Page 8 of Lawbreaker

Odalie made sure that Stasia got in first so that she had to sit next to Tony, with Odalie on the outside by the other door.

Tony noticed that, and he started to ask her if she thought he had something contagious. But it wouldn’t do to start a war with poor Stasia in the middle, especially in her condition.

“How are you?” Tony asked with a smile. “You don’t even look pregnant!”

Stasia laughed. “You’d reconsider that remark if you could see me puking my guts out every morning and watch me go to bed with the chickens every night.” She shook her head. “It’s wonderful, but very incapacitating.”

“You still look great,” he said warmly. “How’s my fairy statue coming?” he added.

“Maddie’s putting on the last touches now,” she told him. “She said by the end of the month, hopefully. She’s puking her guts out and going to sleep with the chickens, too, you know,” she laughed.

He chuckled deeply. “Maybe it’s the water.”

“Excuse me?”

“Next-door neighbors both pregnant at the same time,” he explained.

“Oh!” She laughed. “Maybe it is. How’s business?”

“Great. If we can land this deal, even greater,” he said. He sighed. “Tom Bishop’s son, Bob, wants to trash his art collection. Not sell it, not loan it, trash it. The kid’s going to inherit about two billion dollars when his dad goes, and he said he hates the art because his dad spent more time adding to it than he ever spent with his kids. He blames his brother’s death on the paintings.”

“Why?” Stasia asked, aghast.

“Kid had appendicitis. Nobody was home except the kids because of an ice storm. Tom and his wife were stuck in town. Bob tried to call 911 but there had been a storm and all the phones were dead, and all the roads closed to traffic by ice. They live out in the boondocks in upstate Vermont.” He shook his head. “The kid died. Tom and his wife grieved, of course, and nobody blamed Bob. But Bob never got over it. He felt responsible, but he blamed his dad even more. They hardly speak. This is why we’ve got to get those paintings away from Tom while there’s time. He’s in his late seventies, and he’s got cancer. It’s under control, but nobody knows for how long.”

“That’s so sad. About the cancer, and the child. But those paintings, Tony. They’re like a history of Europe in oils!”

“I know,” he said heavily.

Odalie, who’d gone to college on a music scholarship, but minored in art history, was intrigued. “What sort of paintings?” she asked, wondering aloud.

“Art history minor,” Stasia told Tony, indicating Odalie.

He raised both eyebrows. He hadn’t known about her interest in art. “One of them is a Renoir,” he replied.

She whistled softly. “It would be a crime to throw away any art, but that should be a life sentence if he actually does it.”

“I agree,” he said, hating his interest in her. He didn’t want to appreciate how very lovely she was, or how smart. He averted his eyes back to Stasia. It took some effort, but none of it showed on his poker face. “You’ll have your work cut out to influence Tom,” he told Stasia. “He loves Bob. He doesn’t think his son’s serious about trashing the paintings. But with two billion in his pocket, their monetary value wouldn’t influence him.”

“There are people who don’t think art has any part in civilization,” Odalie said.

“That would be the same people who are tearing down statues and gluing themselves to frames in museums,” Stasia said, tongue-in-cheek.

Tony pursed his chiseled lips and his black eyes twinkled. “It would be interesting to see anybody try that in my gallery.”

“I get cold chills just thinking about it,” Stasia murmured without thinking.

“I don’t kill people,” he said indignantly.

“What? Oh!” Stasia burst out laughing. “I was thinking about the potential damage to the paintings, Tony.”

He grimaced. “Sorry.”

“I know you’re touchy about the old days, you old bear,” Stasia teased, smiling. “And you know me better than that.”

“Of course I do,” he said, relenting. He drew in a breath. “You never get away from the past, you know? It clings.”

Odalie thought that was probably true if you’d whacked half a dozen people, which Tony had been rumored to do in the past. But she just smiled angelically and didn’t say a word.