“Sit.” Kislyak dropped into what was probably a priceless chair and pushed more out with his feet for them, the noise jarring. “Enjoy the famous vistas.”

  On the surface, it could seem a polite invitation, and the broad smile accompanying it an example of the charm the man was known to employ, but the hairs at Drew’s nape stood up in reaction to Kislyak, and he bet Claire had a gut feeling about him too. That he’s a crook.

  Drew had strong feelings about liars and cheats—the higher up the food chain they were and the more untouchable they felt, the more he burned to bring them down. He’d seen enough to despise those with power who used it to take advantage of or, worse, threaten and coerce, those weaker than them. And not just in the course of his police work, but in the events that had propelled him into law enforcement, when his father had taken the fall for company embezzlement that he’d had nothing to do with.

  Leo Harrington had been bewildered at his inability to prove his innocence and anguished to finally understand that his manager had not only been working with the head of accounts to cover their tracks but had left a trail that pointed at Leo as the accountant responsible. Leo had been the one blamed for endorsing and cashing customer checks payable to the company, then keeping the funds. Leo was the fraudster who’d set up a bank account with a fictitious name similar to the company’s to divert electronic payments into.

  His father’s horror at being found guilty of a crime he hadn’t committed had stuck with Drew, as had the smooth lies told by people whom his father had assumed were friends but who’d lived and operated in deceit and double-dealing.

  Drew looked around at the terrace, the view, the small clump of hovering servants…all signs of Kislyak’s wealth. “Art dealing pays well,” he remarked.

  “I make it so.” Their host flashed a smile and snapped his fingers, which had his staff scurrying forward. “I’m about to eat. Won’t you join me?”

  Drew wanted to roll his eyes at the almost cinema-villain act. He shook his head and Claire refused too, although her gaze was glued to the salvers being uncovered as the staff served Kislyak brunch. A maid poured glasses of iced water and fresh orange juice for all three of them. He wondered if Kislyak would say Grace before he ate. If he did, it would likely be the art dealer’s version—For those we are about to deceive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.

  “You have questions for me.” Their host didn’t look up from the poached egg he slit with his knife, to make the yolk run down its side.

  “Your father, Viktor, after he made money when state utilities were privatized, started by acquiring authentic, but not well-known, works by artists such as Gauguin, Chagall, Modigliani and Klee.” Drew ignored Claire’s start of surprise at his question. He took out his notebook, although he didn’t need to refer to it.

  “That’s not a question.” Kislyak still didn’t look up, instead spooning salt onto his egg.

  “No, background,” Drew agreed. “He was in business with Anton Selaman and was involved in what came to be called the Curious Case of the Twin Chagalls.”

  Kislyak’s fingers tightened around his knife, but his gaze was on his plate.

  “Because it seemed their business model was to copy these little-known works then sell the reproductions in Asia and the originals in Europe and the States, hoping that original and copy would never meet. It worked fine as a system…until it didn’t, with two identical Chagalls up for auction in two different houses at the same time.”

  Now Kislyak looked up, his eyebrows one low, straight, menacing line. “That was Selaman.”

  “He was convicted of the fraud, yes,” Drew agreed. He flipped over a page. “Then your father, and you to some extent, switched tactics to ‘filling the gaps’ in artists’ bodies of work, either inventing new works or creating ones which were believed to be lost but whose titles were known…no images of which existed.”

  Kislyak slammed his knife and fork down. “That was my father’s assistant. He was deceiving us.”

  The man had pleaded guilty and died in prison, but Drew doubted he’d been working alone. “And now we come to you.” Drew gave him a smile. “You and stolen paintings.” Because he was convinced that Kislyak had switched tack again, to a different form of art fraud.

  Kislyak took up his phone and his thumbs flew over the keypad.

  “What my colleague means is we’re inquiring into the Van Gogh painting Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Orchard that Sonia Malykhin, wife of Mikhail Malykhin, received as part of her divorce settlement and sold at auction,” Claire said, the polite cop to his rude one.

  “Or tried to, but couldn’t, because the painting in question was stolen goods.” Drew laced his tone with concern. “You sold Malykhin the artwork, yes? And yes, that’s a question.”

  “I did. A lamentable incident. I bought it in good faith in Zurich from an elderly couple who had had it in their family for many years. They kept no paperwork, but I had the work authenticated by three experts in different countries and submitted their reports with the work.” Kislyak’s answer came out pat. Rehearsed.

  “Oh, the painting’s real…just stolen goods. From a robbery at the Hauser Foundation in Zurich in 2015…at the same time as you were in that city,” Drew snapped. He was sorry to spring this on his partner—she had no idea that Kislyak had been in Zurich when the small foundation had been robbed. Not many people did.

  Kislyak swept his arm across the table, knocking his plate and glasses and their contents to the floor. “Bland and undercooked,” he shouted at his staff, who scurried to clean it up.

  “Two other Van Goghs were stolen at the same time, the entire short series Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Lovers at Twilight and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Church at Sunrise. Did you also acquire those?” Drew stared at his quarry. “You sell mostly in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, places where buyers don’t really care about provenance or if certificates of authenticity are fake…”

  Kislyak smirked but said nothing, and Drew saw red. His phone beeped, as did Claire’s, but he ignored them. He stood. “Roman Kislyak, I’m arresting you on suspicion of—”

  “Wait!” Claire held out her phone, showing him the screen, where the name of the sender, Chief Inspector John Caine, was clear, as was his message. “We have to leave right away, sir,” she told Kislyak.

  He texted him! He fucking texted Caine and Unable who’s put the brakes on this! “No,” Drew began.

  “What a pity. I’ll show you out.” Kislyak shoved his chair back and stood. “I’ll even give you a short tour, seeing as you like the place so much.” He strode off, leaving them to follow.

  “Not here,” Claire gritted out before Drew could speak. “Let’s get outside.”

  But that took time, with Kislyak leading them through a couple of rooms, pointing out the place’s features and décor. Claire nodded and made all the right noises, and Drew stared narrow-eyed at a wall of paintings and took out his phone, still ignoring his boss’s message.

  “He’s guilty, Claire,” he said as soon as they were back in the car. “You feel it too, don’t you?”

  “Doesn’t matter what we feel, when we’ve been told how to handle him and we ignored an order,” Claire replied.

  “It doesn’t matter that he was laughing in our faces? Or that he’s a criminal? I know he is and I’ll prove it.”

  “Better do it quick then, because we’re in deep doo-doo.” Claire started the engine with a jerk and peeled out of the parking space with a squeal of rubber. “Deep shit, even. Right up to our necks.”

  Drew let her drive, because he wanted to study his phone, more specifically the photos he’d discreetly taken in the penthouse, of the artworks on that one wall. Kislyak’s tastes were expensive, flashy and brash, so why did he have a row of softer, more Romantic maritime, landscape and seascape paintings? They didn’t fit the room or his style.

  It nagged at him and when things did that, he wanted to understand why. “I’ll prove it,” he muttered, firming his lips.

  Claire sighed. “But don’t you have a date tonight? You and your fella?” she asked.

  “Do I?” Drew didn’t remember. Any plans he and Ash had would have to be shelved. Bringing down that evil bastard was more important.

  Chapter Three

  “Gooooal!” cried the spectators, and Elliot, despite knowing nothing of five-a-side, understood that a team had scored, and, as it was the team that he was here at Olmos Basin Park this evening to support, that this was a good thing.

  “Yes! Well done!” he called through the wire cage onto the field. No—the pitch. Darrell and Aldric had gently corrected him again as to that terminology when he’d arrived, at the interval. No—half-time. Look at me, becoming quite the expert.

  Or, at least, he’d be more familiar with the game and the league if he didn’t tend to tune out when Aldric Beamer, his employee at Intrinsic Value, talked about it. In Elliot’s defense, that had been quite a lot. Aldric had been enthusiastic right from his partner Darrell Williams’ initial idea of forming a five-a-side soccer ball team, mainly of other police officers from the San Antonio Police Department, to participate in OutField, San Antonio’s largest LGBTQ sports association.

  Darrell enjoyed sport and fitness, and Jonas, the other employee at the store, had joked that this was Officer Williams’ latest scheme to get Aldric to take more exercise and improve his diet. Remembering that silly joke had Elliot smiling now, holding his hand over his mouth in case anyone saw and thought he was amused at the standard of play he was watching. Elliot supposed he was lucky that Aldric and Darrell hadn’t been badgering him more to join in.

  “It’s for everyone!” Aldric had blinked his big brown eyes behind his glasses. “From beginners like me who can barely kick to fantastic athletes like Darrell, and if you’re male or female, or gay or straight! Oh, or transgender.”

  And it’s a social event as much as a sports activity, Elliot surmised, sharing a nod with a fellow spectator. The crowd had been chanting and singing, and even dancing and doing something Elliot had learned earlier was called a Mexican Wave. People were drinking beer and hadn’t Aldric mentioned something about a get-together, after? The atmosphere was festive already.

  A photographer left the fenced-off area and turned to face the crowd, raising his camera to perhaps get a few shots of the huddle of men in furry bear masks behind Elliot. Elliot scooted away, out of camera range.

  “Elliot? Elliot Douglas? Is that you?” asked a voice at the side of him and although it was familiar, when he turned to see, it took him a moment to place the client he’d begun working for recently, an interior designer looking for items for the spaces he created for commercial and private clients. The man had been dressed more formally on the couple of occasions they’d met, and his thick blond hair had been tidily slicked back.

  “Hello. Lovely to see you, James.” Elliot put out a hand to shake, and James gave him a quizzical look then pulled him in for a brief hug, delivering a quick slap to Elliot’s upper arm with it.

  “Call me Jim,” he replied. “James makes me feel I’m at work.”

  “Ah. So I shouldn’t ask you how things are going at the apartment building?” Elliot was interested in how the former cannery was becoming a residential development, and particularly in the loft James Devlin Designs and Interiors was creating. “And how the glassware looks?”

  “A half-wall studded with pale-green glass items of the nineteen-thirties.” Jim nodded, his eyes misty. “It’s coming on well. I’ll take any and all Depression glassware you can find me! Oh, and do you remember me mentioning the neighboring apartment, that they were interested in my services too?”

  Elliot nodded, wondering if this would impact on the store. He was always happy to consult with decorators and designers and find pieces for their projects.

  “Well, they were, and we’re already underway, and they’ve gone for a classic look—the nineteen-eighties!” Jim’s enthusiasm bubbled from him. “You remember, all black, gray and red tones, diagonal and geometric patterns? So moody!”

  “And pictures of Ferraris and Porsches on the walls?” Elliot vaguely remembered. It wasn’t a style he was interested in.

  “And I found a cache of original airbrushed posters, all bright pinks and blues, from an old shop in the area—I swear they have every sort of print known to man.”

  “Out in New Braunfels?” Elliot knew it. Well, the art and antiques world here was small. Everyone in it knew everyone else.

  “And that’s enough shop talk, agreed?” Jim cast a look around the spectators and over the pitch. “Is this your sort of thing?” When Elliot didn’t reply immediately, he rephrased. “Who are you here for?”

  “Oh, I’m supporting my employee and his partner who play for—let me get it correct—Here’s The Kicker. They’re in the lead.” He might not have been into team sports or the finer points of this modified version of soccer, but he could read names and numbers on a scoreboard.

  “I see.” Jim clapped and cheered at the final whistle. “Well, I hooked up with a guy who plays with the Bexar Bears and so I thought I’d hang around.” He gave a subtle tilt of his chin to where the Kicker’s opponents were lining up against the fence to receive applause from their supporters. “The big…bear Bear. You never know…” He waggled his eyebrows as if in mockery, but there was genuine hope in there, Elliot felt. Jim waved and left.

  Elliot had been right that the match was followed by a social event. The players reappeared, now showered and changed, making Elliot think he should have changed into less proper attire before coming to the game. Jim had looked a little surprised to see Elliot dressed as if to greet clients, but he didn’t really possess a wide range of casual clothes. He had sportswear, for playing squash and for swimming, and rough, workman-type clothes for when he labored on his house, but any other pastimes he indulged in tended to call for formalwear.

  Music started, and people drifted onto the now-open pitch and some headed up into the nearest row of seats ranging around the field. A jingle of bells and the blast of a horn sounded, people cheered and food and drink carts trundled up.

  “You found healthy hotdogs?” Aldric was asking Darrell incredulously when Elliot joined them.

  “Artisan hotdogs,” his partner corrected. “And an organic juice cart, look.” He pushed a lock of Aldric’s brown hair, fluffier than ever with being wet and drying, back from his eyes. “Don’t tell me you only wanted to join the league for the snacks after each game.”

  “Not much chance of that when you’re in charge of organizing the food and drink.” Aldric attempted a pout, but couldn’t keep it up, especially when Darrell swatted his ass. He grinned at Elliot. “I mentioned the after-game was as big a part of it as the game, didn’t I?”

  “You did, and I see that you were correct.” Elliot was thirsty and wanted to peruse the soft drink options, but found his attention drawn to Aldric, who was glowing with more than the aftermath of exercise.

  It was astonishing how much the painfully shy, socially anxious young man had blossomed in such a short time. Aldric stood almost jigging on the spot to the lively music playing from the speakers. He was smiling and chatting, and with a couple of players from the other team. He presumably didn’t know them as well as he did his own teammates, but that didn’t stop his face lighting up and his voice almost singing as he described the handmade ice-cream wagon someone had booked for last week’s game…and that had sold beer-flavored ice cream. He basked in the attention, the exclamations and questions that greeted his story.

  As much as Elliot would have liked to take credit for Aldric’s newfound confidence and spirit in that he’d spotted his potential and given him a job at Intrinsic Value—given him a chance in life—he couldn’t. Aldric having fallen in love with Darrell, and being loved in return, was responsible. Elliot was very happy for him, glad he’d found his special someone. Neither of the couple had had an easy time of things so far in life—both having, well, uneven relationships with their families, was a polite way of putting it.

  Elliot could relate to that. He pulled his thoughts away from that direction. “You find your life family, once you make your own life,” a wise man had told him. He’d been a detective, so maybe being around Darrell, a police officer, had brought him to Elliot’s mind. The case Elliot had brought to him had furthered his career, and Elliot was glad about that, too.

  Life family, he mused. Yes, he’d gone some way toward finding that. A more usual expression with the word life was life partner, and that…no. He didn’t see that on the horizon.

  “Oh, I haven’t congratulated you! How remiss of me. Well played, Kickers. You all did an excellent job.” Elliot reminded himself to sound less formal. “How many goals did you score, Darrell?”

  “Two. Aldric set both of them up. We make a good team.” Darrell threw Aldric a warm smile, making him blush.

  “Anyone want to join the line for dogs?” Aldric asked.

  “Yeah. I promised myself the gourmet, with hoisin, garlic and ginger sauce. And there’s fries with Parmesan and rosemary. Sound good, Elliot?” Darrell asked.

  “I’m hardly a culinary expert. I tend to have the same meal over and over, but, yes, it sounds interesting,” Elliot replied. “I believe it’s a big game next week?” Aldric had mentioned it. “And that Aldric’s brothers are coming to watch?”

  “And Darrell’s brother Ryan with his fiancée Leah,” Aldric half-turned to add, speaking over his shoulder where he was studying the menu. “Maybe he’ll convince his other brother, Travis, to come along too.”

  “Is something the matter, Aldric?” Elliot narrowed his eyes to study him. The boy was fizzing with excitement.

  “We have…well, not news.” Aldric glanced at his partner. “Well, it is something new. To us, I mean. Two things. Nothing big, but…”

  He barely held it in until, carrying their food and drinks, they stood around a small table. “You tell him!” he demanded of Darrell.