Don't Look Down (16 page)

“Wow.”

“There’re a lot of fakes and reproductions out there.”

“Dad wouldn’t buy either one.” Daniel cupped her chin, tilting her face up toward his. “Are you sure the London lord’s not too dull for you?”

She smiled. “I thought you had a London lady, yourself.”

“Patricia? I hate limiting my options.” He leaned in and touched his lips to hers.

She could have stopped him, dropped him to the floor if she wanted to, but unless she was greatly mistaken, Daniel had something to do with the real story of Coronado House. Neither, though, did she make any attempt to kiss him back. “That was a little presumptuous, don’t you think?”

He tilted his head, golden-brown hair falling across one eye. “That depends on what you do next.” He waited for a moment, then smiled. “I didn’t think you’d run.” Digging into his pocket, he produced a business card. “My cell number’s on the back. It’s private.”

“You have these made up in advance?” she asked, flipping the card over to see the handwritten set of numbers.

“I was hoping you’d come by.” He touched her cheek again. “I’m a generous guy, Sam. I share what I have. Keep that in mind.”

She smiled carefully. “Are you trying to bribe me or something?”

Daniel shook his head. “I’m trying to seduce you.”

“There you are, Samantha,” Rick’s voice came from the doorway before she could reply with something ballsy but noncommital. “I have that conference phone call—Ah, Daniel.” Still wearing the friendly, bland expression he generally conjured for big gatherings, he approached Daniel. And she didn’t think for a moment that he hadn’t seen the caress. “My condolences.”

“Thanks, Rick. I was just asking Sam if she had any idea
what that was,” Daniel returned, jabbing a thumb toward the case.

Rick’s gaze didn’t leave Daniel’s face. “She knows her art.” Slowly he held out his hand to her. When Sam gripped his fingers, they were shaking a little. “My apologies, but I need—”

“No problem. Thanks again, Sam.”

“Any time.”

As they made their way toward the front door, Rick pulled out his cell phone and dialed Ben, his driver, to meet them on the drive. Samantha tucked Daniel’s business card into her purse and kept her mouth shut.

Once they were in the limo, Rick sat forward. “Ben, a little privacy, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Silently the opaque divider slid up from the back of the front seat. Since she had no idea how he would react to her little meeting with Daniel, Samantha decided to counter-attack first. “Rick—”

“Be quiet. I need to think.”

“Hey, I didn’t kiss
him
.”

He gazed at her for a moment. “I noticed. Why did he think kissing you would be a good idea? Other than your general attractiveness, of course.”

Well, no shouting, anyway
. “I think he figured he had to give me something for the information about the sculpture.”

“And he didn’t have a quarter in his pocket?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t check his pockets.”

“Any further insights? If it won’t jeopardize the wager, of course.”

“As if. I’m so far ahead I can’t even see Castillo,” she lied.

“So unbelt.”

She blinked. “Jeez. Horny much?”

“What? No. I mean spill it, Yank.”

“You should have said that in the first place.”

“I did. Quit stalling.”

“Fine. I think he’s the most important thing in his life,” she returned, relaxing against his side. If he didn’t trust her, he was doing a good job of hiding it. “Nobody’s availability or interest matters except his own. And I didn’t kick him in the nards because there’s something going on at that house. I know there is, Rick. And I think he knows what it is.”

With a sigh he looped his arms around her, pulling her closer against him. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t turn his business into dust?”

Okay. Now
that
sounded like Rick. “Because until last week it was his dad’s business, and because right now he’s just smarmy and selfish. You can ruin him if he had something to do with Charles getting killed.” She kissed his throat. “I thought you’d be way more pissed off.”

“Sometimes I surprise myself. I was ready to be. If you’d been anyone else, I would have been. My loved ones don’t precisely have a good track record in fidelity where I’m concerned.”

Christ, she hadn’t even thought of that. He’d come upon Patricia rolling around with his former college roommate, and that hadn’t exactly gone well for anyone. “I don’t even like him,” she offered.

“I know that. And honestly, you’re just so bloody cute that I can’t resist you.” He kissed her, deep and soft.

“Well, thank goodness for that,” she said, pretending he hadn’t just practically given her an orgasm.

“What now?”

“I have to talk to Castillo again.” And she was probably going to have to make a phone call, after she figured out a way to keep Daniel Kunz interested but still at a safe distance.

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“My way encompasses any and all means of getting information, buddy. I just have to put it together before the cops.”

“Don’t expect me to wish you luck.”

“Luck’s for chumps.”

So Samantha had decided to use Daniel—and Patricia—to help her solve her puzzle. Richard scowled as he sat at his desk in front of the stack of paperwork that had just arrived from London. This damned wager had been designed to teach her a lesson, not to give her the means to drive him insane.

He blew out his breath. Under the best of conditions he wasn’t accustomed to sitting about and waiting for a situation to resolve itself. Whatever else he had on his plate, assisting Castillo and the Palm Beach Police Department wouldn’t be cheating; it would simply be putting his ample experience, resources, and contacts to good use.

If Samantha thought Daniel had information, then Laurie might know something useful, as well. And besides, she owned a real estate business, and he’d promised to help Patricia find a place in Palm Beach. With a grim smile he pulled out his Palm Pilot, found Laurie’s business phone number, and left a message for her to give him a call. Samantha wasn’t the only one who could play the charm game.

“Rick?” Samantha leaned her head into the room as she knocked on the door frame.

“Come in,” he said, shutting off the Pilot and dumping it into his desk drawer. He took in her jeans shorts and green T-shirt. “You’re not going into work?”

“No. Stoney’s got a date, and I…just want the rest of the day off.”

He stood, keenly aware of the quiet sadness in her voice. A thief with more compassion than most of Kunz’s sup
posed friends and even his family. And paperwork or not, his job immediately became attempting to cheer her up. “A date? Walter?”

“Well, yes.” She smiled. “I loaned him the Bentley.”

“You…It’s your car.”

“And don’t you forget it, babe.” She shifted her gaze to his credenza. “You don’t happen to have a big piece of graph paper, do you?”

“I imagine I do.” He went to the supply cabinet and rifled through it until he found a half-used pad. “Doing a detail of Charles’s office?”

“That’s a good idea. I will now.” She gave him a peck on the cheek as she took the pad. “Thanks.”

“What was it for before I gave you that brilliant idea?”

“The pool area. I thought I’d do some sketches and go through some garden magazines.”

“You can hire a landscape architect, you know.”

She flashed her smile at him. “You sure you don’t want to give me a spot where nobody can see the results?”

“I trust you. I’m just saying—”

“No, today’s a good day to look at flowers, I think. That whole ‘normal’ thing you were talking about. I think I can do plants without puking. You can come carry my pencil for me, if you want.”

Samantha was inviting him in. That didn’t happen very often, and he counted every instance like it was a precious grain of gold. “I have to check in with Tom, and then you’ve got a deal.”

“Okay. I’ll be out by the pool.”

Sam set her stack of gardening magazines down on one of the wrought-iron poolside tables and plunked a fresh, chilled
can of Diet Coke beside them. She had a few ideas about what she wanted to do, but considering this was her first venture into gardening and that Rick used Solano Dorado as both a meeting and a showplace—and that every inside room on the west wing had a view of the pool—she wasn’t about to dig up so much as a weed without getting at least his tacit approval first.

As she sat down and opened the tablet of graph paper, though, Rick’s other suggestion pulled at her. Everything meant something, and there had been clues aplenty in Charles’s office—whether the police would view them that way or not.

The police. That in itself was a little curious, that the scene of the murder would be open to the public less than a week after the act, and before any suspects had even been named. She knew from experience that the Palm Beach PD was accustomed to dealing with the rich and famous and that they were typically protective and deferential, but this was Castillo’s case, and he was good at what he did. Hell, he’d nearly caught
her
, once.

Slowly she sketched what she remembered of the wall into which the safe was set. She’d never had any formal art training, but she’d spent most of her life around famous works of art, and she’d been told on several occasions that she had talent. It kind of amused her—the art thief who could draw.

More valuable was her near photographic memory, and she had more than a hunch that it was why she was so bothered today. She’d seen something, and until she realized what it was, it was going to keep eating at her.

The pencil sketch of the wall and the Renoir print didn’t tell her anything, so she moved on to the desk and the cre
denza, re-creating on the page what she’d seen in person a few hours ago. She paused as she began work on the case holding the Giacometti figure.
Wait a minute
.

If it was actually a prototype for
Standing Woman
, Alberto Giacometti’s most famous work, it was probably worth nearly a million. In all honesty, unless someone was familiar with Giacometti, it didn’t look all that impressive, but she had recognized it—and so would a cat burglar good enough to leave no sign of entry or exit. From what Daniel had said, it wasn’t listed on any insurance form. That would make it much less complicated to fence. In addition, it had been sitting out in plain sight, with no alarm wired to it, during the robbery and murder.

Instead, however, the killer had opted to take the time to break into the safe and then steal cash and well-documented jewelry, and the more recognizable Van Gogh and O’Keeffe. Interesting, and not very bright. Considering Daniel’s ignorance of the woman’s value, its being left behind definitely didn’t speak well for his innocence. She wondered whether Laurie knew any more about art, modern or otherwise, than her brother did.

For the first time she realized that she specifically suspected Daniel. It seemed like it should be a huge deal, but it didn’t
feel
that way—it was as though she’d been aware of it all along. Unless he’d hired someone to kill his father, his ignorance about art made the crime circumstances logical. Just about everybody knew Van Gogh and O’Keeffe, and the value of rubies and cash were no-brainers.

What she needed was someone with a little more insight into the Kunz family. Checking over her shoulder to see whether Rick was approaching, she pulled her cell phone off her belt and dialed.

“Hello,” the smooth Southern drawl came after only one ring.

“Aubrey, it’s Samantha Jellicoe. Can you talk?”

“No one’s ever been able to stop me from doing that before, darlin’. I thought you’d be at the wake. I’ve been lookin’ for you.”

“Are you still there?”

“I never miss a party, whatever the circumstances.”

“Sorry. I’ll call you later, then.”

“Hold on a second.” She waited, hearing the echo of voices and some sort of reggae music playing in the background. Hm. She’d thought Charles more of a classical music type. But not much about the funeral or the wake had seemed to be about him. “All right, Miss Samantha,” he continued after another moment, “I’m in the library.”

“Alone?” she prompted. If anybody overheard their conversation, she would lose any leverage she had with Daniel and his libido.

“I doubt most of the guests know where the library is. What’s troubling you?”

“What’s the most famous thing the Kunzes own?”

He stayed silent for a moment. “The Gugenthal rubies, I would say. Charles has—had—a Manet in the upstairs sitting room, but he didn’t show it much.”

“But he showed it to you.”

“He thought I’d appreciate it. And I did.”

“And what one thing in the family was worth the most?”

“The rubies. Do you have a suspect in mind? This is getting very exciting.”

She grinned at the enthusiasm in his voice. Apparently Aubrey Pendleton had been feeling rather starved for intellectual stimulation. Charles probably hadn’t had time to
show off his new acquisitions to his friend. Now they belonged to someone else—someone more interested in dollar signs than in truth and beauty. “Nothing for sure,” she answered. “Would you do me a favor, though? If somebody in the family circle asks you if you know a good, reliable fence, would you give them Walter’s name?” She recited Stoney’s old business number, and heard Aubrey pull out a paper and scratch it down.

“I’m going to have to get my private dick license after this,” he said.

“I don’t think anybody actually refers to themselves as dicks anymore.”

“I’m obviously still a novice.”

“You’re a quick study, Aubrey. Thanks again.”

“Thank
you
, darlin’. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Aubrey?” Rick’s voice came from right behind her as she flipped the phone closed.

“Jesus. You’re getting better at sneaking.”

“I wasn’t sneaking. Aubrey Pendleton? The walker?”

She twisted to face him, noting that he’d changed into shorts, as well. Yummy. He had great soccer athlete legs, and didn’t show them off nearly enough. “Yes. He’s pretty interesting.” Sam caught the expression in his cool gaze, and she tugged on his hand to pull him into the chair beside her. “Don’t worry. He’s a bigger fan of you, blue eyes, than of me.”