Liar's Key. Carla Neggers

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      At first Emma didn’t recognize the man standing in her office doorway. Gordy Wheelock? Had to be. People didn’t just walk into her small FBI building on the Boston waterfront, and she was expecting him. He’d called her last night to set up their meeting. “Ten o’clock sharp, Emma. Funny, huh? Sharp, Emma. Emma Sharpe. Ha.”

      That was Gordy, always with the lame humor.

      He rubbed the back of his neck, looking pained. “I know. I look like Yank’s drunken uncle these days. Sorry. I should have warned you.”

      Yank—Matt Yankowski—was the senior agent in charge of HIT, the specialized FBI team of which Emma was a handpicked member. She doubted he had a drunken uncle.

      Yank and Gordy weren’t friends.

      “No problem,” Emma said. “Come in, please. It’s good to see you.”

      He stepped into her small office. She did her best to hide her shock at seeing him. Gordon Wheelock was an FBI legend who’d taken the investigation of art crimes to a new level during his thirty-year career, but he didn’t look like a legend this morning. He had dark circles and puffy bags under his eyes, and he’d put on weight—at least fifteen pounds. His hair was sparse and totally gray now, not the salt-and-pepper of just a year ago when she’d flown back to DC to attend his retirement party. He wore a collared ice-blue shirt without a tie, a navy sport jacket, tan trousers and scuffed leather walking shoes. The clothes were wrinkled, as if he’d pulled them out of a suitcase or a laundry basket.

      Before joining HIT and moving to Boston last March, Emma had worked with Gordy in Washington for several months. Like her, his area of expertise was art crimes. He understood as a law enforcement professional the intersection of major art crimes with other major crimes—embezzlement, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering, drug smuggling, illegal weapons trafficking, murder and even terrorism. He didn’t have a background in art but considered that a strength. She had a degree in art history, and she was a Sharpe—her grandfather was a world-renowned private art detective. Matt Yankowski had urged her to join the FBI and then had chosen her for HIT specifically because of her expertise, but Gordy had warned her not to get distracted by her knowledge and interests. We don’t investigate protocols, controversies and cool stuff going on in the art world, Agent Sharpe. We investigate potential and actual federal crimes.

      Word was he’d been ready to retire, but Emma had never asked him for his reasons.

      He nodded to the papers, index cards and Post-it notes she’d arranged on the inexpensive sofa against the wall opposite her desk. “Anything interesting?”

      “No, unfortunately. I’m sorting through the contents of some physical files.”

      “Anything interesting, you wouldn’t let me near it.”

      She forced a smile. She noticed a nick on his jaw where he must have cut himself shaving. He’d always been so crisp and professional when she’d worked with him.

      He gave her a frank once-over. She was dressed professionally in slim-cut dark pants and a cream-colored shirt, with a lightweight leather jacket hanging on a peg behind the door. She had good walking shoes, no visible sign of wear. Her hair, fair and shoulder-length, was neatly pulled back. “You look good, Emma. Kick-ass and pretty as a picture.” He grinned. “You’re blushing. It’s okay. I can say whatever I want now that I’m retired.”

      “One of the perks, I guess. Did you just get into town?”

      “Last night. I flew in from London. I used to fly all the time, all over the country—all over the world. Jet lag never bothered me. These days a pop fly from London to Boston knocks me on my ass.”

      “What were you doing in London?”

      “Whim.”

      It was obviously an incomplete answer, but he didn’t seem to care. She decided not to push him. “Did your wife go with you?”

      He shook his head. “Joan’s home in North Carolina with the gang. Our youngest is having another baby. We have four grandkids now. Two boys, two girls. This next one will tip the scales back to the girls. Joan’s excited. Loves babies.”

      “That’s great, Gordy. Congratulations.” Emma paused, a hand on the back of her desk chair. “If this is a personal visit, why don’t we wait and have lunch?”

      “It’s not a personal visit, but I’m not going to keep you.”

      “Would you like to sit down?”

      “Nah. I’ll stand. Sciatica acted up on the flight.” He walked over to her one window. The main offices, including hers, were on the second floor of a former warehouse, one of many rescued buildings of Boston’s waterfront past. “Alley view. I bet Yank has a harbor view.”

      He did, but Emma made no comment.

      “Security’s tight here but it’s not a fortress,” Gordy added. “The world’s changed since I broke into my first sweat at the academy.”

      “You had an amazing career, Gordy.” Emma sat on her desk chair, swiveling to face him. “What brings you to Boston?”

      “I’m on my way to Maine for the open house at the new Sharpe Fine Art Recovery offices on Saturday. I’m invited. That wasn’t your doing?”

      “No, it wasn’t. I’m not part of the business. You know that.”

      Founded sixty years ago by her grandfather, Sharpe Fine Art Recovery was relaunching itself under the leadership of her older brother, Lucas. Although still relatively small, the business had grown since Wendell Sharpe had set up his first office in his home in Heron’s Cove on the southern Maine coast. He’d been a young museum security guard, following his interests, hoping for the best. Now he was semiretired, living in Dublin since his wife’s untimely death fifteen years ago. Emma knew Lucas had never expected to take the helm so young, or on his own, but he’d taken to the work—or at least he was good at it, dedicated, tireless.

      Gordy glanced back at her, a touch of the no-nonsense Agent Wheelock she’d known in his incisive look. “Any regrets about joining the FBI instead of the family business?”

      “No. Gordy...”

      “A touch of impatience. I like that. I don’t intimidate you anymore.”

      She didn’t respond. He’d never intimidated her, but she’d always respected him. In his mind, the two often went together, and either or both could be used as leverage to get what he wanted. Answers, cooperation, his way.

      She tilted back in her chair. “Let’s do this. You talk. I listen. Okay?”

      He moved away from the window but didn’t sit. “Sure thing. I stopped in at a high-class tea party in London on Sunday. Champagne, chocolate, scones, loose-leaf tea. It was at Claridge’s. Damn fine hotel. I didn’t stay there—too pricey for my wallet. The party was in celebration of the opening of a show at the Victoria and Albert Museum featuring art and artifacts from the late antiquity period.” He paused. “How’d I do? Pretty good, huh?”

      Emma didn’t buy his act. “As always.”

      “I’ve picked up a few tidbits. Late antiquity bridges the classical era and the Middle СКАЧАТЬ