“Oh, Jesus,” Dagne uttered. “Oh, Jesus. What do we do?”
“I don’t know for sure. But I know one thing—Myron’s on his way to Hilton Head Island. Remember the year we went and stayed a week? His parents have a condo down by the lighthouse somewhere. I know he’s going there, I could hear them boarding in the background while he was talking on my phone. I’m going after him.” And honestly, Rachel had never felt as fiercely determined as she did in that moment. That asshole had her phone, and she was going to go get it back. And maybe kill him in the process, too.
“No, Rachel!” Dagne cried. “Don’t do that! They’ll think you are running away. God knows what else he’s got in your house!”
“I have to,” Rachel said, her determination growing in leaps and bounds.
“Jesus, no you don’t! What do you think—you’re Charlie’s Angel or something? You can’t go chasing after a . . . a . . .”
“Lying sack of shit!? Yes I can, Dagne, and I am,” Rachel said. “Don’t come around here, okay? Who knows what’s here or who will be looking for me. Once it gets out you have that painting, the RIHPS is going to figure it out and start looking for the jackass. And they can damn well have him—just as long as I get my hands on him first.”
“Rachel!” Dagne shrieked. “You can’t—”
“Yes I can, Dagne!” Rachel cried, on the verge of hysteria. “Dad is right! It’s about time I quit hiding and just step off the ledge and fall into life! I’ll call you, I promise, but I’m going,” she said, and hung up before Dagne could argue.
She glanced at the clock. A little past six. She snatched up her PDA, pulled up the number for Lear Transport Industries in New York and hastily dialed the number.
“Hello?” she said, getting Dad’s secretary on the line. “Oh hi, Belinda. How are you?” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Listen, is Dad in New York for a while? Great . . . I need the plane . . . No, wait! No, really, it’s okay, I don’t need to talk to—” Damn! “Ah, hi, Dad,” she said brightly, frantic now.
“What’s this about you needing a plane?” he asked calmly.
“Dad.” She took a deep breath. “Remember our talk? About how it was time for me to get out and face life and not be afraid of it?”
“Of course I do.”
“There is something I need to face. And I need you to trust me. I just need to go do it and I don’t have time to talk, because I have to get to Hilton Head fast.”
“Hilton Head—”
“Dad, please! I am going to go down there to take that asshole Myron Tidwell down, but I need to do it in a hurry! I’ll explain everything later, but could I use the plane, please?”
Dad didn’t say anything for a moment, and she squeezed her eyes shut, her mind already racing ahead to how she’d get there if he said no. A train. Trains left all night. But for the second time that week, Dad surprised the shit out of her. “I guess it needs to pick you up in Providence?”
She opened her eyes, feeling, remarkably, stronger than she ever had in her life. “Yes,” she said, and worked out when to meet the pilot.
Flynn arrived at Dagne’s apartment complex and parked next to Joe, who was waiting for him “She’s inside,” he said as Flynn slipped into the passenger seat. “So what’s up?”
“You’ll not believe it. This one,” Flynn said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Dagne’s apartment, “took the Badger portrait to some televised show where people bring their heirlooms to have them appraised.”
Joe’s jaw dropped. “Antiques Roadshow?” he exclaimed in disbelief. “Christ Almighty.” He shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised,” he added, and reached behind him, grabbed a pair of silver candlesticks wrapped in plastic and showed them to Flynn. “Some guy in Michigan bought this off eBay. When he received them, he suspected they were authentic and had them checked out. They were authentic, all right, so he turned them over to the police, who traced them back to a seller here in Providence. One Dagne Delaney.”
“Bloody hell,” Flynn said.
“What about Rachel Lear?”
What about Rachel Lear . . . Flynn glanced out the window into the dark. “She’s got quite a number of items lying around and seems unconcerned in general.”
Joe said nothing for a moment, but finally said, “Dude. I’m sorry.”
Flynn wasn’t sorry. At least not yet he wasn’t—in his heart of hearts, he didn’t believe for a moment that Rachel was involved in this scheme. That would go against everything he knew about her. And he was, generally, a bloody good judge of character. Actually, he was usually spot on when sizing people up.
But then again, he couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation for how those items had landed in her home without her having some part in it.