael, shaking your head while saying ‘yes’ shows you do not agree with yourself. Why would you lie about leaving?”

“They’re being polite, Doc G.” Nikki walked back from the kitchen with a furniture wipe and started wiping down the table. “They don’t want to overstay their welcome.”

I was about to question the logic behind that, but Colin’s hand on my forearm stopped me. He was smiling at the three young people cleaning up. “You don’t have to leave, guys. You can stay for dinner.”

“No!” Rebecca’s hand flew to her throat, but then she became aware of her body language and hid her hands behind her back. “I mean, we already have dinner pl…”

“Don’t even try, Rebecca.” Nikki chuckled as she dropped the wipe in the bin. “Doc G will see right through you.”

“I’m sorry, Doc G,” Rebecca said softly. “I don’t know how to act around you.”

I nodded. “Understandable. People are so used to lying in order to maintain their standing in polite society. I don’t take offence if you are uncomfortable and don’t want to stay for dinner.”

Colin put his hand on my shoulder. “You really are welcome to stay for dinner, but if you need to go, we understand. Maybe next time?”

“That will be nice,” Nikki said. “Vinnie can cook for us.”

“The big guy?” Rebecca’s
procerus
muscle pulled her brow in and down. Fear. She glanced at Michael, who was watching us with increasing interest.

“Nikki, you shouldn’t enjoy scaring your friends this much.” It was hard to miss the constant muscle contractions around her mouth and eyes. She was teasing them. “Do not use us to scare them.”

“We’re not scared, Doc G,” Michael said as he stood up. “Just uncomfortable and out of our depth. And Nikki is always teasing us. We know she means no harm.”

“We’ll come for dinner one night.” Rebecca pulled her shoulders back. “With everyone here.”

“That sounds great,” Colin said, a warm smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “And we’ll try not to be too scary.”

Nikki’s friends responded positively to Colin’s openness, the tension in their bodies and on their faces dissipating. Two minutes later and after promises from Michael and Rebecca to visit again soon, Nikki left with her friends to continue their studying in the library. I could barely wait for the front door to close behind them before I rushed to the kitchen to grab my cleaning supplies. There were pizza crumbs on the table and stains Nikki had not cleaned in her quick attempt.

Colin took the cleaning supplies from my gloved hands and put them on the floor. Leaning against the table, he pulled me closer until I stood stiffly between his legs. I’d come to know his expressions. The smile currently lifting his mouth meant he found me amusing.

“You find my cleaning funny?”

“No. I find it funny that anyone could be scared of you.”

“Most people are.” I hated that my voice dropped slightly at this admission.

“Nobody who is important.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Vinnie’s not. Francine, Manny, Phillip, Nikki.”

“And you.” I relaxed slightly and put my latex-covered hands on his shoulders. He was right. It didn’t matter that people were scared of that which they didn’t understand. “You were never scared of me.”

“Never.” He pulled me a bit closer. “Now tell me what kind of promise Nikki managed to get out of you this time.”

Colin understood the difficulty I experienced in my relationship with Nikki. He particularly enjoyed it when Nikki was able to get my unwilling agreement to something no one else would ever have been able to convince me to do.

“I’m going to investigate the disappearance of her friend. Her gut”—my tone indicated my derision of this notion—“tells her he has been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?”

I glanced at a grease stain on the table. It motivated me to relate Nikki and Rebecca’s suspicions in the most concise manner possible. Colin listened without interrupting. The moment I finished, I stepped out of his embrace and picked up the cleaning supplies.

“Do you think there’s anything to Nikki’s gut feeling?”

“Don’t start calling it that too.” I sprayed wood polish on the table and rubbed it in with a soft cloth. “And I don’t know if there is anything to her ungrounded suspicions. I’ll have to research it before I draw any conclusions.”

For a few minutes I worked in silence, aware of Colin studying me. Eventually I looked at him. “What?”

“Something happened at the office today, didn’t it?”

“Manny phoned you?”

Colin snorted. “Millard only phones me in dire situations, Jenny. No, he didn’t phone me. I know your cleaning habits. This is not annoyance-at-students-eating-pizza cleaning. This is something-is-bothering-you cleaning.”

“You study my cleaning habits?”

“No, I just observe you. That’s what people do when they get to know each other. The same way you understand the deeper meaning behind most of my body language. It’s more than just academic knowledge.” Colin followed me to the kitchen and watched me put the cleaning products in their designated places. “So? What happened?”

I closed the cupboard door and leaned against it. “Caelan came in and insisted on speaking to only me. He wants to work with me on a case. He claims that there is a dark net that is selling forged masterpieces.”

Colin held up both hands. “Who is Caelan?”

I inhaled deeply and took a moment to organise my thoughts. I relayed this afternoon’s events to Colin. His expression went from interested to annoyed to worried, but the strongest emotion was when I mentioned the artist Caelan had told me to relay to Colin.

“Are you kidding me?” Excitement was all over his face. “And he said Gustave Courbet’s
Full Standing Figure of a Man
was one of those paintings?”

“Yes.”

“That painting was part of a huge discovery of Nazi-looted art two years ago. The authorities only recently revealed the full extent of the almost four thousand works of art discovered in a man’s attic. Some amazing masterpieces were recovered. Including this Courbet.”

I remembered the case Colin was talking about. Although I had only read one article about this shocking haul, it had been an in-depth report. “Those artworks are accounted for. Why would Caelan’s mention of this artist be of such interest to you?”

The
orbicularis oris
muscles contracted Colin’s mouth into a pout we adopted when we were contemplative or doubtful.

“Don’t you dare say it.”

Colin laughed as he took my hands and pulled me into his arms. “Okay, I won’t say I have a gut feeling about this. A very strong gut feeling. I also won’t say that I’m worried about Caelan and that we should make sure that he’s okay.”

“You don’t make sense. You said it by saying that you won’t say it.” I pushed lightly against his chest. “Why are you worried about Caelan?”

“Because you said that he looked under-fed and uncared for. Do we know if he’s eating? Does he have a safe place to sleep tonight?”

I blinked a few times. “I hadn’t thought about this. Should I have?”

“No, love.” Colin lowered his head until our noses touched. “You didn’t have to think about that. You already gave him something much more important than a bed.”

“What?”

“A sense of belonging.”

As I had promised Nikki, the next morning I looked into the possibility of her friend being kidnapped. On three of the monitors were articles about the Paris kidnapping. On a fourth monitor was the police’s case file. When I emailed the Parisian police department looking into the kidnapping, I had used an email Manny had made me promise to use as a template. It was an overly polite email, wasting a lot of time with platitudes. But the Paris investigator assigned to the case sent me everything he had on the kidnapping.

It had taken me fifteen minutes to read carefully through the whole file. The conclusion I had come to was the exact opposite of what the journalists implied with their articles. The police file had witnesses stating that the nineteen-year-old Matthieu Jean was a quiet student who’d kept to himself, studious and ambitious. He had no social media footprint and his professors had difficulty recalling him because he was so quiet.

The newspaper articles printed a photo of Matthieu in a pub with other young people. The table between them was laden with beers and shot glasses. Most of the students in the photo exhibited signs of inebriation. Matthieu sat with his back pushed deep against his chair, his arms folded and feet pointing to where I assumed the door was. He hadn’t wanted to be there.