Take My Breath Away.... Cara Summers

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       Prologue

       The day after Thanksgiving …

      “I’M THINKING WHAT WE’VU got here is a copycat thief.” FBI Agent Nick Guthrie kept his eyes steady on Gabe Wilder as he gestured to the Monet propped on the credenza to the left of his desk. In front of the cleverly forged painting lay a copy of that morning’s Denver Post. The headline read: Priceless Monet Stolen on Thanksgiving Day.

      “Don’t you agree? He replaces the original with a very good copy. That’s what your father always did. He’s even signing your father’s initials.”

      Gabe said nothing, letting the silence stretch between them. He’d been coming to grips with the fact that someone was imitating his father ever since Guthrie had called him to the crime scene the night before. At 6:30 a.m., the FBI offices were still empty, and Guthrie hadn’t bothered to draw the shades on the glass walls that divided his office from the others in the White-Collar Crime Division.

      “Well?” Guthrie prompted Gabe. “What are you thinking?”

      “We’re not dealing with a copycat.” He shifted his gaze to the Monet.

      “No?” Guthrie frowned. “The thief broke through one of the best security alarm systems available, one of yours. He has a detailed knowledge of the M.O. your father used. And it’s a French Impressionist painting. Raphael Wilder was particularly talented at forging those. I say someone is deliberately imitating your father’s style right down to signing the forgery with the initials, R.W.”

      “But my father never sent announcements bragging about his thefts,” Gabe pointed out.

      “Agreed,” Guthrie said. “But everything else is the same.”

      Gabe couldn’t argue with that. But why would someone choose to imitate the style of a legendary art thief and then deviate in a major way from his method? And why was this thief choosing to copy his father in the first place? Those were the questions that he intended to find the answers to.

      “I had a chance to study the original painting when my company set up the security at the Langfords’ house.” Gabe nodded his head toward the Monet. “The forgery is a good one. It might have been years before the fake was detected.”

      Guthrie leaned back in his chair. “So why announce the theft?”

      “Exactly. Raphael Wilder never would have.” Then Gabe met Nick Guthrie’s eyes. “That’s why I’m not willing to agree that this thief is simply a copycat. There’s more going on here. Why don’t you come right out and ask me if I had something to do with stealing the Monet? The possibility must have crossed your mind. No one would know my father’s methods better than I. His initials are on the painting. The Langfords were using my security system.”

      Guthrie said nothing.

      “Perhaps I substituted the forgery when I installed the alarm system. That would eliminate the need to go back and break in later. I could sell the original and no one would be the wiser, perhaps ever.”

      “That’s what your father would have done.” Guthrie shot him a frown. “And maybe your involvement in the theft did cross my mind, but I dismissed the possibility. Raphael Wilder was a thief, a very good one, and if you’d followed in his footsteps, I imagine you’d have made a very good one also. But you haven’t. We go back a long way, Gabe.”

      That much was true. The first day he’d met FBI Agent Nick Guthrie was the day the man had come into his home and arrested his father for grand larceny. That had been over fifteen years ago. And within a month of Raphael Wilder’s conviction, СКАЧАТЬ