Page 2 of Girl Anonymous

“That’s a lot to know by casual observation.”

“I don’t observe casually.” She observed with her vision, of course, but also through the past that whispered as it sank into her skin and shrieked in her nightmares. He didn’t observe casually, either, for his knowing gaze flicked between her face and the pitcher cupped in her hand. “In my family, there’s some discussion about whether or notla Bouteille de Flammeis genuine.”

She nestled it into the tissue paper, then surrounded it with enough bubble wrap to fill the box. “It’s genuine.”

“You know this because…?”

She taped the box closed and her fingers lingered as she placed it in her staging area. “When one often handles antiquities, one develops a sense about them.”

“Does one?”

“Yes. One does.” She grinned at him and thought,I’m still skinny, but I’m way taller and twenty-three years ago for Christmas I got my two front teeth…recognize me now?

He didn’t say anything. Or rather—he didn’t admit anything.

Good. Mrs. Arundel didn’t say anything. She didn’t admit anything. Maybe, hopefully, neither one of themknewanything. Maarja had put great effort into being nondescript. She liked tothink she’d succeeded, and if she hadn’t quite…she could distract Dante. “Almost everything in this library is genuine.” At his quick critical glance around, she realized probably she shouldn’t have said it quite like that.

“What’s not genuine?” He shot words at her like bullets.

Nope, definitely shouldn’t have said that. She gazed around the airy, gracious, classically decorated library with its first editions sheltered in locked glass cases, its artfully lit old master paintings, BCE vase fragments and statues. “The Chinese scroll.”

“Damn it,” he said without heat. His face had not so much been formed; instead his sharp cheekbones and thin nose looked as if they’d been carved from some cruel and ancient stone. The artist that carved that crook in his nose and the long scar that slashed his forehead and cheek had been intent on warning all who viewed him that he was a survivor, a man to be feared.

“You acquired it?”

“I bought it,” he corrected. “From a highly respected auction house.”

“Mistakes are made.”

“Not when you sell to me.” Behind his brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, she caught glimpses of gold, as if molten lava emotions moved beneath his surface. It would be nice to think so; that would make him almost human.

Perhaps better to backpedal. “I might be wrong.”

“Are you?”

“No.” Surely he wasn’t the type to kill the messenger.

“I’ll have it reappraised. At the same time, I’ll have my appraisers reappraised.”

Her gaze dropped to his hands. Broad-palmed, long-fingered, big-boned. They could form a fist that would take a man down with a single punch. More than that, he sported the ridged calluses of a dedicated self-defense practitioner. The only thing that kept a person working at the sport was a respect for its real-life potential. She knew; she had a few calluses herself.

Dante looked toward the door and called, “Nate.”

The biggest man she’d ever seen stepped into the room. In his dark suit, white shirt, and nondescript tie, he looked like one of the Aryan villains in an old Bond movie, exaggerated in his bulk, his height, his stolid lack of expression. She would bet he had calluses all over his body.

“Did you hear what Maarja said?” Dante asked.

Nate nodded, a stiff movement that barely stirred his muscled neck.

“Check on it, will you?”

Nate put his hand to his earpiece and stepped back into the elevator foyer. She heard a low rumble that might have been an approaching earthquake but was probably his voice.

She hoped Dante Arundel’s appraisers survived; cheating him, or even not giving his purchases the care he required, would be a risky business, as she was sure they knew.

She moved farther into the room, into the corner where five large paintings and three eighteen-inch-tall statues waited to be boxed. She ran the tape measure on them; the dimensions matched up with those Dante Arundel had sent. She checked them again, because one didn’t make mistakes when handling priceless art, and sent Alex a text instructing her on the sizes of the packaging for the larger pieces. She got a thumbs-up text and5 minutes.

Arms folded, Dante watched as she started the process over again with a Shakespeare Second Folio and a framed Picasso sketch.

---