It took only a fraction of a second to spot the thing he most dreaded—a museum piece. He supposed he hadn’t noticed it earlier, as her sweater had covered it, but there was no mistake—there, next to the flowers, was a hand-blown glass bowl, gilded and hand painted. Venetian, about three hundred years old. Worth, he’d guess, about fifteen hundred dollars. “Fuck,” he whispered.
The phone began to ring; Rachel came through the kitchen door, her smile luminous as she passed him to get to the phone, her eyes bright and full of emotion that he understood explicitly, for he felt it deeply.
Only his heart was in his throat.
She grabbed up the phone. “Hello? Hey, Dagne!” she said brightly. “Listen, I—” Her smile disappeared; her eyes went wide, and she suddenly looked at Flynn. “Get out! What station? Are you serious? I mean, are you . . . okay, okay, I’ll do it right now,” she said, and laughing, clicked off the phone and grabbed up the remote to the telly. “My friend Dagne,” she explained. “That nut is on the news!” The telly flickered on; Rachel changed the channel to a local news program and gasped. “It is Dagne!” she cried excitedly, and pointed.
Flynn walked into the living room and looked at the newscast. A local news reporter was in some cavernous coliseum, where all sorts of people were milling about.
Rachel laughed. “It’s that show—you know, the one where they travel around and people bring their antique heirlooms and find out if they are valuable or not,” she said excitedly.
The newscaster was saying that several local people had come down with family heirlooms and would be featured in a future program of the antique show. And then he stepped aside, and Flynn recognized Dagne Delaney . . . but more importantly, he recognized the thing that made his heart seize—the valuable Joseph Badger portrait, Colonial Woman.
He could not believe what he was seeing—it was impossible that they would think to bring that prized portrait to some antique show! Apparently, the host thought the same, because he looked at Dagne with some shock, then took the picture from her—whatever he said was lost in the drone of the newscaster—but Flynn watched as he rubbed a corner of the portrait with his finger. At last the newscaster shut up and turned around to listen.
“Where did you say you came across this painting?” the man asked Dagne.
“A friend of mine has a lot of stuff like this in her house,” she said proudly.
“Then she is one lucky woman, Miss Delaney. This would need to authenticated, but if you will look at the lines, here, and the particular style, and here again, the use of monochromatic colors, and the type of oil paint . . . well, it’s obvious that this is a piece that is quite old.”
“Really?” Dagne asked, looking horribly confused.
“Right,” Rachel said laughingly. “Really old—like 2001.”
“And do you see the name here that I’ve uncovered?” the host asked, and Dagne leaned forward, so far forward as to obscure the camera’s view, then leaned back, nodding like a child.
“The name is Joseph Badger. Joseph Badger is one of America’s most treasured artists. He painted in the pre-Revolutionary era.”
“Okay,” Dagne said, still looking perplexed. A crowd had begun to gather around, and the announcer held up the portrait.
“If this is an authentic Joseph Badger portrait,” the man said, “it is likely quite valuable.”
“Valuable?” Dagne repeated, looking shocked. “Like . . . how many valuable?”
“I’m not an art dealer, but I’d guess upward of a million or more,” he said, and pandemonium broke out in the coliseum.
“A million,” Rachel said, frowning. But then she shrieked and fell onto the edge of the couch, one hand over her mouth.
Flynn’s thoughts were rattling his brain, but the one thought he was able to grasp was that he had to recover that painting. “Has she a phone?” he asked quickly, motioning vaguely to a beaming Dagne, whose face now filled the screen.
Rachel did not immediately answer; Flynn grabbed her elbow. “Has she a phone?”
“Yes!” she said, and looked at him strangely before leaping to her feet and lunging for her bag. Maniacally, she began to sift through it.
Flynn grabbed up the phone, dialed Joe.
“Yo,” Joe said lazily on the third ring.
“Meet me at the Delaney flat,” he said. “And don’t let her out of your sight.” He hung up, whirled around; Rachel was dumping the contents of her enormous bag onto the dining table. He strode into the dining room and grabbed the Venetian bowl, dumping the apples carelessly onto the table.
“What are you doing?”
Flynn put his hand on her shoulder; she looked up at him with a mixture of confusion and anxiety. “You must do precisely as I say, Rachel. You must call Dagne and tell her to stay put. Tell her she mustn’t leave her flat! And Rachel . . . you mustn’t leave this house. Do you quite understand me? I’ll be back later, but you cannot leave until I’ve spoken with you again.” Rachel blinked up at him with big blue eyes clouded with bewilderment.
He did not wait for an answer, but was out the door, determined to retrieve that priceless painting before anything happened to it.
Chapter Thirty-Three