3 The Braque Connection Read Free Page B

doesn’t make sense to replace my forgery with another forgery.”
    “Are you sure this is also a forgery? You aren’t maybe being set up for the theft of the original?” That certainly would explain our presence and the loss of days.
    “No, this is a forgery and a very good one at that. Not as good as mine though.”
    I didn’t know what to make of this. There seemed no rationale behind such an action, except for Colin’s earlier suggestion that this was a message. “Is anything else out of place here?”
    “I didn’t look for things like this.” He carefully placed the painting on the bed. “I’ll check the rest of the house while you put on some Mozart.”
    By definition, I would believe a cottage to be small. Not in this case. Colin’s safe house had two floors, three bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor. I followed him down the stairs to the living areas on the ground floor. He stopped at each painting, glaring at it first, then inspecting it carefully. I left him at a Rembrandt that truly looked like an original to my untrained eye.
    The ground floor had been altered to be a large open space with stone pillars informally creating separate spaces. I easily found the sound system and the selection of CD’s next to it. No sooner had Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 2 in D Major started to fill the cottage than Colin appeared next to me, holding a statue with the sleeve of his shirt. I assumed that was to preserve possible fingerprints.
    It was a smooth, cream-coloured lion, worn from many years of touch. Working in an insurance company that often dealt with art cases, I had learned that these kind of statues were usually marble, jade or bronze. This statue didn’t look like it was made from any valuable material.
    “Another forged forgery?” I asked. The tension lines along his mouth and eyes worried me.
    “No, this is not mine.” He put it on the seventeenth-century side table. “I once had my hands on it, but it never belonged to me nor have I ever reproduced it.”
    “There is more to your history with this statue.” I could see it written all over his face.
    “This is a Tang Dynasty marble lion.”
    “It doesn’t look like marble.”
    “It isn’t. It feels like plastic.” Colin’s jaw worked while he stared at the curtains covering the windows. His lips formed a thin line as he turned to me. “This was the piece I was reappropriating when Manny arrested me.”
    “Oh. Oh my.” I knew my eyes were wide from shock. “I think it’s time to call Vinnie.”
     
     

Chapter TWO
     
     
     
    “Now we wait.” Colin placed a cheap-looking cell phone on the coffee table next to the satellite phone and the gun. We were in the bedroom, seated in the wingback chairs.
    “Why didn’t you just phone Vinnie?” I had quietly watched Colin remove the new cell phone from its box, turn it on and send an SMS. “And why did you take that cell phone apart?”
    “Vinnie and I have a system. I use an untraceable phone to send him a coded message. In this case, I sent him an offer for a penis enlargement drug. Now he knows I am going to phone him in fifteen minutes on an untraceable phone.” He smiled at my confused expression. “In our line of work, in our lives, it is better to take precautions. Phoning Vinnie on his usual line runs the slight risk of someone tracing the call.”
    “But all of you are disproportionately paranoid about these things. Francine runs antivirus software on your phones and computers at least twice a week.” Francine was a computer genius who always looked like she had stepped off a Paris catwalk. She was an exotic beauty who had totally disregarded my social awkwardness and resistance to friendship. The fifth member of our unique group, she was also the only female friend I had.
    “That is true, but I don’t want to take any chances. Especially since we don’t know how we got here or why we are here.” He nodded at the dismantled instrument. “I took it apart so it