[JJ06] Quicksand (10 page)

CHAPTER 18

“A diversion,” I murmured. The painting wasn’t important at all. It was merely a diversion.

“A nice one,” North said. “Lane is good.”

“But won’t they realize something else was—”

“Let’s get going,” North said, putting his arm on my shoulder to guide me through the crowd.

I pulled away. “There’s no rush. It doesn’t look like they’re letting anyone out.”

“They will soon.”

“Won’t they want to find the guy?”

“Oh, they’ll look for a short time. But soon enough they’ll realize the futility of the situation. They won’t find him.”

“But he wasn’t disguised.”

“Wasn’t he?” His eyes twinkled as he paused and turned to me. “Tell me, what did he look like? Average height? Average brown hair? Not too old, but not too young? Half the men in this museum fit that description. And the painting wasn’t damaged—that was the purpose of the box you provided—so there was no harm done.”

“But—”

“Such impatience.” He glanced at the time on his phone. “Come on. We’re due to meet Lane. If he’s done his part—”

“
If
?”

“Regardless, I’d like to be near one of the exits as soon as they start letting people out.”

We maneuvered through the crowd. Agitated people from every continent looked around in confusion.
“But I have a flight to catch!” “I’m an American! I have rights!” “You can’t keep us here without telling us what’s going on! Honey, do something!”

“As you can tell,” North said with a giddy smile, “they’re going to have a riot on their hands if they keep us too long.”

It took longer than North expected for the authorities to open the doors. But as he predicted, they gave up before they identified their suspect. At least it looked that way. The authorities weren’t telling us anything.

From where we stood nearly underneath the pyramid, I could see a large crowd gathered outside in the courtyard. Visitors weren’t being let in, but people were now being let out. Dozens of armed guards ushered people toward the exits, no doubt trying to prevent a stampede. North hooked his elbow around mine so we didn’t lose each other in the throng.

In my heels, it was possible for me to see at least a little bit of what was going on. Even so, I was lifted off the ground by the force of the crowd, which perfectly matched how I felt. Whatever control I thought I had was all an illusion. My feet touched the ground after only a few seconds, and North kept a firm hold on my elbow and pulled me from underneath the pyramid into the courtyard.

“Dear girl, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Let’s get you some sustenance.”

Fifteen minutes later, we sat in the corner of a bistro that looked small from the outside but stretched back the depth of eight tables. We sat at the farthest table from the front, facing the door. In my dazed state I couldn’t remember ordering anything, but North must have requested both wine and espresso, because an elegantly-attired waiter set both in front of me.

“I do appreciate a woman who knows what she wants.”

“I ordered this?”

His eyes crinkled as he took a sip of wine. “You don’t remember?”

“Does this mean I’m in shock?”

He laughed. “It’s almost over now. You can relax.”

“Hugo is missing, possibly dead. And Lane isn’t here yet. I don’t call that being over.”

The smile left North’s lips. “I’m truly sorry about Hugo.” He paused to take a long drink of wine, almost finishing the glass. He picked up the bottle and poured himself some more.

“Shouldn’t we be meeting Lane by now?”

“This is where he’s meeting us.”

“In public?”

“I’m glad to know you’re not going to be competition for my business. With the look of excitement in your eyes back at the museum, I wasn’t so sure. But you’ve got a lot to learn about how things work. Doing business in public is the best way for us legitimate art dealers to ensure that nobody gets the wrong idea about us.”

I was distracted by the sight of a tall man wearing a newsboy cap who had just walked into the restaurant. The hat had a large brim that obscured part of his face, but that didn’t stop me from recognizing Lane. He wasn’t disguising how he carried himself. That was all I needed to know it was him.

He took off the hat and headed straight for us. “It’s good to see you, Jones,” he said, sitting down next to me and slipping his hand into mine. His body was alert and relaxed at the same time, as if a great weight had been lifted but his adrenaline was still running strong.

“I trust there were no problems,” North said.

“None at all.” Lane took a flat object, roughly the size of his hand, from his shirt pocket. Even though we were handing it over to North, I was pleased to see Lane had placed the historical piece into a clear protective sleeve.

North snatched it from his hand and tucked it into his own pocket, but not before I caught a glimpse of the item. It was a piece of parchment paper, with a few words of faded calligraphy and a painting of two animals intertwined with a man. The painting sparked a sense of recognition, but I didn’t have time for it to register.

Lane cocked his head to the side, looking uncertainly at North. “That illuminated manuscript page
is
what you expected, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” North said. “I simply thought you’d show a bit of common sense. That’s why I provided the envelope.”

That was odd. North had said the exact opposite only moments before. Lane must have found the request unexpected, too. He handed over a small envelope.

“It’s a bit late for that now.” North watched me for a moment before breaking into a smile. “Well, no harm done.”

“Won’t they be looking for it from whatever exhibit you stole that from?” I asked.

“Nobody,” Lane said, “will realize it’s missing.”

“Because of the diversion? That bought you time, but surely they’ll notice soon enough.”

North laughed. “Not really. You see, nobody knows this exists.”

CHAPTER 19

“What do you mean nobody knows it exists?” I whispered.

“Speak normally,” North said. “It’s much less suspicious.”

“He’s right,” Lane said without lowering his voice. He continued speaking as a waiter set a wine glass in front of him. “We’re all old friends here.” He poured himself a splash of wine and raised his glass. “A toast to old friends about to say a fond farewell.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’m not toasting, but if I speak normally, will someone answer my question?” 

“I can tell you this, my dear,” North said. “This page is the missing piece of an illuminated manuscript that’s been in my client’s family for years. The man who’s paying me for this will be very, very happy. This missing page has been a life-long obsession of his.”

I stared at the imperfections on the thick wooden table in front of me, a combination of incidental scratches from years of use and purposefully carved initials. The worn table must have been decades old, but that was nothing compared to the age of the hand-painted piece of parchment I’d been a part of stealing. What did it mean to steal a piece of hi
story if nobody knew about it?

“You found it where the information indicated?” North asked.

“I did,” Lane said. “Did you like the artist’s contribution on the other side of the museum?”

“That was a lovely touch.”

“He’s really a performance artist?” I asked. “Not one of your associates?”

“That was the beauty of the plan,” Lane said. “He’s an artist who likes to subvert the system by showing how patriarchal art obscures larger political problems. I knew of his work, so I thought he’d be up for the challenge. The difficult part was finding him, because his identity is a closely-guarded secret.”

“That’s one of the things Lane was busy with,” North added.

“He has no connection to me,” Lane said. “If he’d been caught, he’d still have created a diversion, and since his intention had never been to steal the painting, he wouldn’t have gotten much jail time.”

“How thoughtful of you.” I said sarcastically.

“He’s done things like this before,” Lane said. “He’ll take credit for this one, too. I merely provided his next opportunity.”

“While you were in another wing.”

Lane nodded. “It was important that the crowds be heavy for the plan to work—for both of us. That’s why things had to move forward today, on the most crowded day of the month. It worked perfectly. As soon as the guards and docents started leading people to the main lobby from the wing I was in, I began planting seeds of alarm within the crowd. People began pushing and shoving to get out. In the commotion, I ‘accidentally’ fell against a desk. What nobody else knew was that there was a secret panel in that particular desk.”

“The information I acquired told of the secret panel,” North said, “as well as the steps needed to unlock it. My client will be overjoyed. He’s a rich collector nearing the end of his life, and he desperately wanted the page for sentimental reasons because of his family’s history. The precarious nature of his health meant there was some urgency in acquiring it for him. When I learned that the desk had been inconveniently acquired by the Louvre some years ago, that complicated things, but I still had to act quickly. I knew the perfect man for the job.”

Instead of looking at North with disgust, Lane was almost giddy. “It worked like a charm. While I pretended to right myself after being pushed into the desk, I was able to press the right combination of spots along the side of the desk and liberate the parchment from its hiding spot.”

“You two are having far too much fun with this,” I said.

Lane cleared his throat. “Let’s go, Jaya.”

“Why the rush?” North asked. “You two don’t want to stay to join me for lunch? This place has an excellent pot-au-feu.”

“We’re done here? My obligation is fulfilled?”

“With flying colors.” North patted his lips with a napkin and gave Lane a nod. “Nice doing business with you. I know we no longer see eye to eye about this line of work, but I hope it’s a small consolation that I’m being paid enough for this parchment that I’ll be taking a long holiday.” Turning to me, he said, “Though it was lovely meeting you, I trust we won’t meet again.”

I should have been relieved, but I was too busy puzzling over why the brief glance at the illuminated manuscript page had sparked a sense of recognition.

Lane stood to depart, pulling me up with him. My hand felt so natural in his that I’d forgotten they were intertwined.

North, ever the gentleman, rose along with us. “I’ll see to it,” he said, “that those documents of yours don’t make it into the wrong hands.”

The documents North had showed me
.

North’s words took all the wind out of me. I swayed, and Lane steadied his grip on my hand. I squeezed back. I needed all the strength I could get.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not cut out for this line of work.” I desperately hoped North believed me. That he hadn’t just figured out that I knew what he was up to. That I knew, now, that this wasn’t the end.

It was only the beginning.

CHAPTER 20

Lane led us to a taxi. It must have been cold, because snowflakes stuck to my clothing, but I don’t remember anything about the walk.

North’s last remarks were niggling at the back of my mind. I wasn’t crazy, was I?
Those papers were the key to the importance of the stolen parchment. Not the fake documents with evidence of plagiarism, but the East India Company man’s letters North showed me “as a test.” I went over everything that had happened since I arrived in Paris. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, it all fit.

“Now that your adrenaline is wearing off,” Lane said, misinterpreting my spaced-out silence, “the shock is kicking in. But it’ll soon pass. Don’t worry.”

“Lane, we need to talk about—”

Lane held a finger to his lips. “Soon,” he said, giving me a pointed look. Were we still being monitored?

The taxi dropped us off at the hotel. As he had on our way out, Lane spoke loudly in an English accent about our friends who we were visiting at the hotel. If anything went wrong and we’d been identified at the museum, we didn’t want to be traced. 

Once we reached the room, Lane again held up his finger. He quickly discarded his disguise and gathered up his belongings, asking me to do the same. I put on a change of clothes that had been laundered by the hotel, then shoved the rest of my clothing and my shoulder bag into my backpack. Within the space of five minutes, we looked like ourselves again and had packed our possessions. Lane left a big tip on a side table, and I took one last look at my prison before hoisting my backpack onto my shoulders.

I trotted to keep up with Lane as we swept through the hotel lobby. “I really need to—”

“We’ll have plenty of time to chat on the train,” Lane said, cutting me off. “The metro is nearby, so that’s the easiest way to get there.”

The train?

The metro station, only a block away, was crowded. It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday, but I had a feeling Paris was always bustling. Though the entrance had been close to our hotel, we maneuvered our way through what felt like several city blocks underground, including several sets of stairs.

Lane led us to a platform where we boarded a crowded car. I desperately needed to tell Lane of my suspicions, but not while we might still be under surveillance. I sighed and followed along.

We walked out of the metro station and straight into a fast food restaurant. A fast food restaurant? I had no idea such things existed in Paris. Lane handed me a small stack of clothes from his bag, and motioned for me to give him my backpack.

“Why—?”

“One second,” he said as he scribbled a few words onto a piece of paper. He handed it to me.

“
Go to the women’s restroom and put this on
,” the note read. “
I’ll meet you back in this exact spot in five minutes.
”

With that, he was gone.

In a stall of the women’s restroom, I opened the bag he’d handed me. It consisted of a dark green raincoat in my size, a flattened black cloche hat, and thick tortoiseshell glasses that looked nothing like the pink cat-eye glasses I’d worn at the Louvre. I tucked my hair under the stylish hat. I didn’t look half bad. I did, however, look like a completely different person—again. I wondered where he’d gotten these new items.

I stared at the woman in the mirror, almost unrecognizable. Another woman said something to me in French, and I realized I was blocking the sink. I moved and she kept speaking in French. Maybe I could pass as French in this attire. I smiled at her and departed, my old self gone, a different person in her place.

I did a double-take when I saw the man standing where Lane had told me to meet him. He looked nothing like Lane. There’s something intangible that makes a person who they are. It’s amazing how small alterations change someone’s whole appearance. In Lane’s case, it didn’t even have to do with clothes. Instead of the tall, confident man in jeans, a dress shirt, and sexy glasses that he really did need, I stood in front of a mousy, stooped man with bad hair and small eyes. His jeans sagged and the sleeves of his shirt were awkwardly rolled, giving him a disheveled appearance. He hadn’t changed a single item of his clothing, except to remove his glasses, yet the seemingly-insignificant alterations had transformed the whole man.

“Shall we?” His hesitant voice matched the mousy appearance. He held up my backpack. The movement of his arm was different than usual. He was playing a role. But when he caught my eye, the look he gave me was all Lane Peters. The emotional intensity he conveyed in that moment was nearly crushing—a mix of sorrow for what was going on and happiness that I was there with him.

“There aren’t any surveillance devices in our bags,” he added in a quieter voice as we walked out the door. I gaped at him and he shrugged. “I’d be stupid to trust North completely.”

“About that,” I said. “We need to talk.”

“Can it wait until we get to the airport?”

I stopped walking, causing a man behind us on the sidewalk to shake his head and mutter about tourists as he darted around us. “I thought we were going to the train station.”

“I said that for the benefit of North, in case he was listening.”

“Why are we going to the airport?”

His face fell. “We need to get you home, Jones.”

“You don’t understand. This—”

“I’ll look into Hugo’s disappearance. Once all this is over, maybe we can—”

“You’re not listening to me!”

Several people on the sidewalk glanced our way.

“This isn’t the place—”

“There’s
never
a good time and place,” I said, feeling icy snowflakes fall onto my face. “But you have to listen to me. I know what North is doing. It
wasn’t
only the illuminated manuscript page that he was after. North lied to us. He’s after something much bigger than a single piece of parchment from an illuminated manuscript.”