Take My Breath Away…

As soon as she’d filled their cups, Bennett said, “How about those details now?”

Gabe filled him in on what had happened at the church the night before and everything they’d discovered since then. This time he left nothing out.

Bennett lifted his cup and sipped his coffee. “You want to know about Bedelia Bisset. That was the name in the newspaper coverage of the attempted robbery of the museum, but I knew her as Dee Atherton.”

“Dee could be short for Bedelia,” Nicola said. Digging into her purse, she pulled out the plastic bag that contained the bracelet she’d taken from the hospital. “The charm has the initials, D.A. Do you recognize it?” she asked as she tipped it onto the table.

Bennett picked it up and studied it. “Dee Atherton wore a bracelet like this. She told your father that her partner had given it to her.”

“My father knew her?” Gabe asked.

“She worked with your father once in Paris, shortly after you were born. Your mother had already taken you back to Denver. Dee was very young, barely out of her teens, and she was very good at breaking through locks, safes, any kind of security. You name it, and she could get through it. Your father thought she had a real feel for it.” Bennett met Gabe’s eyes. “The same kind that you have. Except that you’ve used your talent on the other side of the law. Your father never worked with her again. He said she was impulsive, cocky, that she liked the rush almost as much as she liked to bag the prize. Your father, as much as he loved the game, was a meticulous planner, and something had almost gone very wrong during the job, something she hadn’t warned him about.”

Bennett raised his hands and then dropped them again. “I don’t have any more details than that about Paris, but we ran into her four or five years later in Venice. She had hooked up with a new partner—an Italian, I think, and a very good forger. That was the first time I saw her wearing the bracelet.”

Bennett sipped coffee before he continued. “She tried to convince your father to work with them. He turned her down.”

Gabe studied his uncle for a moment. “What else?”

“She came to see your father again about a month before the attempt at the Denver Art Museum. That would have been more than five or six years since we’d run into her in Venice. He spoke to her in your mother’s studio. About a week later, she came back again, and she was carrying a long tube.”

“Blueprints,” Gabe said.

“That was my guess, too. It wasn’t until the papers carried the story of her death that your father told me she’d come to ask him to help her steal one of the Cézannes from the collection. I’d surmised something like that. But he’d refused.”

Bennett reached out and covered one of Gabe’s hands with his. “He’d refused. He wasn’t a part of it. He said he’d sent her away without looking at the blueprints. But he felt guilty about her death.”

Gabe picked up the bracelet. “When I first saw this, it looked familiar to me.”

“Makes sense,” Bennett said. “After your mother died, you spent as much time as you could with your father in the studio. You may have seen her one of the times she came.”

“There’s more,” Gabe said as he handed the bracelet back to Nicola. “I just can’t remember it. Maybe I don’t want to remember it.”

Nicola studied Bennett for a moment, then asked, “Do you think Raphael Wilder stole the Matisse?”

Bennett hesitated.

Gabe covered one of Bennett’s hands. “Uncle Ben isn’t as sure about my father’s innocence as I am.”

Bennett met her eyes. “I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t have as much faith in Raphael as Gabe does. And during that time frame when they believe the Matisse was stolen, Raphael was making some trips, tying up loose ends. What I do know is that he was determined to give up the life and settle down here. He loved Aurelia and Gabe very much.”

“Uncle Ben thinks Dad might have stolen the Matisse as a last fling,” Gabe said.

“He always denied it,” Bennett said.

“It’s all right,” Gabe assured him. “I’ve always been the only one who believed in his innocence until I met Nicola here.”

“Ah.” Bennett reached for her hand then and gave it a squeeze.

“I have a question for you,” Nicola said. “Why did Raphael take up sculpture?”

“That’s an easy one. Aurelia, Gabe’s mother, suggested it to him. She knew him very well. More than any of us, she realized what it would cost him not to go back to his old life. And he’d evidently toyed with sculpting while they were together in Paris. The next thing I knew he was ordering chunks of marble shipped over from Italy.”

“Do you have any idea why he started with the St. Francis?”

Bennett shook his head. “I can’t help you there.”

Gabe took out his phone. “Jonah has something.” He pushed a button, scanned a text. “Bedelia Bisset is an alias for Dee Atherton—Interpol’s file on her lists her under both names. And he’s sending a picture.”

When he pressed the button, Nicola could see from his face that they had something. “What is it?”

“It’s coming back to me. The memory has been tugging at me ever since we were at the hospital. I did see her when she came to the studio. And both times, my dad sent me out into the garden to play.”

Gabe turned his cell so that both Bennett and she could see the picture Jonah had sent.

“That’s Dee Atherton,” Bennett said. “I’d swear that’s her.”

Nicola just stared at the image. Though she appeared to be older in the picture, Dee Atherton/Bedelia Bisset was a dead ringer for the young woman she’d shot—the woman who now lay in a coma at St. Vincent’s.

12

AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, Gabe drove through the gates of Thorne Mansion just in time for Nicola’s fitting with Randolph Meyer. They’d spent most of the drive back to the city trying to process the information that Bedelia Bisset/Dee Atherton and Claire Forlani had to be related. That certainly would explain why they looked so much alike and why the younger woman had been wearing the older woman’s bracelet. He’d already texted Jonah to start looking for a connection between Dee Atherton and an Italian in Venice, perhaps named Forlani.

The difference in age along with the resemblance and the bracelet argued that they were mother and daughter. Nicola had pointed out that they couldn’t discount aunt and niece.The call from her stepmother to remind her again of the fitting appointment for her dress had come just as they’d left The Eyrie. Nicola had been in the middle of making an excuse when she’d broken off, listened for a minute and then said, “Fine. We’ll be there.”

Her voice had been smooth, but he’d noted that her knuckles had turned white on the cell as she replaced it in her purse. Then she’d told him that her father was at the house and wanted to talk to him. She’d been frowning ever since.

“I take it that you aren’t happy about the fitting,” he said as he parked the truck in front of the sprawling front porch.

“I don’t need another fitting. I just had one with Randolph last week. The dress is fine.”

Turning in the seat, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. “It’s more than the fitting. Tell me.”

There was a mix of anger and hurt in her eyes when they met his. “It’s the whole dichotomy between what I want to be and what they want me to be. Marcia wants me to marry well, step into her shoes one day, and throw charity balls. So does my father. That’s not what I want—or at least not all that I want.”

“And this dress-fitting thing symbolizes that?”

Her laugh was dry and lacking in humor. “You might say that. I’ve had four fittings for this dress because Marcia thinks that Randolph Meyer is just the kind of young man I ought to be seeing socially. Oh, he may not come from money, but he’s definitely making his mark here in Denver. And he’s invited to all the right parties. In fact, Marcia told me earlier today that he will be joining our table at the ball tomorrow night.”

“She’s matchmaking.” He noted a bitter, coppery taste in his mouth. Jealousy?

“Yes. If I marry someone local, then I’ll stay here in Denver. In fact, if your friend Nash Fortune wasn’t always flying hither and yon for the air force, I’m sure Marcia would get it into her head that we were soul mates. She already invited him for dinner once she learned that he was stationed at the Air Force Academy, and he’ll be sitting at our table tomorrow night, too.”

Gabe had arranged for Nash to come in for the ball. The fact that he was stationed at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs made it easy. Gabe was depending on his old friend to help out with security. Jonah was still tying up some business so that he could get away.

“You and Nash,” he mused. “I guess I’ll just count my lucky stars that my friend puts a high value on serving our country.” There had been sufficient annoyance in her tone when she’d spoken of the Meyer guy and Nash to ease the jealousy he was feeling. “But the matchmaking isn’t all that’s bothering you. Spill it, Curls.”