Framed Shadows: Shadows Landing #6 Read online

  Tinsley unlocked the door, turned off the alarm system, and then moved to prop the front door open. “Well now, let’s see what your grandmother’s art collection is like.”

  20

  Tinsley’s heart was beating a mile a minute as painting after painting was brought into the gallery. They were wrapped in moving blankets and lined the far back wall three paintings deep. Some were quite large while some were no bigger than a photograph.

  She took a small painting the size of a page of notebook paper and carefully laid it on the desk. She used her fingernail to peel up the edge of the plastic wrap holding the blanket around the artwork in place. Tinsley slowly unwrapped the art and then held her breath as she looked down at the two hundred-year-old painting. This wasn’t stolen from someone’s home. This artwork had a long story. One Tinsley swore she’d discover.

  “This is a Vermeer,” Tinsley said with awe. “How long has it been in your family?”

  “My great-grandparents bought this collection in Argentina after World War II, and it was passed down to my grandmother after their deaths in the seventies,” Maurice said, handing her a thick envelope of papers. “How much do you think it’s worth? The small Vermeer?”

  Tinsley didn’t know what to say. Vermeer paintings were among the rarest pieces. Most sold for tens of millions of dollars.

  “If this is the quality of work you have under the blankets, we should have no trouble getting well above any amount you require for your dear grandmother,” Tinsley said, wrapping the painting back up. “Now, let’s go over the paperwork and then I’ll get to selling.”

  “We’d like this to be a private sale. My family would appreciate it if you could keep the art in the back and not out for display. This is very personal for us and very hard for us to part with. I’d hate to have people gawking over my grandmother’s paintings,” Maurice said so sincerely Tinsley almost forgot these were most likely stolen.

  “Of course, Maurice.” Tinsley put her hand to her heart as if she were touched by his love for his grandmother. “Now, this will take me at least a week to go through and get ready for sale, but then I should be good to go. Is that timeline acceptable for your family?”

  “Yes, but if you get done even quicker, we won’t complain.” Maurice signed the papers and handed them all over to her. “These paintings mean everything to our family. I need to know they will be kept safe.”

  “I have a large vault in the back and a very good security system. Also, the police department is just right down there,” Tinsley said as she pointed down the street. She enjoyed the slightly uncomfortable look on Maurice’s face.

  “This is the last one,” Murray said, interrupting them as he led Paxton to the back of the room. Paxton was carrying a large painting at least four feet tall. She couldn’t wait to get a look at it.

  “Thank you for entrusting me with your family’s art. I will do right by the collection. I’ll call as soon as I’m ready to start selling them.” Tinsley stood and shook Maurice’s hand.

  “We have some private buyers as well. The ones we told you about. Get a list of the art and text me with the painting names and how much each is worth. I’ll see if I can send some sales your way. When it comes to buyers I send you, I’ll tell you the price I will accept. No negotiating is necessary.”

  “Whatever you want, Maurice. I’ll get that to you as soon as I catalog everything,” Tinsley promised. She would say anything at this point to get them out of the building so she could uncover each painting.

  Tinsley walked them to the gallery door and waved goodbye as they got into the van. She smiled, waved, and wished they’d get out of there. As soon as they were heading down the street, she locked the front door and ran toward the back of the gallery.

  Paxton had kept quiet and as soon as he was no longer needed, he’d slipped into the back of the building. Out of sight, out of mind.

  “Paxton! There’s a Vermeer!”

  Paxton strode from the back rooms with a look of disbelief. “A Vermeer? I don’t think so.”

  Tinsley put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes at him. “Are you doubting my ability to identify a Vermeer?” She gestured for Paxton to open the painting on the desk as she pulled out the paperwork Maurice had brought her.

  “Holy crap! It is a Vermeer. How would they end up with a Vermeer?” Paxton looked up at her with wonder.

  “I’m not the expert here on forged papers, but these look a little new for being receipts from the 1940s.” Tinsley handed them over to Paxton to examine.

  “This is current printer ink, but the paper has been tumbled in a dryer for a bit to make it appear older. They’re from Argentina. That’s it. I knew I was right,” Paxton said excitedly.

  “Right about what?” Tinsley asked.

  “The Myriad gang is working with the Argentinian mob. The Myriad want to expand their gang and their illegal businesses, but they can’t do that without muscle and money, which the Argentinians are giving them. I bet they teamed up. The Argentinians will become a silent partner for the Myriad, so to speak. They’ll supply the drugs and guns, and the Myriad will sell them. With a partnership like that, the Myriad will be able to corner a larger part of the illegal markets, and the Argentinians will just sit back and rake in the money. Plus they can take their illegal activities out of Argentina and then receive laundered money in return. They can look legit.”

  “That makes sense to me, but not the art. Where does this all fit in?” Tinsley gestured to all the art.

  “This is the expansion money. Half of the sale price goes to the Argentinians, and then the other half goes to Curtis for a fencing fee. There’s danger attached with fencing a lot of valuable art that a lot of people must be looking for. If he’s successful, then Curtis has the income to buy the best drug runners, dealers, chemists . . .” Paxton paused and then smiled. “They’re going to bring in some buyers, right? This is how they’re going to clean their money—pay the Argentinians and use the art to get the guns and drugs they need. Say you need a million dollars worth of guns and have a two million dollar painting. You sell the painting for one million to the gun dealer, so he’s not out two million. However, the gun dealer can go sell it for two million and bam, you’re both square and it’s all clean money. Or he can trade it for something else with another criminal.”

  “I guess we’ll find out when I see how much they authorize the sale for,” Tinsley said, looking down at the Vermeer. “You won’t actually make me sell this, will you? This is history. It shouldn’t be used in black market dealings.”

  “I don’t know what we’ll do. We might be able to sell a forgery or go forward with the sale and then immediately arrest the buyer. However,” Paxton said with a grimace, “we need to prove these are stolen. Then I need to link them to Curtis. After I have that evidence I can start taking down the people who come in to buy the paintings.”

  “We need to get to work. I’ll call Ellery to see if she can come help, too.” Tinsley pulled out her phone and called her cousin-in-law while Paxton began moving the paintings to the back rooms. They would fill every inch of space, but they’d be safe from prying eyes.

  “Ellery will be here in twenty minutes,” Tinsley told Paxton as she set up three easels in the back room. She lifted a wrapped painting onto each of them and then helped Paxton move paintings until Ellery showed up. It didn’t take long to fill her in on what was going on and then she was rushing past them to the storage area.

  “A Vermeer? Are you sure?”

  Paxton snickered at Ellery’s comment and Tinsley shot him the finger.

  “Why does everyone think I suddenly don’t know Vermeer?”

  Tinsley followed Ellery into the back room that was filled with paintings wrapped up for safekeeping. They were at least spread out now. “Didn’t Maurice say there were eighty paintings in the collection?” Tinsley asked as she looked around the room.

  “Yes. There are only forty here. It’s smart. They are not putting all their
eggs in one basket,” Paxton told her.

  “Or they’re testing the basket’s strength before adding more to it,” Ellery said with a frown. “If there are more, we have to find them.”

  Tinsley was already reaching for the first wrapped painting. “First we need to see what we’re dealing with. Let’s unwrap them.”

  An hour later, Tinsley was sure she’d stopped breathing. She, Paxton, and Ellery stood shoulder to shoulder with their mouths hanging open, eyes wide, unable to say a word.

  A tear ran down Tinsley’s cheek and then she finally sucked in a long deep breath. “I never thought I’d have my hands on art like this. Vermeer, Rembrandt, Renoir, drawings by da Vinci . . .”

  “Picasso, Matisse, Degas . . .” Ellery muttered.

  “Manet. Or is it Monet?” Paxton teased and then they were all laughing.

  “Manet, definitely Manet,” Tinsley laughed as tears flowed down her face.

  “This alone is worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” Ellery said into the silence after they stopped laughing.

  “And it’s sitting in my little gallery in Shadows Landing, South Carolina,” Tinsley said with amazement.

  She heard Paxton’s phone ring but didn’t watch as he stepped away to answer it. She couldn’t take her eyes off the paintings and drawings. It was an incredible collection and sadly, it was stolen.

  “You don’t think it’s from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, do you?” Ellery asked about one of the largest unsolved art heists of all time.

  “I don’t know. I need to catalog it all and run them through the stolen-art database. See if anyone has reported any missing. Maybe ask the insurance companies, too. I can’t imagine not having insurance on these,” Tinsley said.

  Paxton stormed back into the room as Tinsley was getting her laptop ready to start cataloging. “I have to go. Charleston police just called. My apartment was just broken into. I’ve called Granger and Kord. They’ll be here any minute.”

  Tinsley’s hand went to her back and she breathed a little easier when she felt Tina.

  Paxton hurried over to her, leaned down, and kissed her lips. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t go anywhere without Granger or Kord.”

  “I won’t. Be safe,” she whispered up to him.

  Ellery looked away to give them some privacy.

  “I’m more worried about you. I love you. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  “I love you, too, Paxton.”

  Tinsley watched as Paxton hurried out the door. A second later, Granger stood in her back room letting out a low whistle. “Even I know some of these names.”

  “What do you think of the break-in at Paxton’s?” Tinsley asked Granger. They hadn’t talked much about what had happened in Atlanta, but when they’d returned, they’d all had a new respect for each other.

  “I think there are no coincidences. We just got back from Atlanta where we took out a big chunk of Myriad’s men, drugs, and guns. For his apartment to be broken into, they have to have thought he was a part of it. News reports from Atlanta are nuts. Your Uncle Cy is nuts but whatever he’s doing on his guys’ trip is working. It’s breaking the gang. Unfortunately, it might be sending them our way,” Granger told her.

  “Oh goodness. I didn’t know they sent Uncle Cy. He must like Paxton if he didn’t kill him. That’s a good sign, right?” Tinsley asked Ellery.

  “Very good sign. I would also expect a call from Great Aunt Marcy soon, asking about a wedding date.”

  Tinsley smiled, but the smile fell as she looked around. “Granger, are you telling me this art, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is all the assets the Myriad’s have left?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

  “I can’t let them take this again. These are priceless pieces of history. Granger, call Reverend Winston. Ellery, call the family. The second a painting gets logged I want it hidden at the church.”

  “On it,” they both said as they picked up their phones.

  Tinsley took a deep breath, grabbed her laptop, and got to work methodically taking pictures, writing down notes, and identifying the artist of each piece. As soon as she moved away from one painting, it was re-wrapped by Ellery and taken away by Ridge, Gavin, Wade, Trent, or Ryker to the church via the back entrances. There they were handed off to Harper, Darcy, and Savannah. They worked with Reverend Winston to store them and even diagram exactly where each painting was set down. Meanwhile, Skye and her best friend, Karri, staged an accident next to the sheriff’s station to prevent any out-of-town traffic from coming into Shadows Landing.

  When Tinsley was done, she sat back and let out a deep breath. “The history, Ellery. I’m shaken that this history was stolen. It was taken from a museum or a collector or multiple museums and collectors and used to trade for guns and drugs. It’s a sacrilege. Now, how do I run this through the stolen-art system without tipping anyone off?”

  “We need to find someone who can do the research on the quiet. The quietest possible,” Ellery said stretching her back. “But first, I need a drink. A big one.”

  “I agree with that wholeheartedly,” Granger said from where he’d been standing with a view of both the front and back door.

  “Before I have that drink, I need to make my vault look full,” Tinsley said, looking around at the pile of blank canvases prepped but yet to be painted. “Let’s move them into the back of the vault and then I can put my originals that aren’t on display in there, too. When I send the catalog to Maurice, I’ll tell him that I have everything locked up so he’ll give me advance notice so I can pull the right painting and not keep anyone waiting. That way I can get it from the church and not put the others at risk.”

  Ten minutes later Tinsley locked the vault, turned on the alarm, and joined the rest of her family at Harper’s bar. No one seemed to talk. They all stared at their drinks until Darcy spoke. “This is so different from when I discovered the sunken treasure.”

  Wade nodded. “It had been sunken for protection from bad people who were long gone. This art was most likely stolen from good people and bad people are still using it for their own gains. It’s just sad. Sad that there’s a chance all this artwork could once again disappear, never to been seen again.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Tinsley said with determination. “Ryker, do you know anyone powerful enough inside the art world who could run these paintings through the database of lost and stolen artworks and keep it off the books?”

  Ryker raised an eyebrow as if to look insulted, but it was Georgina the bartender who answered. “I do.”

  Tinsley and the whole table of Faulkners turned to look at the young bartender. She’d applied for a bartender’s job and had been incredibly overqualified with her education, but had zero work experience. Harper had seen someone who needed help, and despite her tough-as-nails attitude, Harper was all about helping women in need. So, she hired Georgina Grey, a cute young woman with sophisticated manners, a pronounced New England accent, and so soft-spoken it had taken a week for Tinsley to learn she was from Martha’s Vineyard and was an expert equestrian.

  To this day, no one knew what brought the twenty-five-year-old to Shadows Landing, who her parents or family were, or why she was still hanging around after a year. They all thought she’d be gone in a month. Instead, she’d turned her posh New England accent into a butchered Southern one with help from Gator, Skeeter, and Turtle. She’d bought an old pickup truck with three hundred thousand miles on it and was so proud of it she had driven everyone she knew up and down Main Street in it. She even babysat for Lydia. The woman was a saint.

  “You know someone who could pull this off without anyone knowing about it?” Tinsley asked skeptically. Ryker just sat back and watched as if he knew something they all didn’t.

  “Is it very important?” Georgina asked as she nibbled on her bottom lip.

  Kord stood up and walked over to her. He was gentle as he put his hand on her back. “It is. I think you kn
ow about art, so you know the names Vermeer, Rembrandt, Renoir, Manet, Degas . . . Now, I’m not as smart about that type of thing as I think you are. We think very bad people stole them and are trading these beautiful paintings, some that have moved me unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before, for drugs and weapons. They’ll disappear again, lost to the dark underworld. We can prevent that if we can prove they’re stolen.”

  Georgina was white as a sheet, her lips turning bluish in color as she pressed them tightly together. Her hands were visibly shaking but she nodded her head. “Get me a list and it’ll be done.”

  “No, Georgie,” Harper said, stepping in. “Ryker can get it done. This clearly upsets you, and I won’t have that.” Harper turned to Ryker. “You can do it, right?”

  “Of course,” Ryker said, his eyes never leaving Georgina. “Lady’s choice.”

  Kord pulled Georgina close to him. While she was taller than Tinsley—heck, everyone was—she seemed so small curled into Kord’s side. But then she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “If you can’t do it, call me and I will get it done,” she said to Ryker.

  No one had wanted to pry into Georgina’s past. It was clear she hadn’t wanted to speak up, but Tinsley saw the worry on not only Harper’s face, but everyone else’s. She had a feeling tonight everyone would be searching the Internet for Georgina Grey.

  Tinsley had other problems to focus on. She pulled out her phone and forwarded the email she’d sent herself with the catalog of paintings to Ryker. A minute later he looked up from his phone and nodded. “It’s done. I’ll let you know when I have answers. It shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Miss Georgie?” Gator asked slowly as he, Skeeter, and Turtle came in through the door and caught sight of her still in Kord’s embrace. “Are you okay?”

  “Did Anne Bonny’s ghost scare you again?” Skeeter asked. “I told her to stop doing that.”

  Georgina took a deep breath and pasted on a smile. “No, Anne and I have come to an understanding. Nothing’s wrong, just sorry Tinsley is in the middle of some wicked nasty business. Now, let’s get you gentlemen some drinks.”