The Black Sun Read Free Page B

visible. He had a ballpoint pen in his mouth, the end chipped and split where he had chewed it, his forehead creased in concentration. Much to his frustration, he hadn’t filled in a single word yet.
    The desk itself was French, circa 1890, solid mahogany carved with fruit, foliage, and various mythological creatures. It had four drawers on the left and a cabinet on the right, each opened by a lion-mask handle. Caryatids and atlantes flanked the corners, supporting the overhang of the polished top.
    Tom and Archie had bought the desk not for its rather obvious beauty but because it was identical on both sides, a subtly symbolic statement of equality that had resonated with the two of them. And despite his occasionally feeling like one-half of some odd Dickensian legal couple, for Tom, at least, the desk had come to encapsulate his new life—a solid partnership on the right side of the law.
    There was a knock at the door.
    “Yeah?”
    Tom
    called,
    grateful
    for
    the
    interruption.
    He
    had
    20 james twining
    been staring at the paper so long that the clues had started to swim across the page. The door opened and a woman wearing jeans, a pale pink camisole, and a tight black jacket walked in, her right arm looped through the open visor of a black motorcycle helmet.
    “Catch,” she called.
    Tom looked up just in time to see a tennis ball flashing toward his head. Without thinking, he shot a hand out and snatched it from the air, his fingers stinging as they closed around it.
    “How was your game?” Tom asked with a smile as Dominique de Lecourt stripped off her jacket, hitched herself up onto the side of his desk, and placed her helmet down next to her. She had a pale, oval face that had something of the cold, sculpted, and remote beauty of a silent-movie star, although her blue eyes, in contrast, shone with an immediately inviting blend of impulsive energy and infectious confidence. Her right shoulder was covered with an elaborate tattoo of a rearing horse that was only partially masked by her curling mass of blond hair. Her left arm, meanwhile, was sheathed in a glittering armor of silver bangles that clinked like a hundred tiny bells every time she moved. Just about visible, under her top, was the bump of her stomach piercing.
    “Didn’t play. Decided to go to that auction instead.”
    “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.” Tom laughed. “See anything good?”
    “A pair of Louis XV porphyry and gilt-bronze two-han-dled vases.” Her English was excellent, with just a hint of a Swiss-French accent.
    “Made by Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot in 1760.” Tom nodded. “Yeah, I saw those in the catalog. What did you think?”
    “I think two million is a lot to pay for a couple of nine-teenth-century reproductions made for the Paris tourist market of the day. They’re worth twenty thousand at most. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
    Tom smiled. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that Dominique was still only twenty-three.
    She
    had
    an
    instinct
    21 the black sun
    for a deal, coupled with an almost unnatural ability to retain even the most incidental detail, that rivaled all but the most seasoned pros. Then again, Tom reminded himself, she’d had a good teacher. Until he died last year, she’d spent four years working for Tom’s father in Geneva. When Tom had relocated the antiques dealership to London, she’d readily accepted his offer to move with it and help run the business. The antiques store itself was a wide, double-fronted space with large arched windows, vital for attracting passing trade, although most visitors to Kirk Duval Fine Art & Antiques called ahead for an appointment. At the rear were two doors and a staircase. The staircase led to the upstairs floors, the first floor currently empty, the second floor Dominique’s apartment, the top floor Tom’s. It was supposed to have been a short-term arrangement, but the weeks had turned into months. Tom hadn’t pressed the point, sensing that