Framed Shadows: Shadows Landing #6 Page 17

  In a split second, Tinsley saw the old Georgina reappear only to realize it had never been the real Georgina at all.

  21

  Paxton surveyed the wreckage of his apartment and felt his hand flex at the snake spray-painted on the entire back living room wall. The snake’s head was cut off, red spray paint showing the dripping blood. It was a clear message. The Myriad was after him.

  “Damn. This isn’t good,” Peter said as he stepped into the apartment. “Did you have any work files here? Anything relating to Tinsley or Shadows Landing?”

  Paxton took a deep breath and shook his head. “No, thank goodness. My computer is in Shadows Landing and I have my phone on me. Nothing else is written down. I hadn’t even fully unpacked since I thought I’d be going back to Atlanta soon.”

  “But the apartment does tell the Myriad that you’re alive. Agent Whitlock, what does Gangs have to say?” Peter asked the agent in charge of gang activity in Charleston.

  The agent stepped over to them along with a local police officer. “The Myriads began expanding into Charleston before Agent Kendry arrived. They came in with a bang, a violent takeover of a prime real estate area. They assassinated the leadership of the old local gang and took in the old members who wanted to join, but promised to kill anyone who didn’t. It gave the Myriad had a sizable territory and a whole network of members practically overnight,” Agent Whitlock explained.

  The local officer nodded along with Whitlock’s explanation. “I’m Boyd with Charleston Street Crimes Unit. I’m assigned to the Myriad. They’ve been dealing in high-quality cocaine. We’re not sure where it’s coming from, but we know it’s not local. Their market is big and growing rapidly. They’re targeting high-end clients with one brand of cocaine, and they have an economy grade, too. It’s cut with cheaper, less stable ingredients. That mark on your wall is the tag for the Charleston Myriad. You’ve been made a target and they’re coming for you.”

  “I guessed that,” Paxton said, looking at the snake. “But is it locals or from Atlanta? I need to know who is after me.”

  “Locals. See in the blood drips,” Boyd said, pointing at them. “You see CHS. That’s the Charleston chapter. ATL would be if it were the Atlanta chapter.”

  “Thank you, Boyd,” Peter told him before turning to Whitlock. “Do you have agents outside keeping an eye on the place?”

  “We do. There’s a lot of curiosity. We even did a couple of stop-and-frisks on suspicious people. They were clean, but they also didn’t leave. They’re watching the building.”

  “Thank you, Whitlock,” Peter said, dismissing him and Boyd.

  “Shit,” Paxton cursed as soon as they had privacy. “What about Tinsley? I can’t leave her unprotected like this, but I also know I can’t blow the art deal.”

  “We need to sneak you out of here,” Peter told him.

  “Actually,” Paxton said, stopping him. “We need them to think I’m somewhere else. They need to see me to put a name with my face now that I’m not undercover.”

  “You can’t walk out like that. They’ll recognize you if any of them share a picture with Maurice and Murray.”

  “I’m not going to look like me,” Paxton said with a smile. “Think Miss Tibbie would let me borrow a wig?”

  Thirty minutes later Peter returned with a wig and some makeup after sneaking out of the building and back in via the fire escape. Paxton held it up and grimaced. “It’s a mullet.”

  “It’s the Florence Henderson Brady Bunch wig,” Peter announced with a smile.

  “You’re enjoying this too much,” Paxton said as he pulled on the wig. “Hey, this isn’t that bad.” Paxton grabbed a rubber band and put the mullet flip part of the hair into a low ponytail. He used the makeup to darken his face where his beard would be if he had grown it out. Up close it looked ridiculous but from far enough away it would pass for a closely groomed beard.

  “I’ll make sure everyone is back across the street and I’ll meet you down there. Do you have a plan?” Peter asked as Paxton picked up his phone.

  “I do. Just make sure you call my name real loud and ask me where I’m going,” Paxton told him.

  Five minutes later, Paxton walked outside the apartment with a bulletproof vest underneath an oversized sweatshirt. Best of all, Ryker Faulkner’s helicopter was ready and waiting for him at the airport.

  “Hey, Kendry!” Peter yelled loud enough for half the block to hear. “Get back to the office. We need a report on this.”

  Paxton turned to face Peter who was across the street, pretending to talk to Whitlock. “No can do, boss. I’m going to Atlanta and taking care of this once and for all,” Paxton yelled back.

  He got into his car and noticed two men break away from the crowd and head toward their own vehicles. Paxton didn’t wait for them, but he also didn’t make it hard for them to follow him.

  Paxton kept an eye on them in his rearview mirror as he navigated the narrow downtown streets. They kept their distance within the city, but as soon as Paxton was on the highway heading toward the airport, they changed tactics.

  They were no longer trying to stay hidden. Instead, they were trying to catch him. Good. It was exactly what Paxton wanted. He needed them to chase him and see him arrive at the airport. They all needed to think he was on his way to Atlanta. Paxton sped up as he cut in and out of traffic. Horns blared and his pulse raced as his speed increased to over a hundred miles per hour.

  Paxton kept his gaze in the mirror as he used every defensive driving technique he knew to get to Ryker’s helicopter. The ping of the first bullet hitting the back of his SUV as he tore down the off-ramp toward the airport had him radioing ahead for airport police to be waiting for him.

  The second shot shattered the back window. Glass cracked, and the pffft of the bullet whizzing by him and out the front window had Paxton ducking in his seat. He began to swerve to make it harder for the gang members to shoot at him, but Paxton didn’t have much farther to go. He heard sirens up ahead, but a second later a flurry of shots rang out. The bullets came through the back window and slammed into the front dash and into the headrests.

  Paxton grabbed his gun with his left hand and drove with his right. He reached across his body, aimed his gun through the destroyed rear window, and blindly fired off some rounds. They must have hit because the car chasing him swerved. Finally, he saw police lights ahead of him. Paxton fired off a few more rounds and then gave them the middle finger as the gate to the private airfield came into view.

  The car behind him slammed on the brakes and spun in the street. They were already taking off in the opposite direction before the airport police had made it out of the parking lot.

  The second Paxton stopped his car a man opened the door. “Agent Kendry, I’m your pilot. Shall we depart for Shadows Landing?”

  So this was how Ryker rolled. Paxton wondered at the fact the pilot didn’t blink at the gunshot car or the gun Paxton holstered as he got out of the driver’s seat.

  “That would be great, thank you.” If the pilot could act as if a high-speed shootout were normal, so could Paxton.

  Tinsley was going to ask Ryker how he was going to get the information on the stolen art when his phone rang and he stepped outside. No one at the table spoke. Instead, they looked over at the bar to where Georgina smiled and joked with Gator, Skeeter, and Turtle.

  “What happened to her?” Tinsley asked Harper.

  “I don’t know. She’ll tell us when she’s ready. Don’t anyone push her or I’ll kick their ass,” Harper threatened.

  Ryker pushed open the door and strode back to his seat at the table. “What’s happened?” Tinsley asked.

  “Paxton called and needs a lift,” Ryker said as he shrugged out of his suit coat before taking his seat. “Georgina, I’ll take a bourbon, please,” he called out to her.

  Georgina poured the drink and brought it to him. Tinsley smiled at her as Georgina placed it in front of Ryker. “Someday you’ll have to tell them who you rea
lly are, Miss Greyson,” Ryker murmured, his voice barely a thread of sound. Tinsley’s eyes widened as Georgina’s face lost all color for the second time that night. Georgina looked around to see if anyone overheard and Tinsley looked away, pretending not to hear. It was clear Georgina had a past she didn’t want anyone to know about and Tinsley wasn’t going to pry. Harper had been correct. She would tell them when she was ready.

  “Ryker, what’s going on with Paxton?” Tinsley asked once Georgina was back behind the bar.

  “Gang members were watching his apartment. Miss Tibbie gave him a wig and he staged a race to Atlanta to confront the leader. He’s trying to keep his cover here intact. He’s hoping the members staking out his apartment took pictures of him in his costume and are sharing that look among the gang. He’s probably going to have to lie low once he’s here, too. He just doesn’t want to leave you. Want me to call Mallory and Blythe back?” Ryker asked.

  “Let me talk to Paxton first. Thanks, Ryker.”

  Tinsley and her family hadn’t taken a bite of dinner before the door opened and Paxton came in. He tossed a wig on the table and sat down next to Ryker.

  “Thanks for the loan of your helicopter. The back of my vehicle is now shot to shit, but I got into the private airfield before they could gain too much on me. Happily, the airport police were waiting to chase them off.” Paxton leaned over and kissed Tinsley. She saw the dark brown makeup on his face and wanted to ask him what happened when Ryker cursed.

  “What is it?” Tinsley asked, her whole body on edge. Paxton reached over and took her hand in his as they waited for the bad news.

  “The Vermeer has been traced to the last owner before the Smith family got it.” The table fell silent as Ryker handed his phone to Tinsley. Her eyes raced over the report and she had to read it again because her brain didn’t compute it.

  “Is it the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum?” Ellery asked when Tinsley wasn’t quick to respond.

  “No,” Tinsley said, feeling her hands begin to shake. She took a deep breath and handed the phone back to Ryker. “Ryker’s contact found the art dealer the fake Smith family supposedly bought the art from in the late 1940s.”

  “That’s good, right? So it wasn’t really stolen or was it stolen from that art dealer?” Ellery asked.

  “It was most definitely stolen, but it wasn’t stolen by the Smith family. It was given to them by the Argentinians to be fenced would be my guess,” Tinsley said as she imagined the timeline of the provenance of the art.

  “I don’t understand,” Ellery said slowly.

  “I know Smith is a fake name. I know the last provenance from the 1940s is fake. What wasn’t fake was the name of the art dealer in Buenos Aires. When dealing with stolen art, the more truth you keep to the provenance and story of the paintings, the harder it is to find out it’s stolen. Like any good lie, you keep to the truth as much as possible. There was an art dealer in 1949 Buenos Aires who got this painting from a Señor Roberto Fernandez. However, in 1964, Roberto Fernandez was kidnapped from his middle-class suburban home in Buenos Aires because his real name was Mannes Reuter, a close associate of Adolf Eichmann, one of Adolf Hitler’s most trusted men who had killed tens of thousands of innocent people in Budapest during 1944 and countless people before that.

  “The dealer who sold the art in 1949 was one of Eichmann’s soldiers. Eichmann and Reuter escaped Hungary and made their way to Italy. The leader of Argentina, which at that time was allied with Hitler, gave them fake papers and passage from Italy to Buenos Aires. There they hid in plain sight, selling off artwork they’d stolen from Jewish families until they were tracked down by a group of Nazi hunters who smuggled them both out of the country and brought them to justice for their war crimes.”

  Tinsley sat back in her chair. Her eyes filled with unshed tears as they processed what this meant. She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat making it difficult to do so. “That painting, most likely all those paintings, were stolen from innocent Jewish families by Nazis during the war. Those families may not have survived the war but some may have. I have to find out. I have to get them back to their families. I have to, Paxton.” Tears broke free as Tinsley grabbed Paxton’s hand. She tried to slow their flow but couldn’t. How there could be such pain and suffering attached to such beautiful art, she couldn’t fathom.

  “It’s estimated that over a hundred thousand pieces of such art are still missing from the Second World War,” Paxton told the group. “If we can get eighty of them back to their families, we will. Sometimes these pieces of art are literally all people have left to remember their families who were murdered during the war.”

  “I’ll call Cy and let him know,” Dare said quietly before stepping away from the table.

  “Yes, we have to find the rest. I have half. We need the other half,” Tinsley said, drying her tears. “Now, what do I need to do to find the owners of this stolen Nazi artwork?”

  22

  “Miss Tinsley, I won’t ask what’s going on, but I will offer my help,” Gator said as he, Skeeter, and Turtle approached the table.

  “Me too. Anne said she would also help,” Skeeter told her. “She said those paintings have seen more death than she has.”

  “That right there gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Turtle said as he reached for the large knife at his waist. “I’ll help, too. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “I couldn’t help but overhear,” Maggie Bell said, coming from the back of the bar with her brother, Gage. “We want to help, too. We can store the paintings if you need. Or if you need a place to stay, we have rooms open now.”

  “Thank you all,” Tinsley said, touched that she had so many people ready to help her. “I’ll let you know as soon as we have a plan.”

  Everyone nodded, knowing she would call on them if she needed help. The noise level rose in the bar again, but Tinsley’s table was still quiet.

  “We can’t look into the real owners until this is over,” Ellery finally said.

  “Agreed,” Paxton said as they watched Dare come back inside.

  “What did Uncle Cy say?” Tinsley asked Dare.

  “He grunted a couple of times, said he’d take care of it, and hung up on me,” Dare told them. “But,” he said, stopping Tinsley as she got ready to ask a question. “Then Aunt Annie called me and said she and Bridget were taking a girls’ trip and wanted to stop by Shadows Landing because Bridget is training the dogs to hit on artwork. She’s training them on the scent of old paint and canvases painters used many years ago. There are some agents in customs that are already using dogs to search for stolen art and cultural antiquities that are being trafficked. She asked that you lay a polyester cloth and some cotton balls over some of the stolen art for a couple of days. They’ll be here Friday.”

  “Um, okay,” Tinsley said, looking to Paxton to see if she was the only one slightly confused.

  “Oh,” Dare said suddenly, “and you can’t tell the uncles that Annie and Bridget are here or in Atlanta.”

  “Why not?” Tinsley asked.

  Dare shrugged and held up his hands to say he had no idea.

  “No, that couldn’t be it,” Paxton muttered, but it was too late. Everyone was already looking at him.

  “What?” Tinsley said with annoyance. She felt as if she were missing something and didn’t like it.

  “Well, Cy called his brothers in for a guys’ trip to take on the gang. Now your aunt called it a girls’ trip and it just made me wonder if they were coming to do the same thing but didn’t want the guys to know. No, that’s silly. Your aunt isn’t former military.”

  “No, she’s former DEA, but Bridget is former military,” Tinsley said with a slow smile. “Go girls!”

  “Nah, the uncles will have it wrapped up before Bridget and Annie even get to town,” Ridge said.

  “Care to bet on that?” Tinsley asked.

  “I’m in,” Harper said, slamming a twenty on the table. “Aunts, all the way.”

  A
flurry of bets rang out and ended as Gator added a twenty to the pile. “Sorry, men, but I’ve seen Annie Davies wrestle Bubba. The ladies got it.”

  Paxton had laughed when the bets were made but now it felt like a lifetime ago, not just a couple of hours. Long gone was the laughter. It was now replaced with worry. He knew this feeling. It was the feeling of being on the cusp of cracking a case. Go one way and you solve it. Go the other way and you end up dead. There was no middle ground anymore.

  “We need to buy time,” Paxton told Tinsley at the end of the night as they lay in bed in her house.

  “I think I need to stay in constant contact with Maurice. It’s when I don’t reach out to him that he randomly shows up. I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up to check on the art,” Tinsley told him as she snuggled up against him. She rested her head on his shoulder and absently ran her fingers along his bare chest.

  “What if you tell him you have to travel to some archives? That could buy you a couple of days where you’re not here so he wouldn’t stop by.” Paxton ran his fingers absently over her arm as they brainstormed a plan.

  “I’ll call him every day. I think that’s a good idea. Tell him what I’m working on and the prices I have so far. Then when he starts to get itchy about sending buyers, I will need to make the trip to the archives. What archives? I don’t know, but I’ll figure out something. Hopefully, that gives Cy time to find the other half of the paintings and even time for Bridget and Annie to do their thing, too.”

  Paxton snuggled Tinsley closer to him. He couldn’t wait for this to be over. They needed to move on with their lives as a couple. It was one thing to accept the risks in being an agent himself, but it was a completely different thing having Tinsley involved. If anything happened to her because of him, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.