Take My Breath Away…

Nash held up a hand. “It wasn’t that we didn’t like you.”

“It’s that you were a girl,” Jonah finished.

She fisted her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m a woman now.”

“Exactly. And Gabe doesn’t bring women here. He’s very careful,” Jonah said. “So naturally, we’re curious.”

“And rude.” But she couldn’t fault the way they cared for Gabe.

“She’s right,” Gabe said as he descended the stairs. “You are rude.”

“Uh-oh,” Jonah mumbled.

“Busted,” Nash said. “You started it. You take the first punch.”

“I took the first punch last time,” Jonah complained.

“I have plenty of punches to go around,” Gabe as he put an arm around Nicola’s shoulders.

Both men raised their arms in surrender. “How about if we apologize?” Nash asked with his eyes on Jonah.

“I do,” Jonah said turning to Nicola. “Sorry. We just worry about Gabe here.”

“I think Gabe here can take care of himself,” Nicola said.

Nash laughed then. “I like her.” He turned to Nicola. “And I apologize, also. And if Gabe insists on punching us, I’ll take it easy on him.”

“If I were you, I’d quit while I was ahead,” Nicola said.

This time it was Jonah who laughed. Then he held out his hand. “I like you, too. I’m pleased to meet you again, Nicola Guthrie.”

She took his hand. “Likewise, I think.”

“Pull up a stool,” Nash said to Gabe. “Jonah was sure you were starving.”

When Gabe had coffee in front of him, he said to Jonah, “You didn’t have Nash pick you up and fly you here just to bring me breakfast. What have you got?”

Jonah dumped fries out of a bag and squeezed ketchup onto them. “I’ve got some background on Claire Forlani and on Dee Atherton. They’re mother and daughter.”

“You found a birth certificate,” Gabe said.

“I found two,” Jonah explained. “One in this country for a Claire Forlani. Mother—Susan Forlani, father—Art Forlani. But I couldn’t dig up any more information on the parents. No birth certificates on them.”

“Which means that whoever established Claire’s background cover didn’t go very deep,” Nicola said.

Jonah met her eyes. “No, they didn’t. In fact, other than the birth certificate, a driver’s license and a passport which were both issued a year ago, there’s no record of Claire Forlani even being in the United States. No college records, no high school records. She’s a blank slate.”

“I bet I know where you found the other birth certificate,” Gabe said.

“Italy,” Nicola guessed.

Jonah wrinkled his nose. “Do I get to tell this or not?”

Gabe waved a fry at him. “Go ahead.”

“I tried looking in Italy, close to Venice, between 1990 and 1993 because those were the approximate dates you got from your Uncle Ben. And he was right. Dee Atherton had found a partner all right. Claire Forlani was born to Arturo Forlani and Dee Atherton on January 25, 1991. And there are school records there on Claire up until her first year in college. That would be about the same time she turned up in the States with a driver’s license and passport.”

“So she was raised by her father,” Gabe mused. “What have you found on him?”

“According to a business partner of mine in Venice, Arturo Forlani was a respected businessman and a widower until his death a year ago. Claire was his only daughter of record. He didn’t speak much English and he didn’t travel. Interpol has nothing on him.”

“It looks as though Dee Atherton’s partner for the museum heist couldn’t have been Arturo Forlani,” Nicola said.

“I agree,” Gabe said.

“Glad it’s unanimous,” Jonah added.

“Then who was her partner?” Nicola asked. “Bennett said when she met with your father in Venice, she had a partner, one who was excellent at producing forgeries.”

“I’m still looking into that,” Jonah said. “I’ve got my friend at Interpol looking for someone who would have been working in Europe during that time period. But I’ve got nothing back so far.”

“My dad’s looking for someone working in the States during the past fifteen years,” Nicola said.

Gabe set his coffee down. “Nicola thinks the partner might have kept in touch with Claire over the years, perhaps to see if she inherited her mother’s talents.”

“Not a bad theory.” Jonah sent Nicola a smile. “I’ll check into it.”

Nash wadded up empty wrappers. “What we think we’ve got is a forger and a security person, two people who combined had a chance to have the same kind of successful career Gabe’s father had. And it must have been working because when Dee Atherton had a baby, she left the little girl behind with the father and went back to work.” He shot the papers he’d gathered into the waste basket.

“Sixteen years ago—give or take—they came here and Dee sought Gabe’s father out to ask for help,” Nicola said. “Twice.”

“Uncle Ben said she had blueprints. We’re assuming she wanted help with breaking through the security of the Denver Art Museum, and the partner who got away was the forger.”

“Then Dee was shot and killed, and the partner waited fifteen years to start up again?” Nash asked.

“Not exactly. We think the partner blamed Gabe’s father for Dee’s death and the failure of the robbery and got part of his or her revenge fifteen years ago.” Then she filled Nash and Jonah in on the details of their theory that Raphael Wilder was framed.

“Revenge,” Jonah said. “It’s a powerful motivator.”

“And it seems to have widened beyond my father and me.” Gabe filled his friends in on the vandalism at Nicola’s apartment and the note.

“So Dee Atherton’s partner began his revenge with Gabe’s dad and then waited all these years to finish the job?” Nash asked. “He or she had to have been doing something all this time.”

Nicola looked at Gabe. “The whole thing about leaving a forgery behind is that it might never be discovered.” She rose and began to pace. “Private homes are easier to break into than museums.”

“I see where you’re going,” Jonah said. “You’re thinking the robberies here in Denver may have been going on for a while and the thief has only recently gone public.”

“Yes,” Nicola said.

“Still, a good forger has to have access to the pieces,” Gabe pointed out.

“The Cézanne was on loan to the art museum the first time the attempt was made to steal it. My stepmother might know if the Longfords, the Glastons and the Baileys ever lent their paintings to the museum.”

“Call her,” Gabe said.

Then it was his own cell phone that rang.

“Wilder,” he said. The expression on his face had Nicola’s stomach knotting.

“It’s Pete,” Gabe said, “the young man I stationed at Claire Forlani’s door. Someone has made an attempt on her life.”

The three men rose at once.

“Wait.” Nicola grabbed the towel off her head as she slid off her stool and raced for the stairs. “I need to get dressed.”

“We’ll wait,” Gabe promised.

“Girls,” Jonah muttered.

GABE STOOD IN THE HALLWAY directly outside of Claire Forlani’s room in the intensive care unit. Once they’d reached the floor, the four of them had split up. Nash and Jonah had remained at the T in the hallway where they could keep the door to the waiting room and both ends of the hallway in view. Nicola had gone to the nurse’s station the moment she’d seen that Sid was talking on the phone. He’d moved to talk to his man Pete. The young man had a bandage on his head and he was sitting on a chair on one side of Claire’s closed door. A uniformed policeman stood on the other.

Through the glass window, Gabe could see the lights blinking on the machines Claire was hooked up to.“I’m sorry I let you down, boss,” Pete said. “It happened so fast.”

“He didn’t let you down all by himself.”

Gabe switched his gaze to the uniformed officer, a man in his forties with thinning hair.

“The doctors had been through on their morning rounds, the floor was quiet, and I asked Pete if he’d mind covering while I went to get us both some coffee,” the older man said. “I should never have left.”

“What happened next?” Gabe asked Pete.

“One of the patients coded. The nurse’s station cleared,” Pete said. “When this guy in scrubs came along pushing a wheelchair, I thought he was here to transport a patient away for some procedure. The next thing I knew, something hit me in the side of my head. Hard. I blacked out for a couple seconds. When I came to and made it into the room, the nurse over there, Sid, was struggling with this guy. I pulled out my gun and told him I’d shoot. He shoved Sid into me and took off.”

“It sounds like you did the job I hired you to do,” Gabe said, putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Sometimes they get away.”