An Unintentional Affair (The Affair Series Book 1) (8 page)

“I actually started out
as a crime scene investigator for a federal agency. You know, the whole CSI
thing like you see on those crime shows. Then a couple of years ago a friend of
mine who worked for a high-end jeweler asked me if I would help them track down
some stolen property for a commission based on the value of what I recovered.
It sounded interesting and a lot less gruesome than my daily grind. Turns out I
was pretty good at it, so it wasn’t long before I had made a name for myself
tracking down stolen goods. The FBI called me in on this case a few weeks ago.
Their trail had gone cold, and more paintings were turning up as forgeries. I
was the one who made the connection with Clint, the photographs, and the
forgeries.”

“That’s fascinating!
How did you figure out I worked for Clint?”

“We tracked down the
payroll records from his quarterly tax payment, so I had your name, address,
and Social Security number. I also found an old picture of you from your
Virginia driver’s license, so I knew what you looked like. I asked to be
assigned to you to find out how you were involved. Another guy has been
investigating Sam, and someone else has been following Clint and Myra. When I
asked you all of those questions about your work the other night, I just wanted
to be sure I had my facts straight about everyone who worked there.”

I was stunned. My
expression must have told the story about how I felt, because Adam got up from his
chair and sat down on mine, and took my hands in his. “Emily, I am totally
blown away by you. I told you before that I never intended to get involved with
you when I started this assignment, but you’ve captured my heart. I want to be
with you and protect you.” He leaned in and kissed me tenderly.

His words were very
loving and sincere. “Thank you. I know you mean that.” I wrapped my arms around
his neck and hugged him.

“Let’s get out of
here,” he said, helping me out of the chaise.

We locked up the loft
and started walking down the block, hand in hand. We came upon a sidewalk café that
had some heat lamps going. It was the perfect spot to sit outside and have a
bite to eat. After we ordered, I started thinking about Monday morning again.
Thankfully, I had finished up formatting all of the photos of the oils from
last week. That didn’t leave too much for me to think about except prepping for
the shoot on Thursday, which wouldn’t take too much brainpower. It would be
hard to focus on anything very involved. “What should I do if I see any sign of
something significant that I hadn’t noticed before?”

“Just make a mental
note of it. Don’t do
anything
that would call attention to the fact that
you know something about the forgeries. If they find out you know anything
about it, you might not be safe. We’re going to try to close in on them before the
shoot Thursday so we can catch them with a forgery before they can make the
next swap.”

“Ugh! I hate this!”

“I know, sweetheart. It
will be over soon.”

We ate dinner and went
back to my apartment. It felt like a closet compared to Adam’s loft. “I’m sorry
for the cramped quarters. Your loft is so…lofty,” I said, trying to laugh about
it.

“It’s cozy here. All of
your touches make it very comfortable.” He walked over to a photo that had been
taken at my college graduation. “Is this your family?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s my sister,
and obviously those are my parents. A lot of people think I look exactly like
my mother.”

“Good-looking group.
You all look very happy.”

“My graduation day from
college was a very happy day. We always seem to bicker when we’re together in
most situations, but we actually all got along that day. Everyone was on their
best behavior.”

“Do you see them
often?”

“No, it’s been a while.
My sister is overseas studying this year, and my parents have been traveling a
lot for my dad’s work. We’ve been talking about trying to get everyone together
at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. We’ll see if we can swing it. Do you
have any brothers or sisters?

“I have a half-sister
who is ten years older than me. She’s married and has two kids. We don’t have a
lot in common and don’t stay in touch. My real father died of cancer when I was
twelve. My mother remarried, but she and my stepfather were killed during a
break-in at our family’s house while I was away at school. That’s why I got
into crime scene investigation. Their case was never solved. I thought maybe I
could figure it out, but so far I haven’t turned up anything new.”

“Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry.
I can’t imagine what it’s like not to have family. Even though we don’t see
very much of each other, we’re pretty close.”

“I work a lot,” he said
with a smile. He kissed my forehead and stared into my eyes. “And now you’re in
my life. I’m very happy.” He kissed me sweetly. Smiling back, I started
yawning. Exhausted from all the events of the weekend and a general lack of
sleep, we decided to turn in early. Monday was going to be a big day.

We crawled into bed in
my tiny bedroom and entwined, skin to skin. Adam brushed the hair away from my
face and kissed me gently. Feeling his smooth, warm skin against me sent
shivers up my spine. My nipples tightened, pushing back against his tight pecs.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and combed my fingers through his silky hair as
our tongues danced. His hands glided up and down my torso, pausing to fondle my
nipples. My tiny bedroom felt like a safe cocoon where we could shut out the
world and revel in each other. Adam took his time seducing me with every touch,
every kiss. He was in complete control, his magical hands exciting every
erogenous zone to the peak of pleasure. I reached for his hard shaft, stroking
softly and rhythmically in sync with his motions. He leaned over and pulled a condom
from his jeans, tore it open behind me, and slowly sheathed himself. Everything
seemed to be happening in slow motion, our emotions intensifying with each
passing moment, and every touch.

“Oh, Emily, you’re so
beautiful,” he said as he rolled over on top of me and slowly pushed inside me.
The intensity of our emotions resonated through every inch of my body, feeling
him against me, inside me with such passion.

“Oh, Adam,” I moaned as
he came hard. He pursed my lips to meet his in a deep, sensual kiss.

“You’re an
extraordinary woman, Emily,” he said softly, staring into my eyes, inches from
my face.

“You certainly make me
feel that way,” I whispered.

We held each other
tightly and drifted off to sleep.

In my dreams, I was
running from something…unidentifiable. I ran and ran, with no particular
destination. Little did I know that I would be running far away.

Monday morning I
arrived at the studio at eight-thirty, thinking I was going to be a little
early. Clint and Sam were packing up the last of the gear for the shoot. Apparently
after I left early Friday, they moved it up from Thursday to Monday.

“You could have let me
know over the weekend. I would have been here to help,” I said to Clint, frustrated
that I hadn’t gotten this update.

“I left you a message
Friday night. I guess you were too preoccupied with whatever it was that had
you spinning last week,” he quipped. I looked down at my phone, and sure
enough, there it was. The little voicemail symbol. I had indeed been
preoccupied with the seductive Adam Comstock and hadn’t noticed Clint’s
message. I didn’t take time to listen to it at that moment, but immediately
jumped into prep mode. This was going to throw everything off.

Sam glared at me. I
knew he was particularly angry that I had neglected the message about work
because of Adam. “Did you have a good weekend?” he asked with disdain. I knew
better than to respond.

We all rode together in
the van over to the gallery. I didn’t have a moment to myself to call or text
Adam to fill him in on the change in plans. I knew he was talking with the FBI
that morning to arrange for the surveillance on Thursday. There wasn’t going to
be any way to make that happen today. I was on my own.

When we arrived at the
gallery, the fortress door was open and there were two places to load in. One
was a tractor trailer-height loading dock, and one was a ramp for vehicles like
ours. We backed up the ramp and unloaded. Sam took the van to park it elsewhere
so the ramp could be available to other deliveries. My mind was racing. I was
trying to keep my eyes and ears open for anything that looked suspicious. I had
to concentrate so it wasn’t obvious that I was distracted and not paying
attention to my job. We were escorted to the storage room where we would set up
to shoot. Clint and I rolled as many cases and carts of gear as we could
manage. Sam would follow with the rest when he got back from parking. About three-quarters
of the room was filled with racks and shelves that stored paintings and
sculpture. The front quarter of the room was an open space where we would set
up to shoot.

I pulled one of the
folding tables off the cart and began to set up the computers. Clint dug into the
camera and lighting cases and began his setup. Sam arrived with the last of the
gear and began assisting Clint. I was surveying all the cases in my mind,
wondering which one held the forgery. I knew it had to be there.

As Clint and Sam were
setting up the backdrop, I saw them talking quietly and looking in my
direction. Sam was pointing at me and toward another pile of equipment. He
grabbed a second folding table and came toward me. “Can I swap tables with
you?” he asked.

“What’s the
difference?”

“This one is a little
more stable for the computers. I haven’t gotten around to fixing that one
properly yet.” I hadn’t noticed a problem, but thought Sam should know, since
he was the keeper of the gear. I moved everything off the table and let him
make the exchange. He took the one I had been using and set it up on the other
side of the room near the backdrop. He staged cases all around it and unpacked
a few items on top.

I kept working on my
prep, formatting the drives. Since the shoot was originally supposed to be
Thursday, I was way behind. I wanted desperately to break away and call Adam,
but I was afraid to leave the room. The swap might happen while I was gone, and
I’d miss any opportunity to help the investigation further. Sam and Clint lit
the backdrop and finished the camera setup as I went about my business,
listening intently and watching when I could. The paintings we were to shoot
were lined up in the rack closest to where they had set up the backdrop. There
were many fewer than our usual workload. I inventoried them and began creating
the I.D. cards. I had no idea which painting Clay (or whoever he was) had
forged, so I looked at each one a little more closely than I might have
normally to see if I could pick out the one that was chosen to disappear. I came
across one titled
Serenity
. I knew this had to be the one. It had been
written up in numerous publications as a contemporary masterpiece, and was
extremely valuable.

I went back to my
station and continued my usual routine, but kept an eye on everything the guys
were doing. So far everything seemed normal. We started shooting, and it was
all moving along in the typical fashion.
Serenity
was finally up.
Click,
click, click, click, click
. The motor drive on the camera snapped away. Change
focal length, change exposure.
Click, click, click, click, click
. Clint
walked over to my work station as he usually did after each painting was shot to
examine the pictures before moving on. I noticed out of the corner of my eye
that Sam was crouched down, working by the table he had swapped out with mine. I
tried to look in that direction without calling attention to the fact that I’d
noticed he was up to something.

Clint started rattling
off commands to me: “Zoom in on that shot so I can see the focus. Can you see
how this one looks with the color correction on it to see if we are even
close?”

I looked past Clint and
saw Sam reaching into a compartment in the table and pulling out the forgery. Clint
was intentionally distracting me, keeping me busy while Sam made the swap. How
many times had I been glued to that computer screen, checking every pixel for
exposure and focus, and completely missed this? I had to keep my cool and
pretend I knew nothing and saw nothing. Sam worked very quickly and quietly. He
had the forgery tucked away back in the rack with all the authentic art and the
next painting was on the stand, ready to be shot.

Clint kept glancing in
Sam’s direction and when he determined that the swap was complete, he visibly
relaxed. He resumed shooting, business as usual, until the last few were paintings
were shot. We began packing up, and as soon as we loaded the last of the gear
into the van, Clint said, “You don’t live too far from here do you, Emily?”

“No, I’m just a few
blocks across town that way.” I pointed east.

“I have to make a
couple of stops on my way back to the studio, so it will be late when I get
back. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? I won’t even count the hours
as comp time,” he joked, kind of a dig at my begging on Friday.

I wasn’t going to
argue. It was only three-thirty and I had to get in touch with Adam and tell
him what had happened. “Thanks, Clint. I owe you one.” The moment the van was
out of his sight, I called Adam.

“This is Adam. I can’t
take your call right now so please leave a message.
Beep
.” Damn, his
voicemail.

“Adam, I need to talk
to you right away. Call me.” I hung up and I texted him:
call me. I have
info

I was almost running
down the street, my heart pounding. This was so crazy.

As I reached my
apartment building, my phone rang. It was Adam. “Adam. Oh, my God. When I got
in this morning, I found out that Thursday’s shoot had been moved up to today.
I saw it happen. It all happened so fast.”

“Where are you?”

“I just got home. Where
are you? I need to see you. I have so much to tell you.”

“I’m just leaving the
FBI. I’ll come to your place. Be there in fifteen.” He hung up.

When I got upstairs, I
fell onto the couch, exhausted and very nervous. I had seen the whole thing go
down. Did Clint or Sam know it? Had they noticed me sneaking a glance in Sam’s direction
as he made the swap? I started replaying the whole sequence of events. The
table exchange had seemed odd to me at the time. Why didn’t I connect the dots and
realize that it had something to do with the forgery? Sam must have customized
that table to hold the paintings securely so they wouldn’t rattle around. I
remembered Clint’s message from Friday night. I connected to my voicemail and
tapped in the password.

“Emily, it’s Clint. Our
shoot Thursday has moved up to Monday. Be here at seven to help Sam and me load
up.” That was the end of the message, but the phone didn’t hang up. I could
hear him talking with Sam.

“I’ll be relieved when
we get this last one done,” Clint said to Sam.

“You really think
they’re just going to let us stop?” Sam asked.

“I can’t do it anymore.
I told Clay that this afternoon when he called to move up the shoot. He just
said, ‘we’ll talk,’ and left it at that. There has to be some way that they
will agree to let us out of this insanity. The money isn’t worth it,” Clint
said.

“I’ll believe it when I
see it,” Sam answered, his voice trailing off as he was walking away.

Papers rustled a little,
as if Clint was moving things around on his desk. Then it sounded as though
Clint had picked up the phone to make another call.

“Hello?...hello?” he
said, and finally ended the message.

**

The intercom buzzed.
“C’mon up!” I was so relieved Adam was finally there. I walked out in the
hallway to meet him as he got to the top of the stairs. “Adam, I saw it happen.
I saw Sam swap the paintings!”

“Slow down. Let’s go
inside.” We entered the apartment, and he closed the door behind him. “Start
from the beginning. What happened?”

“We got there and
unloaded, but Sam had to move the van off the loading dock. Clint and I started
setting up before he got back. I grabbed one of our folding tables to set up
the computers, and I guess I pulled out the one Sam had jury-rigged to hold the
paintings. He made some lame excuse that the table I had taken wasn’t sturdy
enough for the computers and swapped tables with me. He set it up across the
room and surrounded it with open cases so I couldn’t see underneath it. When
the time came to swap the paintings, Clint was distracting me, or tried to
distract me by looking at the shots we had just taken. I saw Sam kneel down
behind the other table and open the side edge of it. He slid the forgery out
and the real painting in. It was so fast but unmistakable. I don’t think either
of them realized I saw it happen, but I’m scared.”

“Do you know where
Clint and Sam are now?”

“No. Clint said he had
to make a couple of stops before going back to the studio, so he didn’t see any
need for me to go with them.”

“Okay. I’m going to let
the FBI know what’s going on, and they can send someone to wait for Clint at
the studio to intercept him there.” Adam immediately got on the phone and
relayed my story to them. They were arranging to send a stakeout to watch the
building and wait for Clint to show up. “Is there a back entrance to the
building or a loading dock where he will unload the van?” Adam asked.

“There’s a service entrance,
but it’s right by the main entrance to the building. Those are the only two
ways in and out of the building.”

Adam wrapped up the
call and said, “Let’s get out of here. If there is any question about whether you
know something, you might not be safe here.”

I packed a bag with
some clothes and toiletries, and we headed back to the hotel. As we walked,
Adam told me the FBI was going to have two agents watch the building and wait
for Clint. They would handle everything from there.

At the hotel, Adam made
a few more calls and checked the computer for updates in the case file. After
an hour or so, I was getting really antsy. Adam said, “Why don’t we get out of
here for a little while.” We walked to the little French bistro around the
corner to get some dinner. The first sip of the tasty Bordeaux took the
slightest edge off my stress. I hadn’t realized how tense I was until that
moment. Adam took my hand and kissed it.

“Are you okay?” he
asked.

“I’m okay. Just kind of
shaken up. I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before.” I
immediately realized how ridiculous that sounded. I mean who
ever
has
this kind of thing happen to them? It’s not like being an accessory to a
robbery was something I should expect to have experience with.

Adam rubbed my back. “I
know, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay.” His voice was so soothing. I loved
that he called me sweetheart. But was it really going to be okay? I suddenly
realized I didn’t have a job anymore.