Page 75 of Girl Anonymous

After half a mile, he braked again. “Wow, I even got to put it into second gear! Are you sulking?”

“Similar. I’m thinking. The reappearance of that bottle—does that mean things are coming to a head?”

“Yes. I have been waiting for them to make the next move. Which they did.”

“Why did they?”

“Pending deals that require me to change my policies. Potential allies who are questioning their competence.” He nodded in satisfaction. “Impatience.”

“Serene is part of the conspiracy to depose you. The bitch.”

Dante ceased tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Why do you say that?”

“I thought she was an opportunist who used the explosion to steal the art to sell, but since the bottle arrived in my bedroom, she’s got to be working for…whoever it is.”

“Or she sold it to them.”

Maarja so badly wanted Serene to be more than a thief, but… “I didn’t think of that. I’m so angry at her.”

“About Alex.”

“Yes. Stealing and betraying a trust is one thing. Beating someone and leaving them to die is another. Serene was always, oh, so…pressing palms andnamaste.” She said the last word as if it were an insult.

He inched the Opel ahead a few inches.

She glanced at his granite face. “You don’t think that’s it, either.”

“Previously, her reputation was spotless, right? Saint Rees thoroughly investigates his employees, no?”

“Right, and he’s uncovered some pretty heinous applicants who buried their backgrounds in a deep grave. He’s good at what he does.” She put her hand on his. “Really, Dante, I know you believed you’d been bamboozled, but Serene bamboozled us all. Her and her fucking Zen.” Oh, no. She snatched her hand away. She was starting to talk like him.

He didn’t say anything about her cussing, but his mouth quirked. “In that case, one other thought. If it was her first time at robbery, she may have tried to make a deal to sell the objects and—”

“And they were stolen from her!”

“You can’t steal from a dead woman.”

Maarja turned and stared at his indifferent face, feeling innocent and foolish. “You think she’s dead? You know she’s dead?”

“I do not know, but if I was betting, I’d come down on the side of a soon-to-be-discovered corpse, a recovery of all art except for one small bottle, and a successful closing of the case by the police.”

She faced forward, at the barely-inching-along line of cars, and swallowed. He was right, of course. If Serene was really a novice at theft and violence, she could very well have run afoul of the more experienced villains who objected to the attention her activities had brought to them.

A parallel could be drawn between her and Serene. In over her head. And sure, she didn’t like Serene, but she wanted her to go to jail, not be dead. Too much pain and ruin hovered close. Alex, Raine Arundel… “That works if someone killed Serene for the bottle. A relative of yours. Why wouldn’t they sell off the rest of the art?”

“Because it’s my art, and it’s always good to hedge your bets.”

“Oh.” She needed to remember Dante was the ultimate bad guy. “Whoever is doing this knows that if you survive all the assassination attempts, the return of your art might pacify you, you won’t be moved to widespread speculative vengeance, and they’ll be able to take another run at overthrowing you.”

He inclined his head.

“You won’t mention the bottle because it’s already in your possession.”

“It’s actually inourpossession. I’m merely the one who is protecting it until such time when it’s no longer an object sought by anyone but museum curators.”

She thought about that. “When this is over, you want to give it to a museum?”

“That would be safest forla Bouteille de Flamme, don’t you agree? We can give it to someone with the stipulation that itmust be displayed and protected, and on our anniversary, we’ll visit it and hold hands.” He cast her a flirty glance as if trying to lift her sadness.

---