Mosaic Mayhem (Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery) (4 page)

Would the consulate pull strings for a photo-journalist and his girlfriend inadvertently caught up in a kidnapping investigation? Ever since we met I’ve worried Zack might really work for one of the alphabet agencies. For the first time I hoped he did.

~*~

Zack and I ate an early breakfast the next morning before he left for
Parc Güell
. “Are you sure you’re okay with being alone for a few hours?” he asked.

Part of me wanted to tag along with him, but another part of me had no desire to return to the place where this ongoing nightmare started. “Sure. The kidnappers have who they want. They let me go even though I saw their faces. I don’t think I have to worry.”

“All the same, maybe you should hang around the hotel until I return. I’ll only be a few hours.”

“Maybe I’ll just go back to bed.” Neither of us had slept much after returning to the hotel the previous night. This relaxing three-day getaway had turned into anything but.

“Good idea. Keep the bed warm for me.” He slung his camera bag over his shoulder, kissed me good-bye, and headed out.

I lingered over another cup of coffee while catching up on some pleasure reading, an activity I rarely had time for at home. I’d just finished the third chapter of Emma Carlyle’s
Four Uncles and a Wedding
, when the last person on earth I expected to see that morning approached my table.

“I need your help,” said Michael Naiman, his left hand firmly gripped around the handles of a large black leather artist’s portfolio. He hadn’t shaved, and he still wore the tuxedo from the previous night. However, the two men in black standing with arms crossed several paces behind him countered any sympathy his classic grieving husband persona attempted to solicit from me.

I stared at him for a full ten seconds, biting my tongue the entire time, before I spoke. “Last night you accused me of involvement in your wife’s abduction, and this morning you want my help?”

“I have no other choice.”

“Well, I do, and the answer is no.”

“You can’t—

“I can’t what? Say no to you? Guess again. I’m not one of your black-suited flunkies. I don’t take orders from you.”

“I’m not—”

“Before yesterday I’d never heard of you. Yet in less than twenty-four hours I’m first kidnapped in place of your wife, then accused of being an accessory to the crime. I have children back in the States. A job. A life. Now, thanks to you, I’m stuck in Barcelona until the police find out what really happened.”

I speared him with the most disdainful glare I could muster after a night of little sleep. “You’re the last person I’d go out of my way to help.” Then I turned my attention back to my book, dismissing him in much the same manner he’d dismissed me the night before.

Naiman didn’t take the hint and leave. Instead, like the overbearing egomaniac he was, he slammed his pudgy hand over the page. “Even if helping me gets you home on time?”

I looked up to see desperation written across his face. Either he possessed exemplary acting skills, or my theory of his involvement in Elaine’s disappearance was totally off-base. On the slim chance he spoke the truth, I decided to listen. “You have thirty seconds.”

He pulled out the chair opposite me and sat. Before speaking, he raised his arm, snapped his fingers, and pointed to the espresso machine. One of his flunkies headed over to the breakfast buffet to prepare a cup for him. Talk about the height of hubris! “Your time is ticking away,” I said.

He continued to sit silently staring at me while waiting for his coffee. When it arrived, he took a sip before speaking. “I’ll admit, I didn’t believe you at first, and I’m still not sure I do. I had my men look into your background. I know you’re up to your eyeballs in debt.”

“This is how you try to convince me to help you? You’re not doing yourself any good, and your childish power play used up your time.” I stood to leave.

“Or maybe you were merely a victim of unfortunate circumstances, in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I folded my arms across my chest and looked down my nose at him. “
Maybe?
”

He exhaled his frustration. “All right. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“How
noblesse oblige
of you.”

“Please.” He indicated my empty chair. “Hear me out.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m begging you.”

He said the words as if it killed him to utter them. Men like Michael Naiman don’t beg. They demand. I lowered myself into the chair.

“I received another phone call from the same man who originally claimed to have Elaine.”

“Go on.”

“He’s got her this time.”

“I still don’t see how this involves me. Tell the police. I identified the men who took me. They know who they are.”

“I can’t. They threatened to kill Elaine.”

“Then pay the ransom. From what I hear, a hundred million Euros barely makes a dent in your bank account.”

He scrubbed his hand over his stubbled jaw line. “I’ve already transferred the money, but now he’s demanding something else. One of my paintings.”

I pointed to the portfolio. “Are you on your way to make the exchange?”

“The kidnapper is demanding you bring him the painting.”

“
Me?
Why me?”

“I don’t know, but now you see why I still have my suspicions about you.”

I suppose if I were in his position, I’d have suspicions about me, as well. “If I give him the painting, he releases Elaine?”

“That’s the deal. But no one else can know. Not the police. Not your boyfriend. No one.”

“I don’t know where to find him. The guy who nabbed me put a sack over my head and threw me in the back of a panel truck.”

“He said he’d find you.”

“Like you did? How did you know where I’m staying?”

“I have certain resources at my disposal.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

“Will you deliver the painting?”

Did I have any choice? Once Elaine was freed, Zack and I would be able to catch our scheduled flight home. “For Elaine, not you.”

He nodded, then stood. I suppose a thank-you was too much to expect. He’d used up his annual allotment of humility when he’d begged for my help.

“Which painting?” I asked as he turned and took a few steps in the direction of the exit.

He returned to the table. “
L’Ascète
. I had to retrieve it from the museum without the police finding out.”

His most prized possession, according to his wife. Interesting. If Michael Naiman was willing to part with something he valued more than any of his other possessions, maybe he really did love his wife and want her back. “You stole your own painting?”

“It’s not stealing; I own it. The painting was only on loan to the museum.”

I grabbed hold of the portfolio handles and stared at his departing back as he strode across the near-empty hotel breakfast room. The painting was worth millions.

Now what? Was I supposed to stay in the hotel until someone contacted me or stroll around
Plaça de Catalunya, awaiting the arrival of a muddy black panel truck?
What if someone yanked the portfolio out of my hand before I made the exchange?

Staying in the hotel seemed the best option
. With my hand clenched so firmly around the portfolio handles that my knuckles turned white, I headed for the elevator. The doors opened. I stepped inside, and pushed the button for the third floor. The next thing I knew, a man wearing mirrored sunglasses and a Panama hat pulled low over his face stuck an umbrella between the doors to prevent them from closing. The doors sprang back open, and he stepped inside.

FOUR

I kept my head down and inched away from him.

“Do not be afraid,
Señora Pollack
.”

I recognized his voice. I stole a glance upward. He smiled. Brown teeth. Laporta. “Have you come for the painting?”

“Sí,” He wrapped his hand around my arm. “But first we will go to your room.”

I gasped and tried to pull away from him.

He held fast. “I will not harm you.”

“Why do you need to go to my room?” I shoved the portfolio at him. “Here’s the painting. Take it.”

“I must examine it first.”

I suppose that made sense, but I still wasn’t crazy about letting him into my room. I weighed my options as the elevator ascended. Laporta was probably pushing seventy. As long as he didn’t pull a knife or gun on me, I could probably defend myself, assuming he didn’t know any martial arts. But how likely was it that a member of a crime syndicate traveled without a weapon on him?

The elevator arrived on the third floor, and the doors opened. Laporta knew which way to turn and escorted me down the hall, stopping in front of the door to my room. I didn’t bother asking how he knew which room was mine. He’d probably paid off the desk clerk.

When he pulled a key card from his pocket, my suspicions were confirmed. After unlocking the door, he waved me inside. He grabbed the
Do Not Disturb
sign from the interior door handle, placed it on the outer handle, then closed and locked the door. My breakfast threatened to regurgitate.

Laporta was all business, though. He took the portfolio from me and removed
L’Ascète
. The nearly three feet by four feet painting
had been removed from its frame but was still mounted on stretcher bars.

He placed the painting on the bed and removed a folding knife from his pants pocket. I stepped back, flattening myself against the dresser, but he paid no attention to me. He opened the knife and carefully slid the blade between the back of the painting and the stretcher bars. Taking his time, he slowly drew the blade back and forth along the wood.

He’d made his way three-quarters around the painting when he stopped. He withdrew the blade, bringing with it a sliver thin microchip.

Laporta pocketed the chip, then placed the painting back in the portfolio. He held out his hand, “Your phone,
por favor
,
Señora
.”

I removed my phone from my purse and handed it to him. He turned it off and dropped it back into my purse. “Come,” he said. “We will deliver the painting to its new owner.” He reached for my arm and together we left the hotel.

As we made our way toward
Plaça de Catalunya, Laporta reached into his pocket and withdrew the chip. Half a block later we passed a garbage truck. He flicked his wrist, and the chip sailed into a huge pile of trash.

“Was that a GPS?” I asked.

“Of course. Did you think Naiman wouldn’t try to track you and his beloved painting?”

Would Naiman fall for the ruse and think his
L’Ascète
had been destroyed? “You won’t be able to sell it.”

Laporta chuckled. “You are very naïve, Mrs. Pollack. The world is full of men willing to pay enormous sums to add to their very private collections. But who said anything about selling
L’Ascète
?”

Was this less about the painting and more about a power play between two alpha males? I wondered if Perella and Naiman had history between them. Both dealt in death and destruction in their own ways. Had their paths crossed at one time? How do you get even with a man who has more money than God? You take from him those things that money can’t replace—his wife and his painting.

 
“You will release Elaine Naiman, right?”

He didn’t answer me.

We cut across
Plaça de Catalunya, then continued down La Rambla, a broad pedestrian thoroughfare, at a leisurely pace. To anyone passing by we appeared to be a father and daughter out for a morning stroll.

“Are you enjoying our glorious city?” he asked after several minutes of silence.

“Oh, yes, being kidnapped and tear gassed were definite high points of my visit.”

“For that I am truly sorry.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I hope those unfortunate experiences haven’t soured you to Barcelona.”

“Why ever would you think that?”

He laughed. “You do have a unique sense of humor,
Señora
Pollack. I would have enjoyed getting to know you better.”

Did that mean he was going to let me go soon or that my days were numbered? “I have children,” I said.

“Sí, I know.”

What else did he know about me?

We walked for a few more minutes, then he steered me down a narrow alley with shops and apartments on either side. Halfway down the alley we stopped alongside a silver Mercedes. Laporta beeped the locks and opened the trunk.

“Please, no,” I inched away from him, but instead of reaching for me, he deposited the portfolio inside the trunk, then slammed the lid shut.

Laporta walked around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. “Come. We will now go to Mrs. Naiman.”

I slid onto the black leather seat and fastened my seatbelt, grateful for the comfort of traveling upright and minus a sack over my head or zip ties binding my wrists.