Liar's Key. Carla Neggers
of interest to the FBI, or to you personally?”
“I haven’t spoken to them. This is a voluntary interview on your part, Oliver, but I’d like to ask the questions if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. By all means.” He sat back farther, clearly relaxed. “Ask away.”
“A retired FBI agent was there. I believe you know him. Gordon Wheelock.”
“Do I?”
“He investigated your US thefts. San Francisco, Dallas. He’s responsible for putting away a number of art thieves and was sorry he retired before he could put you away.”
“My thefts? Me? The still unidentified thief, you mean.” Oliver gave an obviously faked yawn. “I want to take a walk before I return to London this evening. Aoife O’Byrne is in Declan’s Cross painting sunrises, did you know? They aren’t a cliché subject in her hands, although I am partial to her short-lived phase painting porpoises.”
Emma refused to be distracted. “Agent Wheelock stopped in my office this morning and told me he saw you at Claridge’s.”
“Did he? Hmm. He must have been the disheveled American who gave me the dirty look. We didn’t speak but someone mentioned he was an American agent of some sort.”
“Who mentioned him?”
Oliver made a face. “Take a guess.”
“Your MI5 handler?”
He pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh.”
“Was he at the party?”
“Obviously you already have the answer, but I’m not going to confirm or deny his presence. It was an uneventful, perfectly civil English tea. No guns, no blood, no arrests. I wish you’d been there, Emma—although given your life these days, I suspect the afternoon would have taken a different turn and ended up in the papers.”
She ignored his remark. “Any particular interest in late antiquity or the Victoria and Albert Museum?”
“Of course. Both. I’m a mythologist and I’m devoted to the museum. You’ve been, haven’t you?”
“A number of times. Did you see anyone with Agent Wheelock?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. He arrived alone but he met up with Claudia Deverell. I believe you know her? She’s an American who used to work at one of the big auction houses. She specializes in Mediterranean antiquities. She lives in London.”
“I know who she is,” Emma said.
“That’s what I thought. She and her family are no strangers to the Sharpes. Wasn’t her mother once a Sharpe client? Victoria Norwood Deverell. She died last year. Cancer. Very sad. The Norwoods were great collectors of antiquities, with a special passion for mosaics. They’ve owned a house in Heron’s Cove for generations.” Oliver sat forward, as if he were in the same room with Emma instead of on the other side of the Atlantic. “Is Agent Wheelock meddling in FBI business, Emma?”
She kept her expression neutral. “Did you hear any interesting rumors while you were at the party on Sunday?”
“Ah. You mean the rumor about stolen Byzantine mosaics. Did that get your retired FBI agent worked up? I know nothing.”
“How, when and where did you hear the rumors yourself?”
“I was eating a delightful mini scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam when I overheard two elderly gentlemen say they’d heard someone had nicked a couple of ancient mosaics from a London collector. I got jam on my shirt cuff and went to the men’s room. I don’t know the gents and heard nothing further before I left.”
“Since then?”
“Not a peep.”
He could be lying, or he could be telling the truth. Emma couldn’t tell. “Did you speak with Claudia Deverell yourself?”
“Your parents introduced us but I didn’t linger. Didn’t Claudia once date your brother? But that’s none of my business, and I must be going. By the way, the sheepskins I sent you and Colin this winter are wonderful in warm weather, too. You’ll see.”
“Oliver—wait.”
But he was gone.
Emma shut her laptop. No point trying to get him back. He wouldn’t answer. She rolled to her feet and went into the bedroom. She’d rented the apartment when she’d first moved to Boston, months before she’d met Colin. It was small for the two of them but they’d decided to keep it, given its convenient location and Boston’s sky-high rents. They had his house in Maine for more space. Not that they’d needed space lately, given his absences.
She dug her overnight bag out of the closet and set it on the double bed. Thinking about living arrangements was a welcome respite from thinking about Gordy Wheelock and whatever he was up to, and how it involved Oliver York, Claudia Deverell and the Sharpes.
The Sharpes.
Emma unzipped her suitcase. She was a Sharpe, too. She didn’t need to remind herself.
Her parents hadn’t responded yet to her text. Her father still worked for Sharpe Fine Art Recovery from London in a low-stress research and analysis position. Her mother had left her job as an art teacher. They made a point of socializing on occasion, sometimes because it was good for business but mostly because it was good for them for its own sake. A new procedure in December had provided her father with some relief from his chronic back pain, but Emma didn’t know when, or if, her parents would return to Maine, even for her wedding.
She threw a few things into her suitcase. She had some clothes at Colin’s house—yoga pants, sweatshirts, hiking shoes, kayaking gear—but she’d need something to wear to lunch with his mother as well as to the open house. Now she had to add checking up on Gordy Wheelock to her list for the long weekend.
Would Claudia Deverell be there? Emma hadn’t seen Claudia or any of the Deverells in at least six years. She’d been a novice then. Blonde, attractive and a few years older, Claudia had joined Emma on the tidal river in Heron’s Cove. I can’t believe you’re a nun, Emma. You were always so worldly and well-dressed, and you seemed to enjoy life. But I shouldn’t call you Emma, should I? It must be Sister Something.
Sister Brigid. I’m a novice. Are you in town long?
I’m here with my mother for the weekend. It’s Fourth of July, or didn’t you know?
Emma, wearing her modified habit, her hair pulled back with a wide white headband, had picked up two river-polished stones, handed one to Claudia and then tossed hers into the rising tide. She’d learned not to be defensive about people’s notions about a religious life. She invited Claudia to tour the convent, located on a small peninsula near Heron’s Cove.
Claudia had tossed her stone into the river. My maternal great-grandfather was good friends with the man who built the original estate that’s now your convent. They were adventurers. They did several trips together in the early twentieth century and brought home all sorts of treasures from the lands of the former Roman Empire. Loot, we might call it now. Eye of the beholder, I suppose. She’d dusted bits of mud off her hands and smiled. Good to see you, Emma.
Claudia never came to the convent for a tour, and Emma left the Sisters of the Joyful Heart a short time later for her new life with the FBI—and now her life included Colin.
She wondered if Claudia had been the one who’d told Gordy about her past.
Emma slung her overnight bag over one shoulder and headed out. Her next logical step was a chat with her brother and her grandfather about Gordy, Alessandro Pearson, Claudia Deverell and the rumors about stolen mosaics. Fortunately, for the first time in years, Wendell Sharpe, founder of Sharpe Fine Art Recovery and one of the foremost private art detectives in the world, was less than two hours away in southern Maine, and Emma wouldn’t have to fly all the way to Dublin to see him.