Assault and Beret Page 4

  I sighed. In any event, I don’t think a year ago anyone could have foreseen me tracking down my cousin’s missing husband on a frigid day in January in Paris. But wasn’t that what was so great about life? You never really knew what direction it was going to take.

  Michelle told me that the distance between the museum and the office I was looking for was walkable. As the chill wind slapped my hair across my face and the steel gray clouds above clenched their cumulus fists, promising rain, I was not so sure.

  I passed the Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a massive gray stone church, which was the parish church of the royal family when the Louvre was their palace. It loomed overhead, and when I glanced up, I saw several gargoyles glaring down at me or perhaps trying to spit on me, hard to say.

  Either way, they were pretty cool. I decided right then that all buildings should have gargoyles, and I wondered what Viv would think about putting some on Mim’s Whims. She was artsy so it could go either way.

  We already had an enormous wardrobe that sat in the corner of the shop with a large wooden raven with wings splayed carved on the top. I had nicknamed him Ferd the Bird, and I swear he understood when I spoke to him, which I did frequently.

  Viv, bless her heart, only poked a little fun at my contentious relationship with Ferd. Mostly, he and I got on just fine, but there were days when I was quite sure he was mocking me.

  So, really, a couple of gargoyles on the eaves would fit right in, right? Yeah, I probably needed to work on that argument a bit more. I was clutching my phone in my gloved hands and I had to check it repeatedly to make certain I was going in the right direction.

  The sidewalks were fairly clear. The usual throngs clogging up the walkways that one usually stumbled around in the City of Light were clearly hiding out in bistros or art galleries or napping, which was what I would be doing if I were given the choice. I trudged on.

  A right turn here, a left turn there, a run across Rue de Whatever, and voilà! I rounded a corner and there in front of me was a three-story brick building with a wrought iron gate. The pinpoint on my phone was pointing right to it.

  I glanced at the door and saw a small brass plaque that read O’Toole Insurance. It appeared I had arrived.

  Chapter 4

  I was feeling pretty optimistic about things as I opened the gate and strode up the small flight of stairs to the austere brick building that loomed above me. If things kept going this smoothly, I might even find some time to do some shopping in Paris. Now if that didn’t warm my girlish heart, nothing would.

  The front door was locked. I wondered if this was normal or if it was one of the many subtle changes to life after the attacks in Paris. Yes, people carried on with their lives after suffering through an act of terrorism, but there were always subtle changes that marked the end of the way of life as it had been.

  I scanned the wall for a doorbell or a buzzer. A tiny button was seated in a decorative tile. I pressed the button and heard a buzzer sound inside.

  “Bonne après-midi,” a voice greeted me through an intercom.

  “Good afternoon,” I said. I would have replied in French but my accent is horrible, plus I felt it important to let them know I wasn’t French to keep their expectations of my language skills low.

  “How can we help you?” the voice, a woman’s, asked in softly accented English.

  “My name is Scarlett Parker and I was referred here by Ms. Harvey at the Musée du Louvre,” I said. My instincts were telling me to get in the door before I admitted that I was looking for William Graham. “About acquiring insurance for an installation my cousin has been commissioned to do at a museum.”

  Since that was what I’d told Michelle, it was not a complete lie, at least to these people. To Michelle it had been, and now since she had been so helpful, I felt a little guilty about that, but I assured myself it was for the greater good. Right?

  There was a pause and then I heard the sound of a click as if the door had been automatically unlocked from a remote location. Cool.

  “Please come in,” the voice said.

  I took off my gloves and stuffed them into my pockets. Then I grabbed the cold metal handle and opened the door. I stepped into a foyer with a marble floor and one very large lone white vase, placed in the center of the space with huge plumes of feathers jutting out of it like a multicolored rainbow. It was quite eye-catching, and I wondered if I should snap a picture of it for Viv for reference. Then again, that seemed like bad form.

  A petite woman in an olive green dress and killer black pumps came around the vase. She had a headset on, like she spent her days answering the phones, or I supposed in my case the door.

  “Ms. Parker?” she asked. I nodded and she turned on her heel and waved for me to follow her down a narrow hallway into a series of offices.

  “I’m Helena, I manage the office here. Monsieur O’Toole will be available to speak with you in a few minutes,” she said. She gestured for me to go ahead into the small office and I took a seat across from a desk that was polished to such a high gloss it practically blinded me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Can I get you anything while you wait?” Helena asked.

  I was pretty sure it was in her job description to get me anything I required, and for a wild moment I thought about toying with her and having her make a McDonald’s run for me. But that would just be mean, so I didn’t.

  “No, thank you,” I said. Now I wondered how this was going to go. Should I maintain the lie or come clean and hope for the best? What was the worst that could happen if I told the truth? They could toss me out on my derrière—I went with the French term as it seemed only fitting. That would be bad. Not finding Viv’s husband would be worse. So, I would maintain the lie.

  Minutes ticked by, well, they didn’t actually tick since there was no clock in the room. I had to consult my phone to get the latest time. Repeatedly.

  I debated opening an app on my phone to pass the time with a mindless game or a quick catch-up on the news, but I didn’t want to appear to be the sort of person who couldn’t be still. I have no idea why this seemed important. I glanced around the room. As far as I could tell, no one was watching me, but then again, you never know, which is why I never pick anything in public . . . ever.

  Aside from the gleaming desk in front of me and the soft leather chair I sat in, there was no other furniture in the room. No bookcases, vases of flowers, pictures on the walls, nothing. A glance at the window, and I saw a leafless tree outside, looking like it would crawl inside to get warm if it could just figure out how to lift its roots out of the ground. I felt a sigh start in my chest but I pinched it off. I was so close to finding Viv’s husband, surely I could be patient for a few more minutes.

  After what seemed like a long lunch hour but was really just twenty minutes according to my phone, a portly gentleman entered the office. He looked as fastidious as the dustless room I was sitting in. Truly, one would think that an art insurer’s office would have impeccable works of art on display or at least some sort of aesthetic. This room was as barren as the grocery store bread aisle before a storm.

  Monsieur O’Toole was short with chubby fingers and a bald head that was fringed with tufts of wiry gray hair. His glasses were readers and were perched on the end of his nose as if that was their permanent spot.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said. His accent marked him as a Brit and I was surprised to find I was homesick for the accent that I had been listening to every day for the past ten months. London really was becoming home to me. Or maybe it was just Harrison Wentworth’s particular accent that I longed for, and hearing a British man, any man, made me heartsick for him. I shook my head. Now was not the time to be daydreaming about Harry.

  “Welcome to O’Toole Insurance,” Mr. O’Toole said. “Ms. Parker, was it?”

  “Yes, Scarlett Parker,” I said.

  “A
pleasure. Now I understand you are looking to have us insure some items for a museum,” he said. He leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his fingers together as if he was holding an invisible ball.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I said. My brain was doing loop de loops as it moved through possible segues in conversation that would get me some information on William Graham.

  I could say he was my cousin—not a total lie since he was married to Viv and therefore he was a cousin of sorts. Nah, too weird. Why wouldn’t I have asked for him to begin with? Of course, he was an American so I could say that I knew him from the States. Hmm, my brain churned and I was wondering if Mr. O’Toole smelled the smoke.

  “What sort of items are we considering?” he asked.

  “Hats,” I said. I felt myself sliding down the slippery slope into out-and-out lying.

  He tipped his head to the side. Obviously, I was the first to ask for that.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Are these vintage? Collectible? Rare discoveries?”

  “No,” I said. “My cousin is a hat designer in London and she’s been commissioned to design an assortment of hats for a show featuring the fashion of, well, honestly I don’t know. I’m more the people-pleasing portion of the business.”

  “But you’re thinking you’ll need the hats insured,” he said. “What sort of coverage were you looking for?”

  I had no clue. This is why we have Harrison as a business manager. He handles all of this minutiae for us. Why do people have insurance? I had no idea.

  “Fire?” I asked. Yes, I know. I’m an idiot. It was the first thing that leapt to mind and I went with it.

  Thankfully, Mr. O’Toole had a sense of humor, and after blinking at me for a moment, he busted out a belly laugh that made his middle jiggle and his double chin wag.

  I smiled, mostly in relief that he had taken my stupidity as wit. Sometimes, life gives you a pass.

  There was a rap on his door and Mr. O’Toole turned his attention toward it.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I am expecting a report.”

  “Of course.”

  I waited in my chair while he rose out of his seat and opened the door. I glanced over his shoulder to see who I owed a thank-you to for interrupting what had become a rather stressful meeting, which happens when you have no idea what you’re talking about and are busting out big fat whoppers.

  My first impression was that the man on the other side of the door was impossibly tall and broad, good-looking in that straw-haired, raw-boned, “plow the field shirtless on a tractor” sort of way.

  “William, just the man I was hoping to see,” Mr. O’Toole said. “Come in.”

  The name snapped my attention to the doorway. My gaze met William’s and his eyes narrowed as if he thought he knew me but he couldn’t place me. Of course, I knew it was because I have the same blue eyes as his wife but how does one work that into a conversation?

  “Ms. Parker, this is one of our insurance investigators, William Graham,” Mr. O’Toole said. He gestured between us and William stepped farther into the room to shake my hand.

  So this was Viv’s husband. Huh. I liked his face. He was handsome but it was in a rugged sort of way. His features were rough-hewn, not fine, and he looked like he knew how to take a punch and, even better, knew how to throw one.

  His hand was large as it wrapped around mine and his smile reached his caramel-colored eyes when he looked at me. I liked that about him, too. He had a way about him that made me think everything was going to be okay; it was a certain world-weary confidence that radiated the feeling that there wasn’t much he hadn’t seen, and no matter what came up, he knew how to take care of it.

  Oh, yeah, it was easy to see why Viv, in mourning for Mim and feeling at a loss, fell for him so hard and so fast.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. He had no idea how much!

  “The pleasure is mine,” he said. I gave him points for being charming as well. “But I have to say I feel as if we’ve met before. Could it have been back in the States, perhaps?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I was very aware of Mr. O’Toole glancing between us. Now was not the moment to bring up Viv, not in front of an audience. “I have that sort of face. People always think I’m their cousin, niece, neighbor, former babysitter, you name it.”

  He tipped his head while he looked at me. “I’d never confuse you for my babysitter.”

  His crooked smile delivered the joke and again I understood why Viv had been swept off her feet. William Graham was a charmer.

  “Ha ha,” Mr. O’Toole laughed, making his belly jiggle. “Very good.” He turned to William and said, “About that matter?”

  “It was just as we suspected and it’s all taken care of,” he said.

  “Documentation?” O’Toole asked.

  “But of course,” William said. “I left it with Helena.”

  Mr. O’Toole clapped William on the back with a hearty smack. A lesser man would have been knocked forward a pace or two, but not William. He was as immovable as a brick wall.

  Mr. O’Toole glanced back at me. I could tell that he had something on his mind, so I gave him a small smile of encouragement.

  “I hate to take more of your time, Ms. Parker,” he said. “But I really need to pop out of the office for just a moment. Perhaps you’d like to take a tour of the offices with Mr. Graham, meet some of the staff and hear about what we do?”

  He looked so hopefully at me that, even if I hadn’t wanted to do the tour thing, I would have gone.

  “Sure,” I said. I turned to William. “If it’s all right with you, of course.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I’d be delighted to trot you around and show you how O’Toole Insurance operates. We’re the best in the business, you know.”

  Mr. O’Toole beamed at him and I could see that William Graham was regarded quite highly, another point in his favor in my opinion. It struck me then that maybe the reason Viv had wanted me to talk to her first when I found her husband was that an annulment wasn’t what she wanted. Maybe she wanted a reconciliation.

  As Mr. O’Toole left the room, I felt as if he took all of the air out of the room with him. I couldn’t believe this hadn’t occurred to me before, nor had it come up in conversation with Viv. I had just assumed that if she left the man after a few weeks of being married to him, then she was done with the marriage. Maybe she had just panicked, as Viv does, and run.

  “Are you all right, Ms. Parker?”

  I glanced up to find William looking at me with concern. Aw, man, he was a nice guy, too. What had Viv been thinking dumping him out of the blue like that? I had no idea how I was going to manage this conversation, but I couldn’t risk losing him by pretending to be a client. It was time to come clean.

  “Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour, including where we keep the coffeemaker and cookies,” he said.

  “You had me at coffee,” I said. I stood up and shouldered my purse. I had unbuttoned my coat so as not to get overly warm but kept it on to fight the intermittent chill that the weather brought with it. I had noticed that most buildings in Paris, much like our apartment building, stayed a bit on the cool side. Living in London, you’d think I’d be used to the cold and wet by now, but no, I was still working on it.

  He led me out of the small office and back down the hallway to a spiral staircase. It was just wide enough for two people to walk side by side and William matched his pace to mine. His legs were long enough that I suspected he usually took the steps two at a time, possibly three, but good manners had him keeping pace with me, which I thought was very conscientious of him.

  Believe me, I was looking for reasons to dislike or at the very least not warm up to the man. I mean, I had to deliver the happy news that his runaway wife was in Paris at this very moment and, yeah, she wanted an annulment. It would be so muc
h easier if the guy smelled like onions, or had nose hair that was too long, grubby fingernails, pants that were too short, or the personality of a turnip, nothing against turnips but they don’t make the best of companions.

  This guy, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, this guy was none of those things. He was dressed in charcoal slacks and a pale gray dress shirt that molded to his shoulders. He smelled faintly of almonds and spice, very manly. He was clean-shaven and his fingernails looked trimmed but not buffed. The man was not a metrosexual. Thank goodness. I never knew what to do with a man who spent more time on his personal polish than I did.

  When we reached the top of the stairs, he gestured wide at the workspace that unfolded before us. It appeared that all of the walls separating the rooms on this floor had been stripped down to make it one enormous room. There were several stations with computers, drafting tables, and other diagnostic equipment that I had no hope of identifying.

  “Our first stop is the appraiser’s work area, also my home base,” he said.

  “So, you’re an appraiser?” I asked.

  “I was,” he said. “I was an art major with artistic ambitions but I fell into appraising and now I’m more on the investigation side of things, you know, investigating claims that are suspect, routing fraudulent art pieces being passed off as originals by authentication or attribution, truly, it’s never dull.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” I said. “This place is huge. Is there really that big of a black market for fine art?”

  “Huge,” he said. “There are a lot of rich people on this planet who can afford rare and beautiful things and they are willing to pay for them. Unfortunately, it takes a very good eye and a wide knowledge base to verify a work of art, and most of the people with money have neither.”

  “So they rely upon you,” I said. “That puts you in a position of some power.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t like to see anyone, even rich anyones, taken advantage of, but it’s about more than that. For me, it’s about preserving the art.”