9. Emmett

Chapter 9

Emmett

At quarter to nine Wednesday morning, Jenn and I arrived at the De Rosa Gallery. The security guard let her in and initially resisted my accompanying her. Once I reminded him of my discussion with Jean-Philippe and Dante yesterday afternoon, he acquiesced—particularly since I was such good friends with the owner’s son.

Jenn had barely eaten last night, preferring to nibble on snacks while keeping her nose in her laptop. She’d always been smart. Her switch from project management to art restoration two years ago had shocked everyone, but it was clear she loved the change in her career.

This morning, her appetite had returned. We enjoyed room service on the balcony, avoiding all discussion of the break-in, the questionable painting, and any danger.

The denial phase was treating her well.

Maybe I shouldn’t have hidden the truth about the bugs planted in her room, but she would have freaked right the fuck out. That wouldn’t solve anything, either.

One more thing I was hiding from her. Typical Emmett.

“What’s first?” I looked around, cataloging everything I saw. Inconspicuous as possible, I conveyed a fascination with the objects, hiding my ulterior motives. Priority one was finding the scarab—I was fairly certain it wouldn’t show up in any inventory, otherwise Jean-Philippe would have suggested it already. He didn’t strike me as someone who only knew the public pieces in the gallery.

“Ultraviolet photos.” Jenn hung her purse on a hook by the door and donned a gray apron. The apron transformed her from business professional to artisan. Tying it around her waist, she scanned the room. “That is, if I can find an ultraviolet light.”

I wandered along the shelves, peering around sculptures and jars, tipping a few small boxes open. Searching for equipment was the perfect opportunity to scout the interior. The room we were in only had one door leading into the office and then the hallway. Across the hall, two doors.

One which required keycard access and was labeled for employees only. Likely restrooms and potentially a break room. I’d need an excuse to explore and verify that nothing was hidden in there. Spending enough money might gain me access.

But the other door?

It was metal, unlabeled, and had a keypad next to it. That was the high-value secure storage. Not off-site. Right across the hall. If the scarab wasn’t upstairs or in the digital inventory, it might be behind that door.

I didn’t have a safecracking case for my phone, but I’d snapped a photo of the door and sent it back to HQ for when everyone woke up. Unsurprisingly, Brie—my younger sister—had already responded that she and Will were searching for a match.

Blocks away, Jayce and Drew were preparing to enter Massimo’s condo, disguised as cleaners. Like me, they were on the hunt for evidence of the scarab’s location. If we confirmed Massimo had it in his possession, that would give us more leverage to force a sale.

If Jayce and Drew came up empty, I’d likely send her into the gallery for reconnaissance tonight. Hopefully, the team would find a match for the security system in their database. If not, I had a small signal jammer in my pocket to leave behind and cover their digital tracks. If we’d had more time, we could have helped Brie take over their security systems remotely.

“Ah ha!” Jenn exclaimed, pulling a three-foot-long light bar out of a cupboard. “There’s a camera in there, too. I bet it’s for taking UV photos. I can send those to Antonio.”

“Dr. Ferraro, you said?”

“Yeah.” She placed the light on the large table at the center of the room. “Ring any bells?”

“A few, but it’s a fairly common name.” In truth, we’d worked for a smuggler named Ferraro a few times, including one job to recover a piece for his nephew. Based on what I’d heard, the odds were good Jenn’s source was that very nephew. If she didn’t have such a solid contact, I would have suggested we fly Keira—our team’s forger—in for a consult.

Jenn gathered various tools while I continued peeking into every space I could.

“You must love working behind the scenes like this.”

“Looks like you do, too.” She lay the painting on the table, rustling some papers as she did.

I nodded slowly, resuming my exploration. “Museums are my favorite. Every time I go into a collections department, the vast quantity of items held behind closed doors—out of the public’s eye—overwhelms me.”

That was one of the few truths I was sharing today.

“Let’s give this a shot.” With no more warning than that, she shut the door to the office and turned off the overhead light.

I halted my search. Dim light filtered in from under the closed door to the office, while the purple glow of the UV light barely illuminated the room. Not nearly enough to continue poking around.

Jenn passed the bar over the painting, mere inches above it. She leaned over, following closely with her eyes. She hummed aloud as she inspected the bottom edge.

“See anything?” I drew closer, remembering some of my mother’s lessons from when I was younger. Lessons that made so much more sense after discovering her tie to MI6. The varnish fluoresced in greens of subtle shades. Variations in the varnish layers would indicate different rounds of conservation. A two-hundred-year-old painting could have been cleaned many times, if not retouched a few.

She hummed again, saying nothing.

“You said it was by John Constable?” I only knew a few Constable works off the top of my head, including The Hay Wain and Salisbury Cathedral . He was best known for his English landscapes, like the one in front of us.

“Mm-hmm.” She was zeroed in on the painting, barely acknowledging me. It was fascinating to watch. “It’s called Wheatfield from the Lock.”

The golden wheat spread through the middle of the painting, with women working the field and a small boy walking his dog nearby. A stone structure closer to the viewer must have been part of the lock. “Have you ever?—”

The door opened, spilling light into the room, and she snapped upright.

“What are you doing here?” Dante De Rosa stormed in, flipping the light on. Unlike the past two days, he didn’t even glance at Jenn. This was all about me. “What do you think you’re doing back here in the dark?”

Too many responses flitted through my brain. ‘ Killing time’ and a smirk would probably be met with a fist. ‘ Getting close to my woman’ would warrant the same. “Jean-Philippe was going to show me your Egyptian collection. We talked about it yesterday?”

An innocent response. Excellent restraint, Em. Didn’t hurt that it was also true.

“He’s out front,” Dante snarled. “Why are you back here?”

Jenn set the light bar down and rounded the table, standing between me and the angry Italian. “He walked me over this morning. Jean-Philippe wasn’t here when we arrived, so I asked him to give me a hand setting up.”

Fire blazed in Dante’s dark eyes. We were roughly the same height and weight, and in roughly the same physical shape. He didn’t intimidate me—not when I worked with Rav every day. His eyes lowered to Jenn, and all the anger vanished. His smile broke.

And I wanted to tell him she was staying with me.

Petty?

Fuck, yeah.

“You’re making progress already this morning?”

“I am.” Her back was to me, but I didn’t need to see her face. Her smile sounded in her words.

He looked at me again and jerked his head to the side. “Let me see you to the front desk.”

“Absolutely.” I wrapped an arm around Jenn as I passed her, giving her a full squeeze. Also petty. To her, I said, “I’ll be back once I’m done with JP. Holler if you need me.”

“Thanks, Em.” She closed the door behind us as we left, likely returning to her ultraviolet investigation.

Dante walked me through the small office, past a desk with a computer and a huge monitor. Books and collections lined the walls, stamped with years and auction-house names. In the hallway, he flung his arm toward the front of the gallery. “Your meeting is that way.”

Yes, my meeting. With the man who wouldn’t likely have the information I needed. I groaned deep inside—it was time to use Jenn a little more. “Jenn had a scare last night.”

His arm dropped, and a look of what might have been concern creased his brow. “What happened?”

If I didn’t know who he was, I could have believed the worry in his voice. Come on, Em, he was probably behind it. Him or his father . “Someone was in her room.”

“Someone other than housekeeping?”

I raised a doubtful eyebrow, making it clear I knew he wasn’t so thick. “You think that would scare her?”

His eyes left me and searched the hallway, as though he might find answers there. That reaction was more genuine than I’d expected. “Who, then?”

“I don’t know.” I mirrored him, letting my gaze travel away from our conversation, taking in a few details I’d missed about the hallway, including the security camera I hadn’t seen last time. I’d have to warn Jayce about that. “But it scared her.”

Dante placed a hand over his mouth and exhaled slowly. “Did the police find anything?”

Was he toying with me? If he had access to the bugs, he’d know the police hadn’t been by, so that was an easy question to throw me off. But he’d also know Jenn hadn’t returned to her hotel room.

“No.” Time for another salvo. “They cordoned off the room and are taking fingerprints this morning.”

“Bene, bene,” he muttered, his hand slipping to his heart. “I’ll arrange for a different room for her. She can’t stay there.”

I didn’t like this. Either he was the smoothest liar I’d ever met, or he was being honest. No tells, no ticks, nothing that said he was searching for the right words. Every twitch of his muscles screamed honesty.

But when you grow up with a father like Massimo, you learn to mask the truth young, don’t you?

Speaking from experience, Emmett? Which one of your parents taught you how to twist people until they did what you wanted?

“I’ve already taken care of it,” I said.

His irritation with me flared back to life. “ You have taken care of it?”

I was supposed to win him over, not taunt him about my relationship with Jenn. “We switched her into a new room with better security, just in case.”

“What does better security mean to you?”

To tell him she was staying with me or not? Ensure he ejected me from the gallery or convince him I was an antiquities broker? “Higher floor, with a private balcony, rather than one accessible from other rooms.”

“She’s here on a contract for us and we’re paying for her room. It’s not your business to move her around without notifying me.”

Jenn hadn’t mentioned that part. He was paying for her room?

Of course he was, Em, it’s a business contract. “Not to worry—we’re covering the cost.”

“You think this is about money?”

“When my sister heard, she insisted we pay.”

His wandering gaze rested inside the office, no doubt on the door that blocked our conversation from Jenn. “Monaco has one of the largest per capita police forces. How can she be unsafe in her own hotel room?”

“She’s a tough cookie. She’ll be fine.”

Dante turned a glower on me. “This is how you treat your sister’s best friend? Someone breaks into her hotel room, and you brush it off as though it were a stubbed toe?”

Well, shit. He really was worried about her, wasn’t he?

That doesn’t make him a good man.

“I only meant to say?—”

“You should go to your meeting.” He jutted his chin toward the front. “ I’ll check on her and then confirm if I believe she’s safe or not.”

Great.

Not only had I not won him over, I’d probably driven him closer to her.