Page 92 of Dead Girl Running

She hurried.

He sat alone in the room, facing the wall of monitors. He beckoned her over. “Look at this.”

She joined Max and watched as Mr. Lennex walked along an empty fifth-floor corridor, holding something that looked like a big flat book. He looked around to make sure he was alone, then disappeared into the housekeepers’ storage closet. He came out with another big flat book, a little larger, but he was holding it by the corners, looking at it and smiling.

He was holding a painting of some kind.

“What the hell?” Max said.

Light dawned in a slow, warm sunshine. “That’s it. That’s what he’s been doing.” Kellen kissed Max on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re brilliant!” She ran toward the door, turned back. “Have you seen Nils Brooks?”

“Not at all.” Max had his hand on his cheek and he watched her like…like Hagrid viewed a new dragon egg.

Damn it. Mara was right. As if things weren’t complicated enough, Max was interested. She backed toward the door and out. “If you see him, I really need to speak to him.”

As the door shut, she heard him say, “Hmm.”

What did that mean? Nothing good, she was sure.

She beat Carson Lennex back to his suite. She knocked, and when he didn’t answer, she let herself in, left the door open behind her and went up the spiral stairs to the bedroom. Exactly as Candy had said, the sculptures were displayed against a lighted backdrop that underscored the skill of the artists who had created them.

From downstairs, she heard Carson call, “Hello?”

“I’m up here, Mr. Lennex.”

He ran lightly up the stairs, and at the sight of her, he lifted his eyebrows. “I’ve had a lot of women trick their way into my bedroom, but I never imagined you’d be one of them. Aren’t I lucky!” His Irish accent gave the words a sardonic quality, and he joined her to look at the sculptures. “But I suspect I’m mistaken in your intentions.”

“None of the housekeeping staff came in today. I couldmakeyour bed while I’m here.” She took the painting out of his hands. “May I?” Splatters and squares made up the image. “Is it good?”

“Very good. It’s an original Jacie Merideth. I imagine when she did the painting for the resort, she was an unknown. Now this is worth tens of thousands.”

Kellen shook her head and handed it back to him. “Ithought you were stealing toilet paper.”

Carson threw back his head and laughed loud and long. “Now you know. You wouldn’t believe the decorations hidden away in storerooms here. No one ever goes through it. No one ever throws anything away.”

Kellen thought of the car manuals Birdie was tossing. “I would believe it.”

“Searching through the junk—and it is mostly junk—satisfies the archaeologist in me, because every once in a while, I find a treasure. Two years ago, I decorated my suite in 1950s kitsch.”

“Annie knows you’re doing this?”

“Of course. Miss Adams, I’m not a thief. Nothing ever leaves the premises. It simply gets redistributed.”

“What about these?” She gestured at the stone statues, fierce, sexual, powerful.

“Those are an anomaly. I can’t imagine who brought them to the resort in the first place.” He propped the painting on his dresser. “It’s not standard hotel room decoration, not in any era. All I can figure is one of the suite residents was a wealthy collector and died either without heirs or with heirs who cared for nothing but the money, and these got stashed and lost forever.”

“Then you do know what they are.”

“Absolutely. It’s looted Central American tomb art. Probably been gathering dust for years.” He lost his patina of sophisticated amusement and became, for a few minutes, serious and a little impatient. “Don’t worry, Miss Adams, I wasn’t going to keep them. After I admired them for a few months, I was going to take them to Annie and have her donate them to the appropriate museum. I didn’t play Indiana Jones, but I agree with him. These belong in a museum.”

“Actually, these have only been at the resort since September.”

Carson must have caught a whiff of ominous, because his voice grew sharp. “How do you know that?”

“Are you aware of smuggling activities along the coast?”

“Right out there.” He gestured toward the dock. “I have the wraparound deck, I’m eight stories off the ground and I’m not blind. But I assumed…drugs?” He looked at the art. “Of course not. Why bother with drugs when you can make more with artifacts looted from World Treasure sites?” He swung to face her. “Why September?”