Moving Target (15 page)

“Ms. Risa Sheridan.”

“Sheridan, Sheridan,” Garrison muttered. Nothing came to mind, probably because he was still thinking of his obsessed and obsessive grandfather. “Do I know her?”

“Socially?”

Garrison looked at the ceiling. Sheila’s voice and body were first-rate, but her brains were touch and go. Mostly go. “Professionally.”

“House of Warrick has sold her some fine gold artifacts,” Sheila said primly.

“Collector?”

“Collector’s curator.”

Garrison reached for the dregs of his lunchtime coffee, swallowed, and grimaced. Some day he figured he would learn that transcontinental flights doubled the hangover effect of alcohol. But if several years as an Army Ranger hadn’t taught him the price of too much of a good thing, he doubted that comfortable civilian flights had a chance.

“Who’s her boss?” he asked, swallowing again. He had a taste in his mouth that even bad coffee couldn’t cut.

“Shane Tannahill.”

“Oh,
that
Sheridan. Sure. Risa. Black hair and . . .” His voice trailed off.

Risa was built like a teenager’s wet dream and had the kind of mouth a man wanted to sin in, but he didn’t think his relentlessly proper assistant wanted to hear about that. Not during office hours, anyway. After hours, sweet Sheila could suck chrome off a bumper hitch. She was such a talented and energetic little lady that a man could forgive her for weighing in on the light end of the IQ scale. Risa was the opposite, at least when it came to IQ. He hadn’t had an opportunity to test-drive her in the bedroom, so he couldn’t speak for her sexual abilities.

“. . . a semi-southern accent, right?” he asked.

“Is that what it is, sir? I thought she might be eating cold oatmeal.”

When Garrison heard the edge in his assistant’s voice, he decided not to meet her for a midnight snack in a downtown hotel. Sheila was getting possessive. He didn’t need that kind of greed in an occasional lover, no matter how talented she was. He had enough of that sort of smothering, grasping thing with his mother. It had driven him into the army at eighteen until he realized that saying
Yes, SIR!
wasn’t that different from saying
Yes, Mother.

He smoothed his silk school tie against his crisp white shirt, rearranged his French wool jacket, and said, “Thanks, Sheila. I’ll take the call.”

He punched in the blinking button, activated the speakerphone, and leaned back. The microphone was sensitive enough to pick up the sirens out in the streets, much less his carefully enunciated words.

“Ms. Sheridan, this is an unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?”

“Actually it’s more like what you can do for my boss, Shane Tannahill.”

“Ah, yes. The Golden Fleece. I believe I read something about Las Vegas’s newest casino in the
New York Times
last week.”

“Suitably snotty, I trust?”

“Definitely.”

“Excellent. Nothing irritates the cultural mavens as much as someone with a lot of money who collects the kind of art they don’t approve of.”

Garrison laughed. “Fortunately, the House of Warrick doesn’t limit itself to Manhattan haute art.”

On the other end of the line, Risa Sheridan gave a businesslike laugh of appreciation and looked at her boss.

Shane Tannahill was watching her with eyes the color—and softness—of dark-green jade. The long-sleeved cotton shirt he wore exactly matched his eyes, just as his slacks were the same shade of dark brown as his hair. He could have spoken at any time and revealed his presence to Garrison but chose not to. He was here to judge just how close Risa was to the charming scion of the House of Warrick. Some closeness was a business asset. Too much coziness could cost him money.

A lot of it.

“Not haute art, perhaps, but certainly haute cost,” Risa said dryly.

“Of course. The first thing I learned in the army was that there’s no profit in poverty.”

Her laugh was less businesslike this time. She wasn’t sure if she liked Garrison Warrick, but she had to admit he could be amusing. His cheerful capitalism was a refreshing change from the sanctimony of some gallery owners who sold cultural status at inflated prices to the nouveau riche and eternally gullible.

“There might be profit for both of us in an interesting rumor that has come to my attention,” Risa said. “If it wouldn’t take too much of your valuable time . . .”

He took the opening graciously. “I always have time for rumor. It’s the lifeblood of the art industry. What do you have?”

“It’s more like what you have. You know the gold gallery that Mr. Tannahill is creating for his casino?”

“Doesn’t everyone? I was hoping you would need something that Mr. Tannahill’s, er, resources couldn’t supply. If so, the House of Warrick stands ready to provide you with what you need. And, of course, you will have the full weight of our excellent reputation behind any acquisition we make on your behalf. Clean provenance is our specialty.”

Shane’s black eyebrows rose. Although Garrison hadn’t said anything outright, his choice of words and tone of voice certainly implied that some of Shane’s sources for art were dubious.

Which they were. They were also some of his most reliable providers of gold art and artifacts.

“I’m aware of the impeccable reputation of the House of Warrick,” Risa said. “That’s why I called you as soon as I heard the rumor of a twelfth-century Celtic manuscript page that was heavily decorated in gold. While my expertise is in ancient gold jewelry, I believe that gold illumination was rare in Insular Celtic manuscripts?”

“Very rare,” Garrison agreed.

Risa waited.

Listening, watching, Shane “walked” a solid gold pen end over end between the fingers of one hand: back and forth, back and forth, like a golden shuttle weaving hypnotically between his fingers. His eyes never left his curator’s lush, oddly aloof mouth. There was no telltale tightening of the voluptuous lips, no flattening at the corners, nothing to indicate that she was under unusual tension.

Idly he decided once again that although his curator wasn’t beautiful in the usual sense of the word, her face rewarded study. Her body was like her mouth, lush and inviting even though she did nothing in particular to emphasize the curving difference between breasts and waist and hips.

Risa was uncomfortably aware of Shane’s assessing glance and leashed impatience. “Have you heard of such a page?” she asked Garrison bluntly.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“The House of Warrick is investigating the possibilities.”

Garrison’s bland voice didn’t fool Risa. “Have you seen the page?” she asked.

“Yes. Briefly.”

“Is it for sale?”

There was a long pause. Then Garrison sighed loudly enough to be caught by the microphone. “It’s a very delicate situation.”

“In what way?”

“We feel the pages should be investigated with great, shall we say, skepticism, before they are accepted into the marketplace. Certainly before the House of Warrick represents them.”

“Does this skeptical ‘we’ include Norman Warrick?”

“Most definitely.”

Risa looked at her boss.

Smoothly Shane flipped the pen into writing position and printed across her desk calendar:
GET IT
.

“Nonetheless, Mr. Tannahill would like to see the page,” Risa said.

The only hint of her disapproval was in the slight cooling of her smoky voice. Dubious provenance was the kind of red flag that warned off a reputable curator, and Risa Sheridan was determined to be reputable. She hadn’t been born with a solid gold spoon in her mouth as Shane Tannahill had. Although in his case, it was more like a platinum spoon with pavé diamonds.

She was sure there had to be drawbacks to being the offspring of one of the richest computer entrepreneurs ever to walk the earth, but offhand she couldn’t think of any. It beat the hell out of having cockroaches crawl out of your bathroom plumbing.

“Which page, precisely?” Garrison asked.

“It was described to us as a carpet page consisting almost entirely of a major initial or joined initials heavily foiled in gold.”

Garrison made a sound that could have meant anything from agreement to skepticism. “Was the person describing it to you familiar with illuminated manuscripts?”

“We’re satisfied with the person’s credentials.” Wryly Risa thought that Garrison would be, too, if she told him the name. Jane Major was an adviser to the House of Warrick. Her specialty was medieval iconography. “Do you have such a page?”

“At the moment, no.”

“Can we expect that to change?”

“Life is change, Ms. Sheridan. That’s how we know we’re not dead.”

Risa rolled her eyes. “Mr. Tannahill had hoped for a more specific change.”

“What if the page isn’t what it seems?”

Shane’s eyelids half lowered almost lazily as he walked the pen back and forth over his hand; it was a trick used by magicians and cardsharps to keep their fingers flexible. Then, with no warning, the pen vanished, he stood up, and walked out of the room.

But before he left, he tapped the piece of paper that said
GET IT
.

Risa settled back in her chair, crossed her nylon-clad legs, and went to work finding out just how much Shane’s obsession with owning the best and brightest of all kinds of gold artifacts was going to cost this time.

T
hank you for coming in on such short notice,” Dana said as she led several Donovans down the hall toward one of Rarities’s clean rooms.

“No problem,” Kyle Donovan said. “We were meeting with some of our Pacific Rim partners in L.A. when your call was forwarded from Seattle.”

“Speak for yourself,” Archer Donovan cut in with the ease of an older brother. “Hannah’s going to have my head if I’m not home in time to bathe our sweet little monster.”

Lawe Donovan snorted. Like Kyle, he had sun-streaked blond hair. Unlike Kyle, his face had been weathered under too many foreign suns. “Monster? Little Attila? What are you talking about, bro? Your baby son is just like you, right down to the black hair and jugular instinct.”

“Talk about the pot insulting the kettle,” Archer said, raising his eyebrows. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have one of your own.”

“A wife or a kid? Forget it. I’ve got enough trouble as it is.” Lawe looked at the firm flex and sway of Dana’s hips. She was worth the trip across town to see. He had heard about that walk of hers from other Donovan men, but he hadn’t believed it. Nice. Really nice.

Smiling to herself, Dana led the way to the clean room. Some people would have been overwhelmed by being in the presence of three Donovan males, all of whom had lived in some rough places and topped six feet by a margin that would have made Rarities Unlimited’s modestly built helicopter pilot see shades of red. Dana wasn’t in the least intimidated by the Donovans. She liked big men. It was ever so much more satisfactory to put them in their place. The first time she did it, they always had such an endearing look of surprise on their face.

Not that she expected to be putting any Donovans down. The whole tribe was known to be smart, honest, and tough enough to get the job done. That was all Dana asked of anyone, and a hell of a lot more than she usually got.

Except with Niall.

He was the exception to too damn many of her rules. Someday she would have to do something about it.

“I checked the list of Susa’s works with her gallery in Manhattan,” Dana said. “Julian said he’d never heard of Sidewalk Sunset. The signature is a little off, too, but nothing that really rings bells. Artists often change their signature throughout a career. Artistic styles, too.”

“What did Julian think of the painting itself?” Archer asked.

“He waffled. Said he would have to see it in person.” Dana shrugged and opened the door. “Knowing Julian, he would waffle after he got here, too. He’s really testy about any of the Donovan matriarch’s—er, Susa’s—work that doesn’t come through him.”

“Understandable,” Archer said dryly. “He’s had her exclusively for twenty years.”

“But,” Lawe said, staring at the painting on the easel in the center of the room, “she’s been painting since she was six.”

There was silence for a few minutes while everyone looked at Sidewalk Sunset. Though the Donovans had been raised in the presence of their mother’s talent and therefore took it for granted, the older they grew the more they realized how unique she really was.

One after another, the Donovan brothers nodded.

“Is that a yes-this-is-hers or a yes-this-is-a-fraud kind of nod?” Dana asked.

“It’s hers,” Lawe said. He stepped forward and stopped just short of touching the painting. There was an odd, remembering kind of smile on his lips. “She did this for Justin and me on our eighth birthday. We were whining about wanting to go to the mountains or the coast or some other wild, beautiful place they couldn’t afford back then, and Mom—Susa—said there was beauty everywhere if we knew how to look. To prove it she painted the sunset reflected in puddles of rain on the sidewalk.” He touched the frame of the painting with gentle fingertips. “Lord, that was a long time ago.”

“Stop,” Archer said. “I’m older than you are.”

“I’m not,” Kyle said smugly.

“Up yours,” Archer and Lawe said as one.

Lawe looked at the painting for a moment longer, remembering a time when the world was much simpler, but he had been too innocent to appreciate it.

“Is the painting for sale?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dana said dryly, “but you just raised the price considerably by attributing it to one of the foremost living artists on the North American continent.”

He looked over his shoulder and gave her the kind of quick, uncalculated smile that had made more than one woman decide it would be worth the effort to round off a few of his rough edges. “I’m good for it.”

“If he isn’t,” Archer said, looking at Lawe intently, “I am.” It had been a long time since he had seen Lawe truly smile. If it took one of Susa’s pictures to keep that smile within reach, then Sidewalk Sunset was about to have a new owner.