The Darkest of Secrets (2 page)

David shook his head. ‘Too top secret for me. The boss wants to see you about it ASAP.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked, and David just grinned. Pressing her lips together, she grabbed the printout he’d been teasing her with and strode towards the office of Michel Latour, the CEO of Axis Art Insurers, her father’s oldest friend and one of the most powerful men in the art world.

‘You wanted to see me?’

Michel turned from the window that overlooked the Rue St Honoré in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. ‘Close the door.’ Grace obeyed and waited. ‘You received the message?’

‘A private collection with significant art from the Renaissance period to be appraised.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I can think of less than half a dozen collectors who fit that description.’

‘This is different.’

‘How?’

Michel gave her a thin-lipped smile. ‘Tannous.’

‘Tannous?’
She stared at him, disbelieving, her jaw dropping before she thought to snap it shut. ‘Balkri Tannous?’ Immoral—or perhaps amoral—businessman, and thought to be an obsessive art collector. No one knew what his art collection contained, or if it even existed. No one had ever seen it or even spoke of it. And yet the rumours flew every time a museum experienced a theft: a Klimt disappeared from a gallery in Boston, a Monet from the Louvre. Shocking, inexplicable, and yet the name Tannous was always darkly whispered around such heists. ‘Wait,’ Grace said slowly. ‘Isn’t he dead?’

‘He died last week in a helicopter crash,’ Michel confirmed. ‘Suspicious, apparently. His son is making the enquiry.’

‘I thought his son died in the crash.’

‘His other son.’

Grace was silent. She had not known there was another son. ‘Do you think he wants to sell the collection?’ she finally asked.

‘I’m not sure what he wants.’ Michel moved to his desk, where a file folder lay open. He flipped through a few papers; Grace saw some scrawled notes about various heists. Tannous suspected behind every one, though no one could prove it.

‘If he wanted to sell on the black market, he wouldn’t have come to us.’ There were plenty of shady appraisers who dealt in stolen goods and Axis was most assuredly not one of them.

‘No,’ Michel agreed thoughtfully. ‘I do not think he intends to sell the collection on the black market.’

‘You think he’s going to donate it?’ Grace heard the disbelief in her voice. ‘The whole collection could be worth millions. Maybe even a billion dollars.’

‘I don’t think he needs money.’

‘It doesn’t have to be about need.’ Michel just cocked his head, his lips curving in a half-smile. ‘Who is he? I didn’t even know Tannous had a second son.’

‘You wouldn’t. He left the Tannous fold when he was only twenty-one, after graduating from Cambridge with a First in mathematics. Started his own IT business in the States, and never looked back.’

‘And his business in the U.S.? It’s legitimate?’

‘It appears to be.’ He paused. ‘The request is fairly urgent. He wishes the collection to be dealt with as soon as possible.’

‘Why?’

‘I can certainly appreciate why an honest businessman would want to legally off-load a whole lot of stolen art quite quickly.’

‘If he is honest.’

Michel shook his head, although there was a flicker of sympathy in his shrewd grey eyes. ‘Cynicism doesn’t suit you, Grace.’

‘Neither did innocence.’ She turned away, her mind roiling from Michel’s revelations.

‘You know you want to see what’s in that vault,’ Michel said softly.

Grace didn’t answer for a moment. She couldn’t deny the fact that she was curious, but she’d experienced and suffered too much not to hesitate. Resist. Temptation came in too many forms. ‘He could just turn it all over to the police.’

‘He might do so, after it’s been appraised.’

‘If it’s a large collection, an appraisal could take months.’

‘A proper one,’ Michel agreed. ‘But I believe he simply wants an experienced eye cast over the collection. It will have to be moved eventually.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t like it. You don’t know anything about this man.’

‘I trust him,’ Michel said simply. ‘And I trust the fact that he went to the most legitimate source he could for appraisal.’

Grace said nothing. She didn’t trust this Tannous man; of course she didn’t. She didn’t trust men full stop, and especially not wealthy and possibly corrupt tycoons. ‘In any case,’ Michel continued in that same mild tone, ‘he wants the appraiser to fly to Alhaja Island—tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ Grace stared at her boss, mentor and onetime saviour. ‘Why the rush?’

‘Why not? I told you, holding onto all that art has to be an unappealing prospect. People are easily tempted.’

‘I know,’ Grace said softly, and regret flashed briefly in Michel’s eyes.

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘I know,’ she said again, then shook her head. That brief flare of curiosity died out by decision. ‘It’s not something I can be involved with, Michel.’ She took a deep breath, felt it sear her lungs. ‘You know how careful I have to be.’

His eyes narrowed, mouth thinning. ‘How long are you going to live your life enslaved to that—?’

‘As long as I have to.’ She turned away, not wanting Michel to see her expression, the pain she still couldn’t hide, not even after four years. She was known by her colleagues to be cool, emotionless even, but it was no more than a carefully managed mask. Just thinking about Katerina made tears rise to her eyes and her soul twist inside her.

‘Oh,
chérie.
’ Michel sighed and glanced again at the file. ‘I think this could be good for you.’

‘
Good
for me—’

‘Yes. You’ve been living your life like a church mouse, or a nun, I don’t know which. Perhaps both.’

‘Interesting analogies,’ Grace said with a small smile. ‘But I need to live a quiet life. You know that.’

‘I know that you are my most experienced appraiser of Renaissance art, and I need you to fly to Alhaja Island—tonight.’

She turned to stare at him, saw the iron in his eyes. He wasn’t going to back down. ‘I can’t—’

‘You can, and you will. I might have been your father’s oldest friend, but I am also your employer. I don’t do favours, Grace. Not for you. Not for anyone.’

She knew that wasn’t true. He’d done her a huge favour four years ago, when she’d been desperate and dying inside. When he’d offered her a job at Axis he had, in his own way, given her life again—or as much life as she could have, given her circumstances. ‘You could go yourself,’ she pointed out.

‘I don’t have the knowledge of that period that you do.’

‘Michel—’

‘I mean it, Grace.’

She swallowed. She could feel her heart beating inside her far too hard. ‘If Loukas finds out—’

‘What? You’re just doing your job. Even he allows you that.’

‘Still.’ Nervously, she pleated her fingers together. She knew how high-octane the art world could be. Dealing with some of the finest and most expensive art in the world ignited people’s passions—and possessiveness. She’d seen how a beautiful picture could poison desire, turn love into hate and beauty into ugliness. She’d lived it, and never wanted to again.

‘It will all be very discreet, very safe. There’s no reason for anyone even to know you are there.’

Alone on an island with the forgotten son of a corrupt and hated business tycoon? She didn’t know much about Balkri Tannous, but she knew his type. She knew how ruthless, cruel and downright dangerous such a man could be. And she had no reason—yet—to believe his son would be any different.

‘There will be a staff,’ Michel reminded her. ‘It’s not as if you’d be completely alone.’

‘I know that.’ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘How long would it take?’

‘A week? It depends on what is required.’

‘A
week—’

‘Enough.’ Michel held up one hand. ‘Enough. You will go. I insist on it, Grace. Your plane leaves in three hours.’

‘Three hours? But I haven’t even packed—’

‘You have time.’ He smiled, although his expression remained iron-like and shrewd. ‘Don’t forget a swimming costume. I hear the Mediterranean’s nice this time of year. Khalis Tannous might give you some time off to swim.’

Khalis Tannous.
The name sent a shiver of something—curiosity? Fear?—through her. What kind of man was he, the son of an undoubtedly unscrupulous or even evil man, yet who had chosen—either out of defiance or desperation—to go his own way at only twenty-one years old? And now that he was back, in control of an empire, what kind of man would he become?

‘I don’t intend to swim,’ she said shortly. ‘I intend to do the job as quickly as possible.’

‘Well,’ Michel said, smiling, ‘you could try to enjoy yourself—for once.’

Grace just shook her head. She knew where that led, and she had no intention of
enjoying herself
ever again.

CHAPTER TWO

‘T
HERE
it is.’

Grace craned her neck to look out of the window of the helicopter that had picked her up in Sicily and was now taking her to Alhaja Island, no more than a rocky crescent-shaped speck in the distance, off the coast of Tunisia. She swallowed, discreetly wiped her hands along the sides of her beige silk trench coat and tried to staunch the flutter of nerves in her middle.

‘Another ten minutes,’ the pilot told her, and Grace leaned back in her seat, the whine of the propeller blades loud in her ears. She was uncomfortably aware that two of Khalis Tannous’s family members had died in a helicopter crash just a little over a week ago, over these very waters. She did not wish to experience the same fate.

The pilot must have sensed something of her disquiet, for he glanced over at her and gave her what Grace supposed was meant to be a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t worry. It is very safe.’

‘Right.’ Grace closed her eyes as she felt the helicopter start to dip down. She might be one of the foremost appraisers of Renaissance art in Europe, but this was still far out of her professional experience. She mostly dealt with museums, inspecting and insuring paintings that hung on revered walls around the world. Her job took her to quiet back rooms and sterile laboratories, out of the public eye and away from scandal. Michel himself handled many private collections, dealt with the tricky and often tempestuous personalities that accompanied so much priceless art.

Yet this time he’d sent her. She opened her eyes, saw the ground seeming to swoop towards them. A strip of white sand beach, a rocky cove, a tangle of trees and, most noticeably of all, a high chain-link fence topped with two spiky strands of barbed wire and bits of broken glass. And Grace suspected that was the least of Tannous’s security.

The helicopter touched down on the landing pad, where a black Jeep was already waiting. Her heart still thudding, Grace stepped out onto the tarmac. A slim man in a tie-dyed T-shirt and cut-off jeans stood there, his fair hair blowing in the sea breeze.

‘Ms Turner? I’m Eric Poulson, assistant to Khalis Tannous. Welcome to Alhaja.’

Grace just nodded. He didn’t look like what she’d expected, although she hadn’t really thought of what a Tannous employee would look like. Certainly not a beach bum. He led her to the waiting Jeep, tossing her case in the back.

‘Mr Tannous is expecting me?’

‘Yes, you can refresh yourself and relax for a bit and he’ll join you shortly.’

She prickled instinctively. She hated being told what to do. ‘I thought this was urgent.’

He gave her a laughing glance. ‘We’re on a Mediterranean island, Ms Turner. What does urgent even mean?’

Grace frowned and said nothing. She didn’t like the man’s attitude. It was far from professional, and that was what she needed to be—always. Professional. Discreet.

Eric drove the Jeep down a pebbly road to the compound’s main gates, a pair of armoured doors that looked incredibly forbidding. They opened seamlessly and silently and swung just as quietly shut behind the Jeep, yet Grace still felt them clang through her. Eric seemed relaxed, but then he obviously knew the security codes to those gates. She didn’t. She had just become a prisoner.
Again.
Her heart raced and her palms dampened as nausea churned along with the memories inside her. Memories of feeling like a prisoner.
Being
a prisoner.

Why had she agreed to this?

Not just because Michel had insisted, she knew. Despite his tough talk, she could have refused. She didn’t think Michel would actually fire her. No, she’d agreed because the desire to see Tannous’s art collection—and see it, God willing, restored to museums—had been too strong to ignore. A temptation too great to resist.

And temptation was, unfortunately, something she knew all about.

As Grace slid out of the Jeep, she looked around slowly. The compound was an ugly thing of concrete, like a huge bunker, but the gardens surrounding it were lovely and lush, and she inhaled the scent of bougainvillea on the balmy air.

Eric led her towards the front doors of the building and disarmed yet another fingerprint-activated security system. Grace followed him into a huge foyer tiled in terracotta, a soaring skylight above, and then into a living room decorated with casual elegance, sofas and chairs in soothing neutral shades, a few well placed antiques and a view through the one-way window of the startling sweep of sea.

‘May I offer you something to drink?’ Eric asked, his hands dug into the pockets of his cut-off jeans. ‘Juice, wine, a pina colada?’

Grace wondered if he was amused by her buttoned-up attitude. Well, she had no intention of relaxing. ‘A glass of sparkling water, please.’

‘Sure thing.’ He left her alone, and Grace slowly circled the room. She summed up the antiques and artwork with a practised eye: all good copies, but essentially fakes. Eric returned with her water and withdrew again, promising that Tannous would be with her in a few minutes and she could just ‘go ahead and relax’.
No, thanks.
Grace took a sip, frowning as the minutes ticked on. If Tannous’s request really was urgent, why was he keeping her waiting like this? Was it on purpose?