Betrayal (6 page)

Liesbeth stilled.

Joseph had been an only child, one of the privileged Bianchins of Bella Valley, and he said whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, and never worried who was hurt.

But now, as Hendrik pushed off from the wall and stood staring at him, chin thrust forward, hands in loosely balled fists, looking like a bull about to charge and gore
him, it occurred to Joseph that
he
was the fool. Perhaps this time he should have held his tongue.

Liesbeth stepped back. “He’s an old man,” she said. “Don’t hurt him too much.”

Hendrik’s eyes narrowed. He straightened. He grinned into Joseph’s face.

For the first time Joseph saw a cunning intelligence there.

Turning slowly, Hendrik faced the wall. He cocked his head at the same angle as the painting.

An icy, incredulous thought trickled into Joseph’s mind. He fumbled to place his gnarled hands on the arms of his chair, to lift himself from his seat, to stop Hendrik before he dared to…

Hendrik’s big fist rose.

“No!” Joseph’s left palm, sweaty with anxiety, slipped off the leather. “No!”

Hendrik slammed his knuckles through the canvas, splitting the art from top to bottom, destroying its value, stealing it from Joseph with a single blow. Then he tore it from the wall and smashed it to the floor.

While Joseph sat gasping, holding his chest, Hendrik turned to face him. Blood dripped from his split knuckles, but he still wore that offensive grin, and in a genial tone he said, “I’ll order Canadian bacon with pineapple, and a thick crust. Hope you like it, old man. It’s my favorite.” He swaggered out of the room, his big feet clomping in his black leather boots.

Liesbeth watched him leave, anxiety and love clear on her face.

Something about the two of them tugged at Joseph’s mind, a thought struggling to escape. It burst from his brain and into words. “He’s your son!”

She laughed, laughed long and hard and spitefully, until Joseph shriveled in embarrassment. “No, he’s my nephew.” She waved a hand toward the interior of the house, where three men and two women lounged with their feet on Joseph’s furniture, eating and dropping crumbs wherever they wished, drinking and putting their cans down on his polished wood tables, scratching themselves and laughing—at him. “They are all cousins or nephews or nieces.”

“Your gang is all family?”

“Of course. Who else could I trust?”

“They’re thugs!”

“Don’t be silly.” She airily waved Joseph’s insult away. “We are not thugs. We contract for a job and we do it well. Each of us has a specialty. Each of us is highly trained.”

Information. Information could help him. “Who hired you for this job?”

Her smile faded. “This is personal.”

“Personal? What do you mean? Why do you care about a bottle of wine?”

“You know perfectly well why. Don’t pretend you don’t.” Her smile was back. “I care for the same reason you care.”

He didn’t want to discuss what he knew or why he cared. They weren’t partners. By all that was holy, the bottle was
his
. “So you have a gang, and each of you has a specialty. What are
you
trained in?”

“I’m the leader. I make the decisions. I make the plans.”

“Lousy plans.”

“Oh, I think this one is working out very well. Brigetta is our munitions specialist—she knows weapons. Grieta is our computer programmer—she can break through
any security system in less than five minutes. Klaas does disguises.” Liesbeth laughed. “He transforms himself and us, and not even facial recognition software can tag us. Rutger knows the worth of every piece of art and every precious stone, and he can spot a fake from a distance of one hundred yards.”

Liesbeth gave up the information so easily, Joseph knew she considered him no threat. And that infuriated him more. But he was descended from the Borgias, and his legacy of shrewd cruelty would overcome this upstart. “Who’s the Incredible Hulk?” he asked.

“Hendrik? Hendrik took his father’s place as my right-hand man.”

“He’s the muscle.”

“A good way of putting it.” She gestured at Joseph’s ruined painting. “His father had a terrible temper, too, and I’m proud of Hendrik for his restraint.”

“His restraint?” Rage bubbled like acid in the pit of Joseph’s stomach. “He destroyed a priceless painting!”

“Not priceless. Everything has a price. That painting is small, an early, lesser Klimt, a simple ink drawing without gold ornamentation, and unless a bidding war set up, at auction it would have gone for no more than one hundred thousand dollars, one hundred and twenty-five at the most.”

At that cool, precise appraisal of his art, Joseph’s mouth opened and closed in silent shock. Fifty years ago he’d bought it from an Englishwoman. He’d paid a mere five thousand pounds and laughed at her ignorance. He’d had it appraised every year since, gloating as it gained value. He knew what it was worth, what he had it insured for—but how did this brute of a woman know? Know that it was genuine? Know with a single glance? How
was it possible that this Amazon warrior possessed the eye to successfully evaluate art from the turn of the twentieth century?

Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she was the brains of the operation because… because she deserved to be.

“You know”—she leaned over him, put her hands on the arms of his chair—“you’re old, and your bones are brittle. If you’re going to infuriate one of my people, it would be wise to choose one of the others. Hendrik is a throwback—more Russian than the others, demanding the respect owed a man of his noble ancestry.”

Joseph seized on that shred of information. “You’re Russian?”

“Aristocrats who oppressed the peasants for centuries until they rose in revolt and killed us. Not all of us—some of us escaped and have since made our living on our wits.”

“That was a hundred years ago,” he said spitefully. “So don’t tell me you’re anything but a washed-out version of a failed aristocratic system.”

“So true.” She caressed his hand. “And yet I rule you with a tyrant’s touch.” She straightened. “Hendrik says we don’t need you. That we can kill you, stay here and use your credit card, and not put up with your sour face while we search for that bottle of wine. My heart is soft and sweet; I tell him there’s no need to commit murder unnecessarily. But you’re convincing me Hendrik might be right. Remember
that
next time we want to order pizza.”

Chapter 7

P
enelope drove toward town like a woman who feared nothing.

And she didn’t. Not really. Running into Noah would be uncomfortable, but she’d faced more daunting challenges. Really, what were the chances she would see him?

Well. Possibly good, since he managed the Di Luca family’s resort, it fronted on Bella Terra’s main street right on the square, and she intended to look around at the changes that had been made in the last nine years. She would not, of course, reminisce at all. Because, yeah, she’d spent the most memorable summer of her life in Bella Terra, but she wasn’t here to remember.

She was here on a whole different business.

Penelope had taken a circuitous route from the Sweet Dreams Hotel (north and west of town) to Joseph Bianchin’s estate (on the southeast), around the outskirts
that stretched to encompass mansions and subdivisions where people who worshiped the California wine country lifestyle had built homes. Now she drove to Bella Terra’s main street and into the compact, vibrant downtown.

She stopped at the red light, two cars back from the crosswalk, and peered through the hustle of tourists and locals. She wanted to see the town square, a park of grass and a gazebo, where benches rested in the shade of tall trees.

The square hadn’t changed a bit. It was still quaint, a carefully preserved early-twentieth-century square, still Bella Terra’s beating heart. Restaurants and art galleries lined the streets around it, and those had changed names and possibly owners, but the buildings hadn’t changed, and neither had Penny’s Bookstore, where Noah and Penelope had spent many a pleasant afternoon browsing the titles on the shelves.

For her birthday in that long-ago August, Noah had bought her a picture book about the history of Bella Valley.

She had kept it. It was packed in a box in a storage area with most of her furniture and knickknacks from Cincinnati. When she got back to Portland, she had to go through it all and…

But she couldn’t think about that now. There was too much to see here, too many memories to confront.

The Bella Terra resort’s stucco exterior faced Main Street. It had been washed a light gold, and guests strolled out of the breezeway holding icy bottles of water and wearing good-humored smiles.

Yes, the resort had that effect on people. She knew; nine years ago she’d been an intern to the interior
designer hired to freshen the interior of the main building, and the Di Luca family had made their desires clear. Their first directive had been to make the lobby, the breakfast area, and the lounge as relaxing as possible. Although Penelope had worked on the project for only two and a half months and left before it was finished, obviously the design had been successful.

Or perhaps by now they’d done another redesign. She would love to go in, see whether she could spot Noah’s influence on the resort, sit and have a glass of wine in the Luna Grande Lounge.

Not that she’d done that before; in those days, she hadn’t been old enough to drink.

It would be good to see whether Tom Chan was still behind the bar. He’d been an influence on the design of the lounge, and such a trusted friend of the Di Lucas, she thought he must still be there.

She wished she could linger, observe every little detail of the resort, but the light turned green, and resolutely she refused to drive around the block for another look.

She needed to remember her mission. She was here to use one of the Marinos’ breakfast coupons. To see whether she could find out anything about Bianchin, where he was, what he was doing, when he’d be back.

But first, she had to eat, because no matter what the crisis, her body demanded sustenance. It seemed so shallow to face tragedy, disease, and death and still need to eat, but there it was—her stomach growled in demand, and she had learned to listen.

Rhodes Café sat three streets off the square, narrow, unassuming, and outside of the main tourist flow, but even at nine thirty in the morning it was busy. She took a chair at the counter between a guy who never needed
to eat again and yet was shoveling in scrambled eggs and sausage as if it were his last meal, and a young woman with chin-length dark hair who stared with such revulsion at her toasted bagel Penelope checked to make sure it wasn’t crawling across her plate.

The bagel looked fine to her.

She glanced again at the young woman, noted her complexion, pasty pale under what normally would have been a healthy color, and hoped that whatever she had wasn’t contagious. Stomach flu while staying at the Sweet Dreams Hotel would be an ordeal Penelope did not wish to face.

Plucking the menu from between the napkin holder and the saltshaker, she studied it, made her decision, and ordered a Denver omelet, crisp bacon, and wheat toast. She tried hard not to look around, but the woman next to her reminded Penelope of her mother during the worst of her chemo, and she couldn’t stand it. With the intention of distracting her from her misery, Penelope asked, “I’ve never been here before. Is the food that bad?”

The woman turned her head slowly, as if afraid a quick movement would set off disaster, and gazed at her. “No, it’s pretty good. I just don’t feel too well this morning.…” Something sparked in her blue eyes. She leaned back, scrutinized Penelope, and asked, “Aren’t you Penelope Alonso?”

Bingo
. First time out of the gate, someone knew her.

Penelope wet her lips and scrutinized the woman in return.

She was pretty, fit, and a little less pale than she had been a moment ago. Her jeans and black T-shirt looked expensive, and rather incongruously, she wore a lightweight camouflage vest zipped up halfway.

Penelope didn’t have the foggiest who she was. “I am Penelope Alonso—or rather, I was. Now I’m Penelope Alonso Caldwell.”

“You’re married!” The woman beamed.

“Widowed.”

Her face fell. “Oh, no! I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you. It’s been over a year. The first shock is over.” Penelope recited the usual soothing phrases, then changed the subject. “I’m sorry, but I can’t place
you
.”

“Brooke… Brooke Petersson. It’s been years, and we really barely brushed shoulders.” Brooke’s eyes narrowed intently. “You were here that summer after your freshman year, an intern at Bella Terra resort in… Wait. I almost have it… interior design.”

“That’s right.” Penelope was seriously impressed. “You have a great memory.”

“I’ve had to have. I’m the head concierge at Bella Terra resort and we’re expected to remember everything about everybody. Although actually—I recently got married and quit.”

Penelope lifted her brows. She had barely known Brooke before, but somehow this woman didn’t seem the type to leave a job she loved for a man.

Brooke launched into an explanation. “I quit before I married him. I was going to work in Sweden. He persuaded me to stay.” She half smiled. “Anyway, I remember you because you and I were roadkill in the Di Luca love caravan, and I felt such a kinship with you!”

Remembrance jolted through Penelope. “That’s right! I remember now. Gossip said you and one of the Di Lucas had had a thing in high school and then split when you both left for college. Something about he wanted to join the military and you didn’t like it?”

“You have a pretty good memory yourself.” Brooke picked up her bagel and nibbled on the edge. “What are you doing in Bella Terra? I never would have thought you would return.”

Here it was. Penelope’s chance to get the scoop, and from the former concierge of Bella Terra resort. “I have business with Joseph Bianchin. Do you know him? Do you know if he’s in town?”

Brooke’s eyes went flat and cool. “No, he’s not. I don’t know when he’s coming back—if ever.”