Chapter 17

Priscilla stared at the spot Emily Bacon had been occupying just a moment ago for about ten seconds after the woman had abruptly walked away.

Her jaw was set and her eyes flinty while her mind quickly analyzed what just happened. Unfortunately, she couldn't waste too much time on it at this moment. She was a woman of action, and what Emily had said to her required just that…action.

It also required Priscilla finding out more information, and for that, she needed to catch up to Emily before she left the building.

There was also a flare of anger in Priscilla's chest that she needed to respond to.

It was understandable that this Emily Bacon person would not know this, but…

Nobodyjust walked away from Priscilla Kroyn.

She turned her head and spotted Emily approaching the door that would take her into the auditorium's lobby. She went after her, keeping her eyes on the woman the entire time, and ignoring everyone else, quite a few of them trying to get her attention.

She caught up to Emily in the lobby.

"Excuse me," she said when she was a step behind her quarry.

Emily turned, an innocent look of curiosity on her face.

The woman was quite beautiful. Priscilla had thought so from the first moment she saw her. In fact, she had been planning on their drink at the bar leading to drinks at her penthouse in the Astor Place Towers, here downtown. It was an apartment she kept in the heart of the city for nights when she didn't feel like going all the way back to the mansion…or for occasions when she met a woman she wanted to spend all night fucking, and then most likely never see again.

Priscilla uttered a carefree chuckle.

"I get the impression from you that you believe I was involved in the theft of that painting," she said, quirking an eyebrow.

Emily smiled.

"Then I've made a mistake, Ms. Kroyn," she said. "I wanted you to know that I know you did steal that painting."

Priscilla considered the situation very quickly, all the while not betraying any of her thoughts on her features…

It was obvious Emily Bacon had been brought in by Geneva Excess to investigate the theft of The Young Shepherdess.

Somehow, Emily Bacon suspected her. Now, why that was—what mistake she had made the other day…what clue she had inadvertently left behind—was something she was going to have to figure out later tonight, when she was home and alone with her thoughts.

However…

Priscilla realized she wasn't currently surrounded by police officers. Nor had she received word from Madeline that her cliffside home had been stormed by the authorities, who were currently tearing the place apart looking for the Bouguereau masterpiece.

Which meant…

Priscilla wanted to laugh.

Whatever it was that had led Emily Bacon to her was…

Inconsequential.

In fact, it was quite obvious to Priscilla that despite Emily Bacon's smug assertions, she had…nothing.

She suspects me of stealing the painting—brava to her! But…she doesn't know for sure!

Which meant that Emily Bacon had overplayed her hand.

This insurance investigator had underestimated her. She had assumed that by walking in here with her Miss Marple act, that Priscilla would give herself away—by saying something, by acting a certain way—and that it would be enough to get The Young Shepherdess away from her.

Priscilla wanted to smirk, but she was a master at controlling her facial expressions, even in the face of adversity.

She also wanted to tell Emily Bacon that she would eat her alive if they were in a conference room, negotiating a high-stakes deal.

But she didn't.

Instead, she decided that she was going to play with this woman…

"Tell me," Priscilla said. "How much do you get for retrieving the painting?"

"Five percent of the insured value," Emily told her.

"For The Young Shepherdess, that only gets you a hundred-thousand dollars," Priscilla said. "Hardly seems worth the effort."

"And how would you know the insured value?" Emily asked, smirking.

Priscilla face-shrugged.

"Idle conversation with Lydia Gennaro," she said. "Anyway…you seem quite dedicated for such a small payoff."

Emily met her gaze evenly.

"My parents never made a hundred-thousand dollars a year their entire lives," she said. "Admittedly, I've gotten much more for recovering art, but that's not the point."

"And what is the point?" Priscilla prodded.

Emily leaned closer, until her lips were almost touching Priscilla's ear. The woman's perfume was intoxicating, and Priscilla took a deep, but silent, whiff of it.

"You're the point," Emily whispered. "And I will get you. And the painting."

There she goes again,Priscilla thought. Overplaying her hand…

This time, she was the one who walked away, making her way towards the exit, Emily falling into step beside her.

"May I have my car drive you home?" she asked, once they were outside. It was a lovely night, the warm air very still, and the sky cloudless.

"I have a car here, thank you," Emily said. She gestured towards a black Town Car. The driver, seeing her approach, emerged from it and held open the back door for her.

"Well, in that case," Priscilla said. "Have dinner with me tomorrow."

Emily stopped and looked at her. Priscilla was pleased that the other woman didn't respond—either yes or no—right away. It meant that she hadn't been prepared for the invitation, and was now trying to determine what to do about it. Even though her facial features hadn't moved, her eyes were betraying her, clearly trying to see several moves ahead in this chess game she had initiated.

But Priscilla was confident that however many moves Emily managed to foretell in her mind, that she herself was already several moves beyond those.

"I would love to," Emily replied.

They continued walking to the car. Emily sat down in the seat. Priscilla took over at the door for the driver, who made his way back to his seat in front.

Holding the door open, Priscilla said, "I'll be in touch with the details."

Emily looked up at her.

"I haven't given you my number, Ms. Kroyn," she said.

Priscilla smirked.

"Trust me," she began, "I'll have it by the end of the night. See you tomorrow."

With that, she shut the car door, banged lightly twice on the roof with the flat of her hand to tell the driver he could drive off, and walked away.

***

Of course, Priscilla was prepared.

She hadn't spent the past many years planning her heist, putting together all of the disparate elements needed to pull it off, without also planning for the eventuality that perhaps someone might point a finger at her and say, "She did it!"

She had, naturally, expected no one to ever say that…

Her crime had been a masterpiece of invention, and it had been executed to perfection. There were no witnesses who had seen her steal The Young Shepherdess and walk out of the museum with it. If that had been the case, she would have been arrested a long time ago.

As for physical evidence that could be tied directly to her…

The clothes she had worn to the museum on Thursday had already been taken by Madeline to the dry cleaners, along with several other outfits. The black Ferragamo loafers wouldn't pose a problem. On Thursday, she had walked through many of the galleries in the museum. Not only that, but she was certain there was video footage of her standing in front of The Young Shepherdess, admiring it like any other museumgoer. Therefore, shoe prints could not be used to indict her. Which was good because she loved those loafers.

The burner phone she had used was gone…poof! She had been smart enough to turn it off after stealing the painting, and while she had still been in the museum before being evacuated. At home, she had removed its SIM card, broke it in two, and flushed the pieces down the toilet. The rest of the phone she had wiped clean of her fingerprints and then smashed open with one of Ricardo's hammers. She had then spent time destroying all the electronic bits inside of it, rendering the circuit board useless by breaking it into three pieces and scraping it with the claw of the hammer. Afterwards, she collected all of the detritus. The smaller bits she flushed down the toilet; the larger pieces she had packaged in two separate baggies she managed to find in the pantry, and placed them in her handbag. She surreptitiously disposed of one of them in the trash can of the ladies room in the restaurant she and Judy had lunch at on Friday. The other one was tossed in a trash can twelve miles away, at her country club.

As for other physical evidence…

The equipment she had provided Cyrus and his boys—and which was surely being examined closely at the police laboratory—was untraceable. Those items had been custom-built to her specifications, in three different countries outside of the US, by a subset of the underworld whose silence could most definitely be bought. Furthermore, she had conducted that phase of the operation in much the same way a mob boss runs his business.

She herself was never in contact with those who had provided the gear needed. Instead, she had trusted lieutenants who in turn used trusted underlings who in turn used trusted sub-underlings in order to do her bidding. At no point could she be directly connected to the creation of those items, and at no point was the overall…mission discussed. No one involved ever heard the words San Diego Art Museum.

She had covered all of her bases.

Even the locations where she had met—virtually—with Cyrus and the boys could not be traced to her. Yes, technically, she owned each of those sites…but the great thing about being the Priscilla Kroyn in her line of work was that she knew how to hide assets like that, or to make it appear as if others owned them. The top forensic accountants at the FBI would recognize it as a dead-end.

Nonetheless…despite how confident Priscilla was that she was untouchable vis-à-vis her heist, she had taken steps to protect herself, just in case. And now it appeared as though she would need to put at least a few of those steps into motion.

Which was fine by her.

It was going to be fun.

In fact, she smiled now thinking about the possibilities.

She was home in her mansion following the party at the museum. She was wearing silk pajamas and reclining on the chaise in her bedroom, sipping chamomile tea while looking at The Young Shepherdess as she considered all of this.

Specifically, as she considered the matter of Emily Bacon…

"How did she zero in on me?" she asked the shepherdess.

The young girl in the painting simply stared at her with that enigmatic look, which Priscilla had learned could be interpreted in countless ways, depending on one's mindset at the time.

Right now, the look seemed to be saying, It should be obvious how she zeroed in on you…

And so Priscilla considered that.

Emily wasn't a police officer, she was an insurance investigator, which meant she didn't think like a police officer. In Priscilla's mind, that gave Emily an advantage. It meant the woman could examine options a rigorously-trained member of the police force could or would not even look at.

Police were narrow-minded in their thinking, and not the most creative abstract minds on the planet. It was a result of their training. They needed probable cause…they needed evidence. Priscilla had provided them with neither…

Probable cause?

Why on earth would one of the wealthiest women in the world steal anything?

Evidence?

The closest they had to that was the fact that Priscilla had been in the museum the day of the robbery.

Emily, however, could look at other angles.

"So, what other angles did she look at?" she asked the shepherdess.

She swore the young girl cocked an eyebrow.

I had too much Champagne earlier…

But whether she was seeing things or not, Priscilla used this latest prompt from the shepherdess to continue her analysis.

No doubt Emily, working with the police, discovered that Priscilla had been in the museum that day. Furthermore, Emily, by virtue of her career, knew Priscilla was a renowned art collector. Moreover, Emily—again by virtue of her career—knew that The Young Shepherdess was not a stratospherically valuable painting, certainly not compared to the SDMA's Rembrandt.

Priscilla's brow wrinkled as the pieces started falling into place…

Which meant that Emily probably wondered why anyone would steal a Bouguereau painting when there was a Rembrandt for the taking.

Which undoubtedly led her to believe that the theft wasn't about money.

Which made her wonder who would steal a painting without any intention of profiting from it.

Which then led her to realize it had to be…

"Someone who collects Bouguereaus," Priscilla said aloud. "And I have two!" She looked at the shepherdess. "Well, two that everyone knows about," she told the young girl. "No offense."

Priscilla chuckled.

So that's what Emily was building her case on?

It was laughable!

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun!" she told the shepherdess.

At least Geneva Excess had sent a woman instead of a man. A man would present little challenge to her. A woman, on the other hand, was a formidable opponent.

Just then, her phone chirped. She picked it up from where it had been sitting on the cushion beside her. It was a text message, and all it contained was a phone number and an address.

Smirking, she instructed her phone to save that information as a new contact. She then sent a text to the new number.

Looking forward to dinner tomorrow.

I'll pick you up at 7.