Gold of Kings (8 page)

T
HE NEXT MORNING, STORM LEFT
Harry in charge of the booth while she went to rush several final items through the vetting process.

Harry was no monk, and his absence of physical desire for this softly vulnerable woman astonished him. He did not feel fatherly. As Harry stood in the booth's entrance and waited for the convention's starting bell, he decided there was only one way to describe how Storm made him feel.

He felt needed.

Nothing—no smiling lady crossing a smoky bar with promise in her eyes, no find uncovered in a forest of coral and old bones—nothing felt quite so fine as the kiss she had laid upon his cheek. One touch to flesh scarred by a lot more than prison, and Harry tipped a mental hat to the lost friend who had sent him here.

As soon as the gates opened, the convention center aisles became rivers of two-legged money. People strolled and shopped and greeted one another with confident tones and polished laughter. Harry made no attempt to hide Storm's cheat sheet. He was amazed at both the prices he quoted and the way people didn't even blink. An hour into the show, he had red reserve tags on two paintings, a jade sculpture, and one of the ruby amulets.

As soon as he spotted the woman in the booth's entryway, Harry knew her as Sean's daughter. Claudia Syrrell was sophisticated, refined, and statuesque and carried her fifty-plus years with the same elegance as another woman might wear pearls.

But she was not Sean.

Storm carried the old man's stamp. Claudia Syrrell merely bore the name.

Claudia searched the booth for her niece. Even her frown was graceful. Harry said, “Ms. Syrrell?”

“Yes.”

“Harry Bennett. Storm got called away. She asked me to handle things for a second.”

“How kind, Mr….”

“Bennett.” He remembered manners drilled into him by a pair of Ivy League lieutenants. How a man never offered a lady his hand, but rather waited for her to decide if she wanted to shake. Which Claudia Syrrell most definitely did not. “I was very sorry to hear about Sean.”

“Did you know my father, Mr. Bennett?”

He liked the quiet sigh that inflected the name. An emotion too strong for even this stylish woman to fully disguise. “He was one of my closest friends.”

She studied the vendor's badge dangling from Harry's neck. “Are you a collector?”

“I have been. Most of it's gone now.”

“Sold through us, I hope.” Not even her cultured tones could quite mask the question's mechanical quality. “Did you have any particular passion?”

Harry noted the delicate way she pried. Her clients weren't in the market for something. They collected. They didn't shop for an item. They had a passion. As though the extra zeros required a different lingo. Harry replied, “Gold, jade, and porcelain mostly. Some silver and pewter, not enough of either. Most recently, sixteenth-century conquistadors' booty.”

“How very interesting. Three years ago, we carried quite an interesting line of Spanish gold artifacts from that same era.”

Harry spotted Storm walking the aisle toward them. He saw how people paused in their shopping and their discussions. Some probably
because of the shadow of loss she carried. But most of them, Harry surmised, because of the woman's aura.

He said to Claudia, “Actually, it was four years back.”

She blinked. “They were yours?”

“Yes.”

“You're a salvager.”

“That's right.”

“One of Sean's unlikely crew.” She noticed Storm. “Well, hello there.”

Storm kissed Claudia's cheek. “You've met Harry.”

Seeing the two women standing side by side only highlighted the difference between them. No doubt Claudia had a natural ease with clients and collectors. Yet Sean's fire was missing from his daughter. The magnetism. The fierce enticement.

Everything Storm had in double portions.

Storm said, “Harry's the man I told you about on the phone. He saved my life.”

Harry knew Claudia wanted to dismiss the claim as overly dramatic. But all she said was, “Would you please excuse us for a moment, Mr. Bennett?”

“No problem.” He started to turn away, then added, “I'm sorry for your loss. Truly.”

“Our loss,” Storm softly corrected.

Harry could see Storm's aunt disliked the comment. He moved purposefully away, but as soon as Claudia returned her attention to her niece, Harry shifted behind the wall adjoining the next booth and listened.

Claudia asked, “How was the opening event?”

“Harry made it bearable. Barely.”

“You took that man to the Exhibition Ball?”

“Sean trusted him.”

“Sean had a soft spot when it came to such people. That man is a salvager, Storm. A treasure hound. They're all borderline insane.” When Storm did not reply, Claudia's voice rose a notch. “Take it from me. Give him one whiff of new treasure and he'd sell you to white slavers.”

“I'm sorry. But you're wrong.”

A young woman stepped out of the neighboring booth and asked Harry, “Can I help you with something?”

“Just looking, thanks.” Harry moved down the aisle. Storm's words were nice. But what really wound his clock was the way she said it. He liked the idea that someone was so confident in him. He liked it a lot. Even when he didn't feel the same way about himself.

 

STORM FOUND HARRY PROWLING THE
aisles, asked him to watch the booth, then joined Claudia for an early lunch. The convention center diner served cold sandwiches and soda in Palm Beach style. Tiny round tables were padded with layers of starched tablecloths. The chairs were plush and the waiters wore dinner jackets. The sandwiches were served on bone china, with little tureens of relish and Dijon mustard and a single orchid at each table.

Claudia chose a table by the aisle. The chattering throng granted them a semblance of privacy. “I'm so tired my bones ache.”

Storm did not need to ask if there was any news. It was written on Claudia's face. “I didn't know you were coming down.”

“I'm not here for the show.” Claudia waited for the waiter to deposit her sandwich and cappuccino. She inspected the baguette wrapped in plastic. “Forty-two dollars for this?”

“Forget the sandwich. Tell me what's going on.”

“I've had more meetings. We're facing unexpected debts, and we're burdened with assets we can't unload fast enough to help us through the crisis.”

Every major dealer lived in terror of scandal. Syrrell's had been struck twice in the space of ten months. A Chagall had been proven to be the work of a master forger, but only after it had been sold to a regional museum. The seller had by then vanished, so Sean had bought it back with funds from his own pocket. Five months later, an even more devastating crisis erupted: a Byzantine silver plate handled through a source Sean had thought to be impeccable turned out to have been stolen. Sean had been forced to swallow that one as well. His pockets might have been deep, but few dealers could handle two such hits in a year and stay afloat.

Storm said, “Sean had no choice. He had to pay them back.”

“Storm, we left blame behind a long while ago.” Claudia took a single bite of her sandwich and pushed the plate to one side. “I've been living on coffee and fear.”

“What aren't you telling me?”

“I've been approached by attorneys representing a buyer.”

“That's great. For which item?”

“For the firm.”

Storm felt her middle congeal into one frozen knot. “You can
not
be serious.”

“I'm meeting their lawyers tonight. In Boca. But some important items have gone missing. Sean's book of contacts for one.”

“You'd give strangers his notebook?”

“The buyer has offered a price high enough to clear our debts, and I'll try to negotiate upward. He gets what he wants. Including the remaining items in Sean's personal collection, which I also can't find.”

“The buyer knows about Sean's private collection?”

“His lawyers do. According to them, Sean recently acquired two new items. An illuminated manuscript and a chalice. How they obtained this information, I have no idea. But they have told me the deal won't go forward without these items. I've searched everywhere.”

“That's why you're here?” Had it not been for the news of the possible sale, Storm would have told her aunt everything. “Who wants to buy Syrrell's?”

“I am specifically ordered not to tell you.”

“Why would they shut me out?”

“They say it's because you were fired.”

“Harry says Sean fired me to protect me. Not that it worked.”

That brought Claudia around. “You've told that salvager everything?”

“Listen to what I'm saying, Claudia. What if the buyer is tied into these attacks?”

“I wish
you
would listen. You are divulging secrets crucial to our company's future to a man who is little more than a pirate.”

“You just told me. It's not my company anymore.” Then it struck her. “Have they offered you a job?”

“Nothing's definite.”

“Oh, this is sweet.”

“Didn't you hear a word I just said? It's this or nothing.”

But Storm was already in departure mode. “Just exactly who are you working so hard to convince?”

 

STORM KNEW SHE SHOULD RETURN
to the booth. But she wandered the aisles, occasionally greeting people without actually seeing who spoke to her. She could not tell which disturbed her more: hearing that Claudia was talking to a buyer, or not telling her aunt about the bank vault and its contents. There had never been secrets between them. Not telling Claudia ripped another shard from her tattered world.

The first time she met Claudia, Storm had been thirteen. An impossibly elegant woman rang their bell one afternoon, then stood in the doorway and stared at Storm and wept. Storm felt naked beneath the gaze of a woman she had never seen before, one who shed tears from the pain of just looking at her.

When the woman recovered, she wiped her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief and said, “You must be Storm.”

Storm had stood there, mute from the distress on the woman's features. The stranger was beautifully refined. Her features were as cultured as her voice. Her clothes were stunning. Everything about her spoke of a world beyond Storm's reach.

The woman asked, “Do you know who I am?”

“My aunt Claudia. I've seen your picture.”

“Can I come in?”

Storm hesitated out of deep shame.

Claudia said, “Joe is my brother, Storm. I know what he's like.”

Storm stepped aside.

As soon as Claudia entered the house, her nose wrinkled at the odor. Dope's sweet, cloying stench permeated everywhere. Storm's shame deepened.

Claudia asked, “Where is he?”

“In his studio.” At least that was what he called it. But the brushes were rock hard and the paint tubes had long become bricks. Whenever anyone visited him, the only items he showed off were his collection of bongs.

“Where is that, Storm?”

“Last door on your left.”

But Claudia remained where she was. “Joe's choices are your future only if you make them so.”

When Claudia started down the hallway, Storm left the house and crouched on the front steps. Claudia didn't stay inside long. When she came out she was no longer sad. Instead, she looked furious.

Claudia slammed the front door behind her. She walked down the three steps to the sidewalk. She stood staring across the street, her jaw clenched tight. Storm studied her intently. Claudia's hair was prematurely grey, matching her blue-grey silk suit. Her eyes were the same opal black Storm saw in the mirror. On the trailing edge of the scarf around her neck Storm could read the name Hermès.

Finally Claudia said, “I don't suppose I need to ask if he's like this often.”

“Almost every day.”

“What about you, Storm? Do you get high?”

Storm liked the woman's directness enough to reveal one of her closely guarded secrets. “When I was seven he started getting my dog stoned. He and his friends. They watched the dog and laughed. Then they tried to do it to me. Like I was just another pet, just another reason for them to laugh.” Storm was breathing hard now. “I hate it.”

“Good.” Claudia looked at her. “If your grandfather knew I was here he would fire me. You know about your father and Sean, my father?”

“I know Daddy hates him.” Raging against Sean Syrrell was another thing Storm's father liked to do when he was high.

Claudia brushed off the step beside Storm and seated herself. “Joe wanted Sean to display some of his paintings in the shop.”

“Joseph,” Storm corrected.

“What?”

“Daddy hates being called Joe.”

Claudia looked at her a moment. “To be perfectly frank, I don't much care what
Joe
does or doesn't hate. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“Sean told him he would do it on two conditions. First, Joe had to attend a proper art school and graduate. Second, he had to clean up his
act and start learning discipline, start honing his gift. Otherwise Sean wouldn't hire Joe to paint his doorpost.”

Storm tasted a smile. “My grandfather said that?”

“He did indeed. The next day, your father stole two items from Sean's private collection. One was a very valuable painting. The artist was Pissarro, an Impressionist painter from France—”

“I know who Pissarro is.”

“The other was a medieval triptych, which is a fancy word for a carving set into three folding panels. The triptych was Sean's most treasured possession. Which is no doubt why Joe took it. There was no hard evidence who the thief was, of course. But we are certain it was Joe. When the theft was discovered, Joe and Sean had a raging battle. Your grandfather disowned Joe and he moved down here. And now I'm tired of talking about your father.” Claudia opened her purse and drew out a card. “Do you know our shop on Palm Beach Island?”