Whatever the special concoction or secret ingredient, the entire evening had me hot and bothered. By the time Nate quietly paid the check, I had stopped listening to what he was saying, focusing entirely on what might happen next. It was exciting to feel excited, on edge. I felt ready to start taking back my life, and a night with this decent man seemed like a good place to start. While we walked back to my hotel, arm in arm, I was working on my pickup line. “I have incredibly soft sheets. You should see them.”
Nate really enjoyed the sheets.
The note on the bedside stand read: Joan, I had to leave early for my conference. I think I’ve forgotten my whole speech. Thank you for last night, Nate.
And that was that. No promise to call, no plans for later. Oh, thank God.
I wanted simple, complication-free, back-on-the-horse monkey business, and I got it. Yes, I did. Checking the next step in my “recovery” off the list, adding it in with “announcing break-up to press” and “signing divorce papers.” One of the many things I had to do to move on. Though, I have to admit, for a math nerd, Nate had pretty great shoulders and unexpected take-charge manner. I lingered in bed thinking about his hands running down my back, my body on top of his.
I was so nervous. Being with somebody new was surprisingly exciting and intimidating at the same time. The bravado I had felt on the street dissipated by the time we rode up in the tiny elevator. Breathe. Enjoy. Dammit, relax.
Nate seemed to understand and went very slowly. He made quite an event of unzipping my dress, clearly an admirer of French fashion designers. Taking his time to move from back to front, he traced my collarbone with his finger a dozen times while brushing his lips to my neck, forehead, cheek, earlobe. His attention steadied my breath while ratcheting up my desire. He slipped the dress over my shoulders while his eyes dipped down to my breasts and back up to meet my eyes. His lips followed where his eyes had been, and I responded immediately. I could feel the fabric pooled around my feet while his hands moved strongly across my hips and down my thighs. “You are very lovely,” he whispered, stepping back. I stepped out of the dress and Nate rescued it from the floor, taking care to lay the dress over a chair back before we fell onto the sheets.
Thank you.
And that’s the way I felt in the morning—lovely and smug, having pulled off such a night. Nate was the perfect choice for undoing the damage that Casey had caused. Somebody thought I was lovely. Somebody thought I was enough.
I did have a slightly foggy head, so there was that. But I was sure a cup of coffee and brisk walk through the Luxembourg Gardens would take care of it. I had a whole day to kill, most of it in my hotel room, so I didn’t even mind the hangover. I checked my cell phone; it was almost nine.
It was only when I hopped out of bed that I noticed my closet door ajar. Had I left it open last night? I didn’t notice it open when Nate and I stumbled through the doorway, wrapped up in each other. Maybe because he was really a good kisser. My heart sprang into action, and I could hear the pounding in my ears. I scrambled over the bed and pulled back the clothes on hangers in my closet. The safe was open and the duplicate portfolio had been unwrapped, bubble paper tossed on the floor and the copycat sketches scattered on the closet floor.
Jesus.
Now I was really panicked. My roller bag was pushed into the back corner of the closet where I’d left it. It looked undisturbed, but I pulled it out anyway to check the contents. I unzipped the top flap, then the felt for the hidden closures in the false bottom and snapped them open. The space was empty. The portfolio was gone. The sketches were gone. Time slowed to a standstill as I repeated the motions, thinking that maybe the sketchbook would magically appear if I checked the false bottom a second time.
Still gone.
This is totally what I get for having a one-night stand.
Chapter 8
Even worse than the walk of shame is the call of shame. My first instinct was to run downstairs like a bad actor in a B movie, yelling, “Stop that thief!” while taking in the questioning looks of the Australian tourists in the breakfast room. I managed to quell that instinct and stay put, knowing full well that Nate had been gone for hours. I tried to slow down the surge of adrenaline by throwing on some jeans and brushing my teeth. After regrouping, I strolled downstairs as casually as I could, mainly to get coffee but also to see if Claude at the front desk might have spotted anything suspicious.
“I see it was not all work and no play,” he said with a wink. Apparently, he has spotted Nate on the way out.
“An old friend. You know how that goes,” I explained, trying to sound casual and confident. “Did you happen to notice what time he left?”
“About seven. I came on duty then, and he stopped at the desk.”
“Was he carrying anything?”
“Ah, yes!” Claude’s face lit up. He reached under the desk as he said, “Your old friend asked me to give you this.” Claude handed me my scarf; I must have left it at the table in the restaurant. “He said it was in his pocket. Very good to get it back, yes?”
Merde.
I grabbed some coffee and two croissants and headed back to the scene of the crime. I dialed Tai’s number out of habit, but there was no answer because of course it was late and he was six thousand miles away. I didn’t bother to leave a message because really, what was there to say? Besides, of course, a giant scream and maybe some crying, and poor Tai had had enough of that already from me. Then I remembered that the curatorial staff was on a weekend retreat in Palm Springs, assessing their work from the previous year and planning for the next. Essentially, if I confessed to one curator, I confessed to all.
I pictured the disappointed look in the stern face of David Weller, director of collections, as I dialed the phone once again. When Mike Danbretti picked up the phone for the second time in two days, there was no joking around. “The Panthéon Sketches are gone, Mike. Stolen from my hotel room.”
First came the painful, cringeworthy series of questions involving where I was, who I was with, and how could I possibly have slept through the robbery. It was like confessing to my uncle Mike the Priest, if I had an uncle who was a priest, which I didn’t. And it was excruciating. Mike handled my one-night stand like a pro; I was the one with issues.
Then, Mike went to work on what I knew about Nate Redmond while he tapped away into his database. Fortunately, Nate had a real paper trail and reputation, as an inventor and entrepreneur, not as an international art thief, so at least I hadn’t been totally hoodwinked. Stealing art must be a side gig. “I can’t believe he took it, even if all the evidence points that way,” I said.
“Well, you can’t say for sure that the portfolio was there when you came home from dinner, right? You were otherwise occupied. It’s entirely possible someone was in your room while you were out. Probable, really, because they had time to open the safe and check the fake portfolio. Is there anyone else that knew where you were and what you were doing?”
I recalled the driver’s suspicion when I made my phone calls. I told Mike. And then I turned on poor Claude and his dog Monsieur Scoop. “He knew I had work to do—maybe he put two and two together?”
“That’s not really two and two, Joan. That’s one and nothing. How about the Beatrice Landreau at the gallery? Have you been in contact with her since she was a no-show?”