Chameleon's Death Dance Page 5

  All of Abramowitz’s transactions with stolen art, contracts with other brokers and thieves, and the link to the bank account where he held his illegal profits were detailed there. He’d done well for himself, I thought as I looked at the deed for an island in the strait between the mainland and Vancouver Island. The bank account contained almost a hundred million credits. I also discovered he had no heirs. The only beneficiary of his will was Karen Schultz, his adopted granddaughter, whose name matched that of his secretary.

  At that point, I was in a position to make far more money from Abramowitz’s death than I would make if I fulfilled Chung’s contract. On the other hand, I had a lot of information that might help me find the Dutch paintings. Decisions, decisions.

  The issue of right and wrong bugged me. Abramowitz probably died because he tried to help me. His granddaughter was definitely an innocent caught in a bad situation. Not to mention that I was sure the same rich puppet master who ordered his murder had also paid someone to kill me.

  With a few keystrokes, I would be a very rich woman thanks to Abramowitz. I felt that I owed him. Besides, the man who had tortured him was a very, very nasty guy. If I could find him, I could make the world a better place with a single bullet.

  My growling stomach sent me out of the house to an upscale pizza place a few blocks away. Their advertising said that they used imitation meat, rather than the tasteless soy products of a cheaper place. While I munched on a slice with a very good local beer, I came to a decision. I’d scout out the suspects I found in Abramowitz’s files and then decide whether to pursue the paintings.

  When I got back to the house, I checked the news. Someone had reported Danielle missing, and together with the attempt on her life the day before, it was all over the news. Considering that she wasn’t a real person, I certainly didn’t want anyone contacting the real Kincaid organization about her.

  I picked up Danielle’s phone and called Cheryl.

  “Danielle? Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I saw my name in the news.”

  “You disappeared. The cops think you were kidnapped or murdered.”

  “Not that I noticed. I just didn’t feel like sticking around when someone was trying to kill me.”

  “The police searched your hotel room, and your car is still in the garage.”

  “A friend of mine sent his plane for me. I didn’t think it was a good idea to advertise where I’ve gone. Hey, next time I’m in Vancouver, I’ll give you a call.”

  For the police, I made a video call to Inspector Fenton. After I convinced him that I really was alive and speaking freely, he said he’d call off the search and notify the media. About three or four hours later, the stories about Danielle disappeared from the net.

  Chapter 6

  Before the contract with Chung, I hadn’t been in Vancouver for several years, and other than my forays out with Wil, I hadn’t spent any public time on that trip as Libby. Although I had cover as a contractor to NAI, it went against the grain to work with the police, if I could avoid it.

  Reviewing the list of Abramowitz’s illicit customers, I narrowed the possible destinations for the Dutch masters. Clark and Robertson would have made my trimmed list, but I hadn’t seen the paintings at their houses. Considering how prominently they displayed stolen paintings, I crossed them off the list.

  I had been in the houses of two other possibilities when I burgled them and hadn’t seen the paintings there, either. At the end, I had three names, plus Langston Boyle. A check of Boyle’s bank accounts didn’t show the kind of money necessary to purchase a Rembrandt. I found three deposits between one and ten million that coincided with transactions recorded between him and Abramowitz, and I decided they were probably commissions. Boyle was acting as a broker as well as doing authentication.

  Boyle might be susceptible to pressure. The other three were not. Dominique Aquilini, Jean Audain, and Gilbert Harrison were all names Abramowitz had given me when I met with him. Old, old Vancouver families with truckloads of money. All three were in their sixties, married to their third wives, with reputations as hard-driving, competitive executives. A perusal of Abramowitz’s records showed a number of legitimate and illegitimate art purchases made by each of them, including Dutch artists of the Golden Age.

  I downloaded plans of each suspect’s main home from the Vancouver Planning Department and began studying them.

  Since I had installed security in museums in the past, I was well aware of their weaknesses. Three days after Abramowitz’s murder, I went to the Vancouver Art Gallery, paid the entry fee, and spent the afternoon enjoying the exhibits. Shortly before closing, I went to the ladies’ room, picked the lock on the custodian’s closet, and settled in to wait. My handbag was full of snacks and other food that didn’t need to be cooked.

  That night, after the lights were dimmed and the security guards had made their rounds, I went to the door Langston and I went through the night he took me to the museum. I used his passcode to let myself into the maintenance hallways. Making my way to that special room where Langston kept his illicit treasures, I again let myself in.

  The room had a desk and chair, and a small couch. I set up two alarms, one in the hall and another on the door, that would broadcast to an earbud, and went to sleep.

  I spent the following day reading, checking the news on my phone, and eating some of the food I brought. The day after that was much the same until late in the afternoon. The alarm in the hall went off.

  I got up from the couch, turned off the light, and morphed into one of my male personas. Picking up my pistol, I stood next to The Beach at Trouville, which I had moved to the desk.

  Langston came into the room, turned on the light, and closed the door. He held a padded frame, either bringing a painting with him or planning to take one away. Setting the frame down, he turned and stopped as he saw that the easel where the Monet had rested was empty.

  “I’ve always enjoyed Monet,” I said.

  Langston whirled around and stared at me. I saw his eyes zero in on the pistol.

  “I could never afford one,” I continued, “but it didn’t occur to me that I didn’t have to buy it. I guess you can just steal them.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Does it matter? You’re screwed, Mr. Boyle. The director of an internationally known museum brokering stolen art. Tsk, tsk. You of all people should know that stealing from the rich is a no-no. You’ll be lucky if they sentence you to a mine on earth. I hear the space colonies are a real bitch.”

  “How did you get in here?”

  “Teleportation, Mr. Boyle. There are a lot of strange mutations.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Ah, a much more intelligent question. I want to know your buyer. In fact, I want to know your buyers for all of your stolen goods.”

  “Are you crazy? They’ll kill me.”

  “You’re assuming that I won’t. What did you tell David Abramowitz?”

  All the color drained from his face, and he swayed. “I didn’t have anything to do with David’s death.”

  “Did Abramowitz ask about some Dutch paintings? He knew that you authenticated them.”

  “I haven’t spoken to David for weeks.”

  He was a lousy liar. I looked at the Monet and then at the frame Boyle had brought. The sizes seemed to match. I motioned with the gun.

  “Put the Monet into the travel frame,” I said.

  Boyle’ head swiveled back and forth looking from the painting to the frame.

  “You can’t take that!” His voice changed from shaky to panicked.

  “You’re not going to stop me. The only question you should worry about is whether you leave this room alive.”

  I watched him package the painting and hook a carry strap to it. It wasn’t insured by NAI, but I was sure whoever the insurance company was, they would pay to get it back.

  As I crossed the room to the door to leave, I said, “You can have the pain
ting back if you tell me where the Rembrandt and the Van Gogh are.” He stood mute, breathing heavily and watching me with too-bright eyes.

  “Oh, well.” I walked up beside him, put the muzzle of my pistol against his head, and shot him in the neck with the jet spray I held in my other hand. The fast-acting paralytic dropped him to the floor in a heap. I didn’t want him dead.

  Searching through his pockets, I found his phone, opened it, and slipped a tiny chip inside. I was curious who he would call when he woke up in the morning. All indications were that he planned to deliver the Monet that evening. The people expecting him probably wouldn’t be happy when Langston didn’t show up.

  I carried the painting through the maintenance hallways to near the main entrance and let myself out into the public hallways. The security guards stopped me and scanned the package, but it hadn’t been chipped as all legitimate acquisitions would be.

  “It’s my class project,” I told them. “I brought it in here just an hour ago to show my professor. Call Dr. Boyle and ask him.”

  While they called and talked to their superiors, I walked out the door, blurred my image, and essentially disappeared. I stood against a wall and watched people run around looking for me, but they gave up after about forty minutes. Then I walked two blocks, put the painting in my van, morphed back to myself, and went home.

  I was starving. I took a shower, then went out to dinner. On the way home, I picked up some more food I could microwave and some coffee.

  Sitting at my kitchen table the following morning, I listened for Boyle to make a phone call. As I enjoyed my second cup of coffee with a microwave quiche, I heard his phone connect.

  “Where have you been?” a man’s voice said.

  “There’s a problem,” Boyle answered.

  “I don’t pay for problems. Where is the package?”

  Boyle stammered a bit, but finally said, “It’s been stolen. A man robbed me last night.”

  A few moments of silence, then, “That is unfortunate.” The man’s voice was frosty cold, then he evidently hung up.

  I scrambled to get dressed, morphed into Jasmine Keller—a female persona I often used—then drove to the museum and parked across the street. I had always seen Boyle chauffeured in a limo, but I knew he owned a car. I located it in the museum parking lot in his reserved space, and waited for him to come out.

  His night on the floor didn’t do his suit any favors, so Boyle looked a bit rumpled when he rushed out of the museum and jumped in his car. He carried a long thin black box. I couldn’t figure out what he’d been doing in the hour since his phone call, and he hadn’t called anyone else.

  He drove downtown and into the parking garage under a skyscraper. I sat outside and used my tablet to scan the companies with offices there. The largest was BCR—British Columbia Resources—but none of their executives were on my list. The other possibilities for whom he was visiting were a couple of banks.

  From there, he led me off the island and out to the North Shore to a house in an upper-middle class neighborhood. He parked in the garage and let himself in. That surprised me. I had assumed he lived in a fancy apartment building in the downtown area.

  I drove past and parked around the corner. Blurring my form, I snuck up to his house and peered in the windows until I saw him in a room that looked like an office. He was pulling things out of a safe and stuffing them in a bag.

  From there, he went to another room where he packed a suitcase. Retrieving a cooler from the garage, he filled it with food from the refrigerator. Then he hauled it all to the garage and backed his car out to the street.

  I sprinted back to my van and followed him again.

  We traveled back toward downtown, but as soon as we crossed the last bridge, he turned right and drove along the waterfront. Turning into a side street toward the water, he used a card or passcode to go through a gate that shut behind him. I parked in a public lot across the street, blurred my form, and followed him.

  That involved climbing over a fence and jogging down the street he’d taken. It dead-ended at the water. I checked left and right, but couldn’t see his car. With a shrug, I decided to try going left. As I trotted along, I passed docks and boats on my right.

  About a hundred yards down the street, I sighted Boyle with the cooler in his hands. He carried it onto a large boat and disappeared. A couple of minutes later, he reappeared and went back to his car. Taking his suitcase out of the trunk, he carried that toward the boat.

  Boyle was on the gangplank, and I was drawing near enough to see his face when his head exploded. His body pitched forward into the water, and the suitcase tumbled off on the other side.

  Even though I was essentially invisible, I dove for cover out of reflex. I recovered quickly, sticking my head up and looking around for the shooter. As far as I could tell, I was the only witness. I had passed a few other people on my way there, but no one was near us. I scanned the area, waiting for the shooter to show himself. I wouldn’t have if I were him. My father had drilled that into me until it was second nature to slink away from a kill, whether people could see me or not.

  My father hadn’t trained the assassin. A couple of minutes after Boyle was shot, a man stood up on top of a two-story building near where I had parked my car. I estimated the distance at close to three hundred yards. That had been a hell of a shot.

  I pulled a pair of small binoculars from my bag and zeroed in on his face. I memorized it, sure that I was looking at the man who had tried to kill Danielle. Who had tried to kill me. If I had a rifle with me, I would have taken him out right then and there, but I only had my pistol. A three hundred yard shot with a pistol wasn’t even close to realistic. I watched as he packed up and left, carrying a briefcase that contained his rifle.

  Knowing I had no chance to catch him, I dashed for the boat. I had to pick my way over part of the gangplank carefully to avoid stepping in the contents of Boyle’s head. The police would be there at some point, and I didn’t want them thinking anyone had been on the boat after the murder. I noted Boyle’s body floating in the water, and then saw the suitcase, which appeared to be sinking.

  I jumped down into the boat. Scooping up the bag Boyle had filled from his safe and slinging the strap over my shoulder, I headed for the stairs going below the deck. A quick search revealed two cabins, a galley, and a bathroom. Vaguely, I remembered that boat people called that the head.

  I opened every door and drawer but didn’t see anything of interest. I pulled out a drawer under the bed in the second cabin and stopped. The two cabins were identical, but that drawer was shallower than under the other bed. Pulling it all the way out, I shined a flashlight into the space and saw a long black box against the wall. It was out of my reach, but I remembered a funny little pole with a hook I’d found in the closet. I grabbed it and hooked the box, pulling it out onto the floor. It was heavy, as was the bag I’d picked up.

  The drawer slid back into place and I stood, trying to think where I should look next. That’s when I heard footsteps on the gangplank.

  A quick look around confirmed that I was trapped. I stepped up onto the bed and backed into the darkest corner of the cabin while I drew my pistol. Whoever it was repeated my search of the other cabin while I hunched down trying to muffle the sound of my breathing.

  Then the assassin who shot Boyle appeared in the doorway of the cabin where I hid. I shot him, and he stumbled backward out into the hall, but I didn’t hear him fall. I waited, listening for any sound. A scuffling noise was followed by the sound of footsteps going away.

  I cautiously crawled off the bed and crept to the doorway. The hall was empty, and I followed a blood trail up the stairs. Peeking out of the hatch, I saw a man going down the gangplank at a stumbling run with one arm hanging awkwardly at his side. I snapped off a shot at him. He jerked but kept going and ducked behind Boyle’s car.

  My urge was to jump up and follow, but my quarry was a very dangerous man. Following him, even with my image blurred, woul
d put me in the open. When I moved, someone paying close attention could see me.

  Instead, I crept across the deck, using as much cover as I could. The sound of a car starting, then backing up along the street away from me, told me the shooter was escaping. I fired three shots at the car, and one hit the windshield, but he kept going. When he reached the cross street, his car screeched to halt, and with squealing tires, drove forward around the corner.

  I decided to follow his lead and get out of there. I picked my way across the gangplank. The blood trail got heavier as I followed it, but it didn’t noticeably increase past where I had shot him the second time. He was hurt, and he didn’t know what I looked like. I called that a win.

  Other than the splash of Boyle’s body hitting the water and the noise from the shooter’s car, the entire incident had been very quiet. Both of us had silencers on our guns. I passed a couple of people getting ready to take their boat out on the water, but otherwise I didn’t see any activity at all as I exited the marina and retrieved my car from the lot across the street.

  Chapter 7

  While I wanted to call my father and talk to him, that wasn’t possible. We never discussed business on the phone. Instead, I sent him an encrypted email.

  What can you tell me about a shooter, about six-two to six-four, muscular, large round head either bald or shaved, nose broken at least once? Probably in his forties. Very accurate.

  Boyle had tried to run. He tried that one phone call, and realized his luck had run out. His boat was easily large enough to take him down to Seattle or San Francisco. I didn’t know that much about boats. Maybe he could have taken it to Asia. Whoever he called knew about the boat, had guessed correctly as to what Boyle would do, and taken swift and decisive action.

  Curious about what Boyle had tried to take with him, I drove back to my house and hauled the box and the bag inside.