Impulse (40 page)

“What are you talking about? What’s wrong?” He sat up, hugging her to him, shaking her. Her damp hair slapped his face when she whirled her head about to face him.

“I—Nothing. At least not yet. We need to go to Paris tomorrow, Marcus, all right? We’ve got to see if something’s still—where it should be. And if it isn’t, then maybe, just maybe, we’ll know.”

“Know what?”

“No, not yet. I don’t want to say anything yet. It’s just too crazy.”

“Now, look, Rafaella, you’re supposed to be my partner in all this, not go haring off on your own. So
just tell me what’s going on.” But she kept shaking her head. “Trust me, dammit!”

Rafaella wanted to pour it all out. She wanted more than anything to trust him. But the dam held and she shook her head. If it were only her, it would be different, but it was no longer just her. “I can’t, not yet. Please, not yet. And what about you, you clam?”

They were back to their familiar impasse. Finally, so frustrated he wanted to yell, he drank another finger of whiskey, gave her a very sour look, rolled over on his side, his back to her, and pretended sleep.

Trust was just too dangerous for both of them. It was damnable, but it was true. They were going south.

Giovanni’s Island
April 2001

Coco stared at him. “What did you say? Someone tried to kill you in Miami? Mario Calpas set you up?”

Dominick waved away Merkel and Link. He shook his head, saying nothing. Reaction had set in and he was at once very tired and feeling limp from the terror of that moment. Every movement of Melinda’s, every movement the man had made when he’d come into the suite—all of it was printed right before Dominick’s eyes. Who had set him up? Was it Mario? But why? Mario couldn’t have anything to do with
Bathsheba
, could he? And it was
Bathsheba.
Dominick knew it.

“No,” he said to Coco. “Mario didn’t set me up. Someone else did.
Bathsheba
did.”

Coco got him a drink, telling him curtly, “Drink it—you need it. Then we’ll go to bed. But first, tell me what happened.”

He drank, then said easily to his mistress, “I was with a very beautiful young woman, about Rafaella’s age. I thought Mario had set her up for me. Now I’m not so sure. She was sucking me off and then I wanted
her in bed, and when she was naked and lying there, I heard a key turn in the front door of the suite. I looked at her and knew that she knew what was going to happen. Before she could get away, I grabbed her and pulled her in front of me. The assassin panicked and shot her. She’s quite dead.”

Coco was suddenly very pale. “You were with another woman? She’s dead?”

“Right.” He paused, staring off into space. “She was good, Coco. She was very good.” He paused a moment. “I guess you heard that Sylvia is dead?”

“Yes, there was a mention of it on the news. You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you? It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“Of course.”

Coco looked at him closely, then said, “What did you do with the girl’s body?”

“Melinda? I called Mario and told him to get rid of it. An efficient man, our Mario. He was scared out of his wits. It was his permanent suite, you know, at the Carlton Hotel. I’m sure he took care of everything just right.”

Coco waited. “And now?” she said finally, searching his face.

“Now what?” He was irritated because he was tired, and now Coco was asking cryptic questions.

She placed her hand on his forearm. She looked down at the perfectly manicured nails, the soft peach polish. “Now, what about us, Dominick? What are your plans for us? You’re free, finally.”

“Yes,” he said, but he still didn’t look at her. He was looking out the front windows, and saw DeLorio in conversation with Merkel. DeLorio was gesticulating wildly with his hands; he’d heard about his mother. Or was he upset about his father’s near-demise? Probably not.

But he’d wanted to go to his grandfather’s funeral and perhaps see her. Why? Dominick had to think.

He had to figure out how he would explain things to the boy—the fact that DeLorio Giovanni was now a very wealthy twenty-five-year-old kid with a hair-trigger temper and the judgment of a pubescent teenager. Old man Carlucci must have hated her too, Dominick thought. He’d cut her off without a dime. For a moment he regretted killing her. It would have been wonderful to know she was broke and alone. No more sexy young studs for poor Sylvia. He should have let her go about her business, watched her turn into a slovenly sow. She probably would have drunk herself to death within the year. Well, it was done.

Dominick had always made it a practice, a personal philosophy really, not to worry about the past, to keep it back there, out of mind and sight, never to delve, to pick, to regret. What was done was done, and there was nothing that could change it. Why think about it? He turned to Coco, trying to remember what she’d said. Oh, yes, she was pushing him, but she was too old now and he’d have to tell her soon. But not tonight.

“Yes, at last I’m free. Come with me. I’d like you to get me off before I go to sleep.”

Coco did get him off, and soon he was snoring lightly, his head against her breasts. She was on the point of getting out of their bed when he moaned, then started thrashing around. She stroked him and caressed him and crooned soft words to him, telling him it was just a nightmare and she would take care of him. And finally he quieted and held on to her tightly.

The Louvre, Paris, France
April 2001

They stood in front of the painting and Rafaella read slowly,
“Bathsheba
, by Rembrandt, 1654.”

Marcus just shook his head. “A painting. It is Bathsheba,
of course, but I didn’t even know Rembrandt had painted her.” He looked more closely at the canvas, frowning. “She’s fat, our Bathsheba. Do you think she was this hefty before David sent her husband off to battle?”

Rafaella remained silent. She didn’t know what to think. Here was the painting, right where it was supposed to be. Perhaps she’d been wrong. What with all that had happened, it was possible she was remembering something else, another painting, one that looked something like this one—but not this one, just another stout woman, naked, in the classical pose. It was certainly common enough. Yes, she’d been wrong. She sighed with relief, relief that she’d kept her mouth shut and hadn’t told Marcus. But the room in her stepfather’s house was kept locked and monitored to keep the temperature constant, and she hadn’t been meant to see it at all, but she had, by accident, returning from a date before she was supposed to and seeing her stepfather there, in that room, looking at the paintings that lined the walls. And she’d realized that here was something that wasn’t any of her business, so she’d kept quiet about it and crept quietly to her room. She’d never mentioned that room to either her mother or her stepfather, not in the ten succeeding years.

Now she had to make Marcus forget all her admittedly weird behavior. But the painting was named
Bathsheba.
How to explain that? “Oh, rats,” she said, adding as she turned to Marcus. “Fat? Hefty? Aren’t you ever serious? For heaven’s sake, Marcus, this isn’t a joke. Don’t you realize what this means?” She was suddenly terrified that she knew exactly what it meant.

“I’ve never been more serious in my life, and no, I don’t know what this means. We have here a painting of Bathsheba, a painting, not just a Bible story. So what? So it’s seventeenth-century and not B.C. before the Greeks. So what’s the significance? So Tulp used
two Dutchmen as her backups and Rembrandt was also Dutch. What is the profound significance of that? I’m angry, Rafaella—you can’t begin to imagine just how much. You act mysterious, you drag me over to Paris, to the Louvre, of all places, to stare up at this painting of a fat woman named Bathsheba. And you won’t tell me a thing. You won’t tell me why you’re so upset.”

“Tulp is a Dutch name too.”

“Very likely, but she lived in Germany.”

“How did you know that?”

“Dominick might live on an island, but he does manage to learn some things. Old Tulp operated out of Mannheim.”

“Could that be what Olivier meant by going south? Should we go to Mannheim?”

“No. Why won’t you tell me what you realized or remembered or whatever? Why can’t you trust me?”

She looked away from him.

“Rafaella!” He grabbed her arm and jerked her around to face him. One of the guards took a step forward, then at the frown from Marcus quickly retreated. Several tourists, whispering among themselves, detoured a goodly distance away from the Rembrandt.

“Trust you? Okay, here’s trust. Who is Anton Rosch?”

That got him, but good. He stared at her, then exploded. “Ah, so now you eavesdrop on my phone calls.”

“No, I was just smart enough to call the operator after you took yourself off, and she told me it was this man Rosch, and what his room number was in the hotel.”

“So you just scampered upstairs to spy on me?”

“You’re making a scene. Who is Rosch? Some foreign agent? What does he have to do with you? Are you a foreign agent?”

“Forget Rosch. He’s not important at the moment, and don’t be a fool, of course he’s not a foreign agent. Why won’t you trust me?” He shook her. “You do know something. And it’s something close to home, isn’t it? It’s something you’d know that I couldn’t possibly know.” He saw it in her eyes. “Yeah, something real personal. What is it, Rafaella?”

She struggled with herself. She drew a deep breath, her decision made. “Let’s find an expert. Let’s have this painting authenticated.”

He stared at her, then up at that painting. It looked authentic to him. “Who
are
you, Ms. Holland?”

“I’m just what you see—almost. But stop doing that, stop putting me on the defensive. You’ve got more secrets than a pig in a space suit.”

“Don’t try to explain that one. You want an expert, okay, let’s find one. Do you think the officials here at the Louvre, one of the most respected and famous museums in the entire world, are just going to nod and say, ‘Why, certainly, Ms. R. Holland. You think this wonderful picture is a fake? Let’s find out.’ Get serious, Rafaella.”

“I don’t know if I can get them to go along with it. All we can do is try.”

The name of Charles Winston Rutledge III did help in the end. The art expert, a Monsieur André Flambeau of Gallerie de la Roche, was allowed the following morning to examine the Rembrandt. Monsieur Didier, one of the assistant directors of the Louvre, hovered over him, alternatively frowning, pursing his thin lips and looking vastly worried. He kept reminding all of them, “Of course it’s genuine,
certainement. C’est ridicule, vraiment, ridicule!
” He talked of the painting’s papers, its provenance, all provable and quite authentic, of course. On and on. Hours passed. Testing continued into the late afternoon. Monsieur Flambeau requested the assistance of another expert, associated with the Sorbonne. He arrived, all agog,
and the two men closeted themselves from the Louvre officials. Testing continued well into the night. Finally, near to midnight, Flambeau raised his head and stared off into space.

Monsieur Didier was dancing about with impatience, his nails, Rafaella saw, nearly bitten to the quick. He looked ready to explode. Flambeau said slowly, in very precise English, looking directly at Rafaella and Marcus, “I don’t know how you guessed, how you—admitted amateurs—could possibly tell. But you were quite right. It’s one of the finest forgeries I’ve ever encountered in all my career, but a forgery it is.”

All hell broke loose the following day in Paris when the announcement was made to the international press.

Giovanni’s Island
April 2001

Dominick stared down at the newspaper with the grainy photo of Rembrandt’s
Bathsheba.
Well into the article it was said that two Americans—their names were withheld—had brought the possibility of forgery to the officials at the Louvre.

Was it Marcus and Rafaella? Dominick was sure it was; deep down, he knew. Odd how the painting simply hadn’t occurred to him; it hadn’t occurred to anyone except Rafaella. Stupid, really. He, of course, should have guessed right away. He was an art lover, something of an expert, yet the painting just hadn’t come into his conscious mind. Further, he’d had no idea at all that the painting was a fake.

Since it was a fake, it shouldn’t be difficult for him to discover who’d bought it. He’d e-mail Ammon Civita, a broker in stolen art from Amsterdam. If Ammon hadn’t done the actual procuring, he would know who had.

An hour later, Dominick sat back in his chair.
Bathsheba
was a forgery, replacing the original in the Louvre at least ten years before. Ivan Ducroz had done the job.

Ammon Civita had handled the painting. Now Dominick knew who had bought it, who had to keep it hidden for all time because it couldn’t be insured.

Dominick felt the sour taste of betrayal fill his mouth. Oh, yes, he knew, and he would now take the necessary steps.

The man who had bought
Bathsheba
was Charles Winston Rutledge III, Rafaella Holland’s wealthy and powerful stepfather.

For the moment Dominick didn’t wonder about Rutledge’s motives. They didn’t matter for the present. He just thought of revenge—sweet, very tough, exquisitely thorough revenge.

He thought for two hours and then he reached for his phone.

Paris, France
April 2001

They were questioned until the French officials literally threw up their hands, shook their heads, and let Rafaella and Marcus go; they had no choice: there was no proof of complicity, of motive, of anything.

Rafaella had seen enough interviews with the cops to know their methods, although she had to admit that the suave French
gendarmes
had a bit more flair. One
gendarme
had the plummiest voice imaginable and was all sympathy; another growled; and yet another cursed with majestic originality. Certainly their threats to the Americans were more colorfully gruesome in their detail, and far more bloody. The guillotine—out-lawed nearly a hundred years before—was mentioned in frustrated, sour voices. Rafaella held firm. She was polite and consistent and soft-spoken, respectful Boston at its best. There was nothing she could tell them, nothing. She knew art, what else could she say? And there had been something about the painting—No, she couldn’t be more specific—it was an elusive feeling she hadn’t been able to ignore. She’d been drawn to it, drawn to examine it closely. Certainly they understood that? This perception, this
awareness
that all wasn’t right—ah, yes, she could see that Monsieur Labisse understood, such depths he appeared to have, such sensitivity.