Two days later on Wednesday, we held the first official gathering of Robin and her girlfriends to help plan her wedding. With Robin’s permission, I’d invited my new friend and neighbor, Alex Monroe. Derek and I had become good friends with her after she helped me fight off some really bad guys a few months back. Alex was a gorgeous, tall, high-powered businesswoman with the best wardrobe in the world. She was also an expert at Krav Maga and other defensive disciplines. I had introduced her to Robin and Austin a month ago at a dinner party Derek and I had thrown, and my two friends had hit it off nicely.
My sister London had driven down from Calistoga to join us, along with China, Savannah, Annie, and Barb, another old friend Robin and I had gone to school with. The eight of us spent an hour chatting and giggling foolishly about every little thing before settling down to plan Robin’s wedding of the century. It helped to have a few true experts at the table, namely Alex, the cupcake and wardrobe queen; China, the textiles maven; Savannah, the gourmet goddess; and Annie, who knew everything about kitchenware. Much to Annie’s delight, Robin would be registering at her store. The rest of us fell into the general know-it-all category and blithely added our homegrown expertise to the conversation as often as we could.
After lunch, I spent a half hour in the parking lot, chatting and catching up with Alex. She filled me in on how well the construction was moving along and assured me that our new loft was going to be fantastic. We made plans to meet for dinner and then Alex took off to check in to one of the spa hotels in town.
When I arrived home, I felt much more relaxed than I had in a while.
Part of my feeling of calm came from knowing that Elizabeth hadn’t killed Amelia. But as I walked into the house, I suddenly wondered if she was the one who’d taken the Renoir. She’d been obsessed with the photograph of the painting at the town hall photo exhibit. Could the painting have belonged to a Jewish family before World War II began? Had Elizabeth been assigned by Mossad to look for it? Had she somehow gotten into the cave and taken it? Had Jackson given her the key?
“Impossible,” I muttered. My brother would never allow that to happen.
Not only that, but I couldn’t see Elizabeth sneaking in and stealing it. If she had found evidence that a piece of artwork in the cave was once owned by a Jewish family, it would be a simple matter of alerting the local authorities and starting an investigation. She was welcome to do so, as far as I was concerned.
But knowing the history of how this artwork had made it from a village in France to a wine cave in Sonoma, I didn’t see how any of our treasures could be what she was looking for.
*
That evening, Derek and I took Alex to dinner at Arugula. She had already given me the highlights earlier, but now she elaborated, filling us in on all the news going on in our building. Our new space was beyond wonderful, she assured us. Derek and I planned to drive into town next weekend to see it for ourselves. And Vinnie and Suzie’s little girl, Lily, was growing so fast, she reported.
It was during dessert that Gabriel stopped by the table. “Hello.”
We greeted him enthusiastically and introduced him to Alex. I watched his face as she spoke to him and it reminded me that Gabriel was very good at hiding his reactions. But I did see one of his eyebrows lift appraisingly and that told me a lot. It was easy to see why he would find Alex attractive. She was simply beautiful. Tall and confident with a good sense of humor. What was there not to like? But unfortunately for Gabriel, Alex would never get involved with him because as a super-high-powered woman, she preferred the attentions of more passive men. She called them beta types, as opposed to alphas like Gabriel.
Of course, knowing Gabriel, I doubted that he’d give up after just one meeting. I couldn’t wait to talk to Alex about him, but she was unusually quiet once we were in the car.
After dropping Alex off at the inn, we drove home. I did a quick check of my e-mail and found a message from Claude. He had translated the letter completely. I thanked him profusely, but he turned around and thanked me instead.
“You lead a much more interesting life than I do, Brooklyn,” he wrote. “This was the biggest thrill I’ve had in months. Normally, the only excitement I ever experience is when I read it in the pages of a book.”
I smiled at that, since much of my excitement came from books, too. Sometimes, though, it was a little too much excitement.
I printed out Claude’s translation and found Derek at the kitchen table, scanning his phone for messages while waiting for me to finish. He glanced up. “Are you ready for some news?” he asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“You go first,” he said.
“No, mine will take some time.”
“All right then. I just heard back from the London office.” He read from his phone screen. “‘Elisheba Asimov, known as Elise, is a high-ranking Mossad agent in charge of tracking down artwork stolen from the Jews during the Second World War.’”
“Wow, just as you suspected. I was right. You are brilliant.”
He smiled. “It was a good guess.”
“And Elisheba,” I said. “That’s an interesting name.”
“It’s the Hebrew version of Elizabeth, according to Corinne.”