Eye of the Beholder (9 page)

“I can't blame you for leaping to that conclusion.” He started to saunter off.

“Edward?”

He stopped and looked back. “Hmm?”

She smiled. “Regardless of what happens to my career, I want to thank you for everything you've done.”

“My pleasure. Besides, we both know I owed you.” He raised his well-manicured hand in a small, negligent wave. “Well, I must be off. My tour group awaits.”

When he disappeared into the crowd, she turned and made her way in the opposite direction.

She slipped into the west wing and wandered slowly along the carpeted hall, pausing occasionally to savor some of the 1920s-era paintings she had chosen for this corridor. They were all Southwestern landscapes.

Deco art, she reflected, had been particularly suited to the dramatic play of light and shadow in the desert.
The Santa Fe and Taos region had lured the most famous names such as Hartley, Dasburg, and Georgia O'Keeffe. But Avalon had attracted the attention of some very special artists, too.

At the end of the hall, she turned a corner and went up a flight of stairs. On the second floor she was relieved to find herself alone. The entire hotel with the exception of the spa was open tonight, but none of the other guests had migrated this far. She could take her time enjoying her own handiwork.

She moved slowly along the west wing hall. Her high heels sank deeply into the thick carpet. The sounds of music and laughter down below seemed to come from a great distance.

She was bending over a cabinet filled with a representative sampling of Modernist ceramics when she caught the unmistakable gleam of a bronze horn. The light from the 1920s-style wrought iron and etched glass sconces was subdued, but she could have sworn that a lecherous eye winked at her.

She straightened abruptly and stared, outraged, at the familiar bronze peeking out of the small reading alcove at the far end of the hall.

“Edward Vale, you son-of-a-bitch,” she breathed. “I take back everything I just said about being grateful. How could you do this to me, you little twerp?”

She hiked her long, narrow black skirt up above her knees and rushed the entire remaining length of the west wing.

She came to a halt in the alcove and glared at
Dancing Satyr
.

“I'll strangle him,” she told the beast. “I swear, I will.”

She glanced around and saw what looked like
the door of a closet or utility room. Perfect. She could hide the fake Icarus Ives sculpture inside until the reception ended.

Flinging her tiny black handbag onto the nearest chair, she seized the tail end of the figure with both hands and started to drag it across the carpet.

Despite her best efforts, the bronze shifted only a scant few inches in the direction of the closet.

She had forgotten how heavy it was. She could only be grateful that Edward had not had it bolted to the floor for security purposes as he had done with most of the other freestanding pieces.

She tightened her grip on the Satyr's tail and leaned into her task. There were some side benefits to working in the art and antiques field. One of them was that one developed muscles when one spent one's days handling hefty pieces of early-twentieth-century furniture.

She had not gone soft during the past year at Elegant Relic, she discovered. Evidently unpacking and arranging countless stone gargoyles and a few life-sized suits of sixteenth-century armor kept one fit, too.

She managed to get
Dancing Satyr
as far as the closet door before an all-too-familiar voice sent a chill up her spine.

“I'm not real fond of it, either,” Trask said. “But I apparently paid more for it than I did for my Jeep, so I'm afraid I can't let you just cart it off, Ms. Chambers.”

Alexa saw the vision of her reconstructed future flash before her eyes.

“Oh, damn.” Very slowly she released her grip on
Dancing Satyr
.

She straightened and turned around to face Trask.

He stood on the thick carpet that had swallowed the sound of his approaching footsteps. He looked very large and very solid in the expensively cut tuxedo. The muted glow of the hall lamps gleamed on his dark hair and glinted on the icy shards at his temples. There was no expression at all in his eyes.

She sighed. “Nice party.”

He glanced meaningfully at the statue. “I'm surprised to hear you say that. I assumed that since you're up here rearranging the furniture, you must be bored.”

She followed his gaze to
Dancing Satyr
. “It's a long story.”

“Why don't you give me the short version?”

Damned if she would allow him to intimidate her, she thought. “I wasn't trying to steal it, you know.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“I only wanted to get it out of sight before anyone sees it.” She waved a hand at the closet door. “I was going to stash it in there until later.”

He gave that a moment of what appeared to be thoughtful consideration.

“Why?” he asked eventually.

She hesitated. This was the tricky part, but the entire project had been a calculated risk from the start. Now she had no option but to fight for her future.

“There's been a mistake.
Dancing Satyr
should never have been installed. It's not a genuine Icarus Ives piece.”

“Are you
telling me that I paid big bucks for a fake statue?”

“It's just a little mix-up,” she said smoothly.

“I don't like mix-ups that cost me money.”

“I'm sure everything will be straightened out very quickly after the reception. But in the meantime, I don't want it in my, uh, I mean, in the
hotel's
collection. At least not tonight when there are so many people from the art world here.”

“You
don't want it in the collection?” Trask eyed her with grave interest. “Why do you care what the art crowd thinks about
my
collection, Ms. Chambers?”

“Because I assembled it.” The fat was in the fire. There was no point playing any more games. “I was Edward Vale's special Deco consultant on the project. I did not approve
Dancing Satyr
. Obviously there was a failure of communication somewhere along the line.”

“The same sort of communication failure that took place at the McClelland Gallery two years ago?”

Alexa was stunned into silence. Her mouth opened but nothing emerged. This was worse than she had imagined. He knew about the McClelland scandal.

He pinned her with cold eyes. “Well, Ms. Chambers? Do I have to wonder about the authenticity of any of the other items in my very expensive new collection of Art Deco?”

Fury flared, white-hot and intense. “Gee, I don't know, Trask. Maybe you do. Just like I have to wonder whether or not you're here in Avalon to open a
resort or because you intend to take your revenge against Lloyd Kenyon.”

His brows rose. “So you do remember me. I couldn't be sure the other day when we met at the Point. You played it pretty cool.”

“So did you.”

“Guess we're both cool. Let's return to the subject of your reputation, which is not so cool. I understand that it was shredded two years ago when you were involved in that art forgery scam in Scottsdale.”

She held his gaze. “I had nothing to do with the McClelland forgeries. As a matter of fact, I was the one who blew the whistle.”

“Got any proof?”

“Probably not the sort you'd accept. There was no criminal investigation because none of McClelland's clients wanted to press charges.”

“Convenient.”

“It's a common enough reaction in the art world.”

He gave her an expression of polite disbelief. “What the hell kind of client would sit still for being conned?”

“The kind who values his or her own reputation,” she said.

“Meaning?”

“Look, the situation is not unlike what happens when a big business discovers that one of its employees has embezzled money from client accounts or that a hacker has gotten past its computer security. The corporation generally wants to keep things quiet because it fears the publicity of an
arrest and trial. Clients and customers would question its ability to provide privacy and security.”

Trask's eyes narrowed. “I'm aware of how things work in the business world.”

“They aren't that much different in the art world. McClelland sold almost exclusively to high-priced art consultants and acknowledged experts who bought art and antiques for their own exclusive clientele.”

“I think I'm getting the picture,” Trask said. “No so-called expert likes to admit that he or she was fooled by a series of good forgeries.”

“Exactly. Bad for business. After the McClelland incident everyone involved had a vested interest in keeping as quiet as possible. Reputations and careers were at stake. McClelland, of course, counted on that attitude. There was no investigation, no trial, and no arrest. Just lots of rumors and innuendos.”

“Rumors and innuendos, I'm told, in which your name figured prominently.”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and angled her chin. “Actually, my name got savaged by a particularly nasty bit of insider gossip in a very influential trade magazine called
Twentieth-Century Artifact
. The idiot reporter who wrote the piece did so without having all the facts. He managed to imply that I was actively involved in selling the forgeries at McClelland.”

“What happened to the forger?”

“McClelland?” Alexa glanced morosely at
Dancing Satyr
. “Disappeared and left me holding the bag.”

Trask said nothing for a while, but the calculating look in his eyes told Alexa that he was processing the information she had given him.

He stirred eventually, sliding one palm along the polished veneer of a lacquered cabinet in an absent caress. “Can any part of your story be verified?”

It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to produce a careless shrug. “It's possible that one or two of McClelland's clients, those who are grateful to me for saving them from buying a lot of very expensive, very fake early-twentieth-century art and antiques, might be willing to talk off the record.”

“Only one or two?”

“Only one or two listened when I warned them not to trust McClelland. Edward Vale was among that rather select group. That's why he—”

The Valkyrie-like figure of Glenda Blaine bustled up out of the stairwell before Alexa could finish.

“There you are, sir.” Glenda hurried toward him down the hall. “I've been looking everywhere for you. One of the Phoenix TV stations sent out a camera crew. I've scheduled an interview with you standing in front of those big marble birds at the foot of the lobby staircase in five minutes.”

Trask did not take his eyes off Alexa. “I'm a little busy at the moment, Glenda.”

“Sir, I worked very hard to pull in this interview for you.” Glenda gave him a reproachful glare. “You told me you wanted all the media coverage you could get.”

Trask's jaw tightened. “I'll be down in a moment.”

“I need you to be there
now,
sir.”

To Alexa's
astonishment, Trask inclined his head in an acquiescent gesture.

“All right, Glenda. I'll come down.”

Apparently satisfied, Glenda swung around and strode off toward the stairs.

Trask looked at Alexa. “You and I aren't finished. When this reception is over, I'll take you home. I want to talk to you.”

Without waiting for her to acknowledge the order, Trask turned and walked toward the stairs.

Alexa waited until she was alone before she responded.

“I don't think so,” she whispered into the hushed silence of the empty hall. “I may have taken a few risks lately, but I haven't lost my mind. I'm not about to start accepting rides from strange men.”

She whirled around, seized
Dancing Satyr
in a fierce grip, hauled it into the closet, and slammed the door.

9
 

Alexa was in bed but still wide awake when she heard the heavy growl of an engine in the drive. Outside the window, the twin beams of a pair of headlights sliced through the night. A moment later the vehicle came to a halt. The engine was switched off.

She had known all along that he would follow her home.

She tossed aside the covers, stood, and reached for the black and gold satin robe. A dark sense of inevitability settled on her as she thrust her feet into a pair of fluffy gold mules.

She crossed the room to another one of her handful of treasured Deco-style pieces, a glorious green-glass-and-lacquered-wood dressing table. Designed in 1927 in the sophisticated tradition of Paul Frankl, it was a blatantly sensual thing with its sleek curves and gleaming surfaces. In Alexa's mind it transformed her bedroom into a fantasy version of a boudoir.

She switched on a lamp and almost turned if off
again when she saw her reflection in the oval mirror.