Page 12

After printing the picture, and adding it to my file, I took a long moment to think about what I’d discovered. No wonder Madame Michel was so tight-lipped and eager to end the call at my pressing. Who’d want to admit that their socialite mom partied with some of the most evil people in history? And what did that make her mom?

As much as I searched, I couldn’t find anything else to support the opposing theory that Cosette Durand was a secret French resistance fighter. Yet I also couldn’t find any further evidence of her shocking associations. There wasn’t even anything to uncover on her friends; it was like they’d faded from memory, decades ago.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t any evidence either way.

It just meant a lot of time had passed and I couldn’t find the evidence now.

I couldn’t even be sure Madame Michel knew about her mother’s past.

Yet I could be almost positive that Cosette Durand was wearing the ring in the 1940s. Madame Michel had said so.

When Solomon emerged from his office, I’d exhausted my options.

“Why the face?” asked Solomon. He leaned against the door to his office and folded his arms, waiting.

I passed him the printout and he stepped forward to take it, studying it thoughtfully. “This is the former owner of the ring,” I said. “I think she’s wearing it in this photo. This photo wasn’t supplied to the Reynoldses.”

Solomon raised his eyebrows. “Is that what I think it is? In the background?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“I didn’t have Nazis on my bingo card for today.”

“Me neither but it is making me wonder about the Michels.”

“Plenty of Europeans were collaborators whether they agreed with Nazi ideology or just figured compliance made their lives easier during occupation. Although there were others who used their connections to pass intelligence along to the Allied forces.”

“I’m not finding any evidence of resistance but I’m not sure I’m looking in the right places. I’m not even sure where the right places are,” I admitted. For the first time in a long time, I felt beyond my depth. I’d come across terrible people in our line of work but this magnitude was something else entirely.

“Even if there is, it might not have been digitized. Plus, a lot of activity from that era is still officially secret.”

“I like your optimism.” I leaned back in my chair, contemplating resting my ankles on the desk, as I thought. “The Reynoldses didn’t mention this. I wonder if they knew.”

“If they did, I can see why they didn’t say anything. These types of connections are bad for business, and should be.”

“They’d have to know the Nazi connection could come out. They had to know we’d look into the ring’s provenance beyond just calling the former owners. It didn’t take me long to find that photo.”

“I would think most people would want to get ahead of something like that,” said Solomon. “Especially if they were innocent at the time of the sale.”

“Do you mean, if they didn’t know then but found out later?”

“Yes.”

“It’s possible. I didn’t get any sense the Reynoldses were Nazi sympathizers. There was nothing in the office or shop to indicate that and I’m sure I would have noticed.” Solomon placed the photo on the file and I couldn’t help glance at it. Jean Dupuis and the trio of women wore big smiles, clearly having a good time. I couldn’t imagine the kind of human misery their fancy ball was built on.

“Agreed. So work on the assumption for now that they didn’t know, but keep digging.”

“Okay,” I decided. “And I’m going to let Dad know so he can keep his eyes and ears open for that while he’s undercover.” I drafted a message as we spoke and sent it to my dad.

“Good thinking.”

“What if it’s not just the Michels and Durands that have Nazi connections? What if the ring does too? Could that be a reason for stealing it?”

“It could provide a motivation. Is there any evidence it was a gift from a particular figure?”

“No, but the Reynoldses already said there’s no real provenance at all. No receipt. No identifiable maker. They said it was made in the thirties so it was already at least ten or twenty years old during the forties and fifties when the photos the seller provided were taken.” I sighed. “I’m not sure what to do next.”

“What does your gut say?”

“Find out more information.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Thankfully, Solomon didn’t ask me what my plan was for that because the desk phone rang. I picked it up, pleased to hear Lucas on the line. “I’ve got some information for you regarding a possible vehicle,” he said. “Come up when you’re ready.”

“We’ll come now,” I said as Solomon nodded in agreement.

Lucas was waiting for us when we entered, partially hidden behind several monitors that took up a large portion of his long desk, his messy blond hair peeking over the top. The rest of the office staff were working quietly and intently at their stations, a radio playing in the background, stopping the atmosphere from feeling entirely sterile.

“The retirement village’s security is reasonable,” said Lucas as he scooted his chair over to make space for us. He pointed to the middle screen. “They have a camera overlooking the parking lot but unfortunately, there’s a tree close by and the branches are partially obscuring the view.”

My heart sank. “I hoped the news would be more positive.”

“Oh, it is. One of the cameras at the front picks up vehicles entering and exiting the rear parking lot. Parking is supposed to be for residents only but there doesn’t appear to be anyone checking so it’s easy for anyone to come and go. I started at the time of the robbery, cross-referenced it with the bus times arriving at the retirement home and then focused on any vehicles leaving the lot in the next two hours. There’re only four vehicles. I’m sending you screenshots and videos of each, but they’re not great quality. I need you to narrow down who I’m looking for to track them further.”

I checked my phone and scrolled through the screenshots. The first picture was a man alone, the second was a senior couple together. The third and fourth pictures were both women. “Not the man or the couple,” I said, “We should focus on the women but I’m not sure which.”

“One of the couple is a woman,” pointed out Lucas.

“The prosthetics were ditched before she left so we’re not looking for a woman of the couple’s age. It has to be one of the younger women.”

“I concur,” said Solomon. “Cue the videos for both women.”

“You got it,” said Lucas. The monitor closest to me came alive with a video feed. A woman in a white shirt, big, black sunglasses and a neat ponytail glided out in a silver hatchback. The small car turned right and disappeared from view.

“And the second,” I prompted.

The video was replaced by another. This time, a black minivan exited the lot, pausing at the junction with the main road. The driver checked her phone and then tossed it on the passenger seat. She wore a cross-over tunic with a name badge attached but it was too far away to possibly read the name.

“This woman looks like she might work there. The orderlies wear that kind of tunic,” I said. “Both women could be in their thirties, but I wouldn’t put money on it. I couldn’t say it was one over the other.”

“I ran the plates of all the cars,” said Lucas. “The first two belong to men registered as living at the village. The silver hatchback is registered to a rental agency. The minivan belongs to a woman who lives here in town.”

“Can you find out the name on the rental?” I asked. “The other three have ties to town but the rental is the outlier.”

“Give me a few minutes,” said Lucas. He scooted his chair closer to the desk and tapped at the keyboard.

While he worked, I asked, “What are the odds that this woman has even stuck around? We’re twenty-four hours late.”

“She might have if she were stealing to order and the handoff is here,” said Solomon.

“Is that what you would do?”

“I’d want to get rid of hot goods as fast as I could, then I’d put a helluva lot of distance between me and the crime,” said Solomon.

“Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the Nazis,” I said, frowning.

Lucas stopped typing and glanced up. “Nazis?”

“I’ll fill you in later.”

“Okay. Got it,” said Lucas after returning to his search. The videos disappeared and a driving license appeared on screen. “Sally Smith, age thirty-six, Boston resident, rented the car in Boston from their airport office around a week ago for the period of ten days. It’s due to be returned in four days,” he said.

“Sally Smith?” I repeated as I looked at the photo of the unsmiling woman. Long bangs swept down to her eyes, a choppy, shoulder-length cut, artfully styled. Tan, minimal makeup. Or at least it had appeared to be. I leaned in. No, she was wearing a lot of makeup in the effort to look makeup-free. Round, thin, gold-framed glasses. Sweetheart-shaped face. Pussy-neck bow blouse in an unflattering print. “What are the odds that is really her name?” I asked, already skeptical. “And why rent a car from the airport of the city where you’re a resident?”

“See what you can find on her,” said Solomon.

“On it,” said Lucas and we waited impatiently as his fingers flew across the keys. “So the address on the license is for an apartment block but there’s no Sally Smith listed as an owner or renter. Plus, the block is marked for renovation and appears to be empty. I can’t find any social media that matches both her name and face. There’s a Social Security ID but the owner is listed as deceased.”

“So we have a fake identity in Sally Smith and a missing ring,” I said. “What are the odds these two crimes aren’t connected?”

“Low,” said Solomon.

“This woman has access to fake IDs and elaborate disguises,” I said, musing out loud.

“That’s not wholly true,” said Solomon. “We now know what she looks like. Lucas, put the driver’s ID and the camera footage next to each other.”

Lucas tapped his keyboard and motioned to the screen where the two images were now displayed.

“They match,” I said, nodding. “But I doubt even this is what she really looks like. Her makeup is expertly applied and that hair… it’s too perfect. I’ll bet it’s a wig too. She took off the gray wig and ditched it, then put on this one. She probably doesn’t need glasses either, but the big sunglasses shield her face. We need to know more before we can think anything definitive about this woman.”

“Let’s find out where she goes next,” said Solomon.

“That might take a while,” said Lucas. “I’ll send the DMV picture to the printer and call you when I have anything concrete.”

“Make it a priority,” said Solomon.

Solomon and I headed back to our own office, my mind whirring. “This woman can’t have appeared here out of the blue,” I said as I grabbed the printed sheet with Sally Smith’s license on the way to my desk. “She had to have traveled here, and I don’t just mean hiring a car. She might have flown in, probably to Boston, where she rented the car using her fake ID. She has to be staying somewhere since she picked up the car. She had to have scouted out Harmony Village and picked out her targets for the ruse. She had to have bought the prosthetics from somewhere, and the clothing disguise too. The clothes would be easy but the facial prosthetics? Would she need to purchase them specifically? Could she have done all that in between picking up the car and the theft?”

“It’s possible,” said Solomon. He rested against my desk, not quite sitting or standing, his arms folded, biceps bursting from his t-shirt’s short sleeves, his legs stretched out. “The prosthetics would have to be created in advance. She could have had them made for another job prior to this, and like you said, the clothing is easy enough to pick up anytime. She could have created her plan and then staked out a few retirement homes over the course of a few days. What stumps me is her doing all that and scoping out Reynolds’. It strikes me that she might have split the tasks in two. Stakeout Reynolds’ first to know what she’s dealing with and how she’s going to do it, and the ruse second since it’s easier to put together.”

“So we can track her?”

“We could be sifting through hours if not days of footage and there’s no guarantee Sally Smith didn’t use a disguise for the reconnaissance too. She’s definitely a pro. She would be careful about leaving any evidence tying her to the crime.”

“Yet she probably also assumes the theft hasn’t been discovered yet. So far, she thinks she got away with it. She doesn’t know we’re onto her. That should work in our favor.”

“That might be her big mistake,” said Solomon. “She’s cocky.”

“What are the chances that she’s been caught before? I don’t mean recently. I mean a long time ago? She can’t have had a perfect career. It must take time to perfect the kind of skills she’s got and that means making mistakes that might have led to her being caught.”

“It’s possible.”

“She made the mistake of allowing the car to appear on camera. She didn’t figure on Lily following her to the retirement home after the theft either.”

“There’s no accounting for a wild variable like Lily,” said Solomon, smiling.

“I’m going to check in with Lily. She should see the photo too,” I said.

“Ask Maddox too.”

“He’s been asking weird questions. Until he tells me why, I’d rather not hand him any particulars of the case.”

Solomon’s cell phone rang and he put it to his ear, listening, then hung up. “I have to go soon,” he said. “The Reynoldses decided they definitely want the security of their shops overhauled and they’re a little edgy about it. Plus, there was a question about providing security for an inventory collection. We can catch up over dinner but call me before that if there any important developments.”

“I will,” I agreed. “Hey, the car was hired for ten days, right? Where does it get returned to?”

“I would assume at the same rental office where Sally Smith rented it.”

“Then we know where she’s going to be in approximately four days’ time,” I said, smiling now. “Even if we can’t find her, we can get ahead of her.”

“Assuming she doesn’t plan on ditching it.”

“Wouldn’t that burn her ID?” I asked. “Or at the very least, draw attention to it and to her photo? Even if she didn’t plan on using that ID again, she wouldn’t want the rental company to hand her fake driving license with her face on it to the police for auto theft.”

“I agree,” said Solomon. “That would be a bad move. We’d need to potentially run a twenty-four-hour surveillance on the rental agency to cover the return window but it’s doable. Fletcher and Flaherty might be free by then. However, I don’t think we should rely on that. The chances of her dumping the car are high and if we waste time over the next few days and she doesn’t turn up at the rental agency, then she’s in the wind. Finding her is the priority above all else and I can’t think she’ll stay in town long, now that the job is completed.” He straightened, then leaned down to kiss me. “I have every confidence you’ll find her,” he said, his lips inches from mine.

“Thanks,” I said, wishing I felt more reassured. I might have had a lot of experience in tracking people down, but something told me this woman had even more experience evading capture. Not only that, but she had a plan, time, and significant resources on her side. I could only assume she had as solid a plan for getting out of town as she had for entering it.

As soon as Solomon headed to his office, I called Lily and updated her on what we’d found out.

“Now I feel like I wasted my time here,” she said. “I haven’t gotten one bit of information and I’ve been talking to a lot of the seniors. No one remembers an Angela at all. Barely anyone even remembers seeing Evelyn and Judy with another senior and those that do, all have something different to say.”

“That’s not a waste of time. You’ve confirmed this Angela is the fake we’re looking for.”

“The only interesting thing was when Maddox showed up.”

My interest piqued. “Maddox showed up?”

“Yeah! He was really pleased to see me too! He came over and chatted about the case a bit.”

“He did?” I frowned. There was that rat stench again. First, the overly cheerful call to me, then the readiness to chat with Lily about the case. The man was sniffing around and he was barely trying to hide it. That had to mean something. My guess was he wanted information fast. But what did he think we knew?

“Yeah, he said it was all fascinating,” continued Lily. “I showed him the photos of the prosthetics and he was really impressed and even more impressed when I told him how the thief got Evelyn and Judy involved. He said it was very clever to do something like that and how cool it was that I’d tracked the thief here and was investigating.”

“That so?” The rat was getting stinkier by the minute. There was no way Maddox just happened to think Lily was cool. She was cool, but that was beside the point. Maddox wouldn’t be praising her for involvement for no reason. What was he up to?

“Yes! He asked if the disguise had been turned over to the police and I said no, because the Reynoldses didn’t want them involved. I said maybe he should take a look at everything as a favor and he said that was a good idea. That we might get fingerprints or DNA off something.”

“That is a good idea,” I said. “I have everything here and the agency has access to a lab but we’d need something to cross-reference it too and right now, there’s nothing.” I held back on telling Lily about Sally Smith, even though I’d planned to, cautious that Maddox would pry the information from her before I was ready. What I couldn’t fathom was why he didn’t just come out and state the reason he was so interested in my case. Instead, he was trying to wheedle information out of the one weak link in our investigation: Lily. No, that wasn’t right. There were my parents too! If Lily were a weak link, my parents were chocolate under his flame.

“Should I hang around Harmony some more?” asked Lily. “I have the rest of the day off and Jord is taking Poppy to the park.”

“No, I think that avenue is exhausted. We have a lead thanks to you, and Lucas is tracking down the woman’s movements so we can take it from here. We uncovered another false identity.”

“So exciting! I love this!” she squeaked.

“Why don’t we get together tomorrow and I’ll fill you in. I might have some more to tell you by then,” I suggested.

“Okay!” Lily said perkily. “What’s next?”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure! Anything!”

“Call me if Maddox comes around asking any more questions.”

“Of course. Is there something wrong?” She paused. “Shouldn’t I have said anything? He was so interested. I figured it was… professional courtesy, or something. I… did I do something wrong?” she asked, her voice slipping away into worry.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Maddox is just asking a lot of questions and I want to know why. He called me too.”

“Have you asked him?”

“He’s being evasive.”

“Have you asked Sadiq?”

I pondered that. Maddox’s FBI partner would know what he was up to. The question was whether or not he would tell me. “I might just do that. I’ll call you soon.”

“Make sure of it,” said Lily.

I kicked back, despondent at where my leads had ended up. Sally Smith was a fake name but how was I supposed to find out her true identity? And for that matter, what was I supposed to say to the Reynoldses?

The Reynoldses could be put aside for now. There was nothing concrete I could give them and the Michels’ dubious connections might yet materialize into nothing to do with the case. Plus, there was the small matter of where was the ring? Something that size would be easy to dispose of. It could be FedExed anywhere in the country, maybe even the world, leaving no need for a physical exchange. Or it could be worn on a finger as a person boarded a train or plane and no one would even look twice. It could easily be concealed in anything from a sock to face cream. Solomon was wrong. The job wasn’t finished until the ring was in someone else’s hands.

I turned to my laptop, knowing it was futile to type Sally Smith into the search bar, yet doing it anyway. There were plenty of search results but after skimming them, my thoughts were justified. No results that pointed to a thief.

Lucas had emailed the list of guests from the Berlin hotel and I opened it, cross- referencing the names to the fake identity but there were no matches and no name that begged attention otherwise. It was probably a ludicrous leap that this Sally Smith had made an inquiry from Germany and then flown here to snatch it, yet… I couldn’t shake the idea that things were connected in ways I didn’t yet understand.

France, Germany, and the United States. What was going on?

There were too many names to search all of them, and nothing that could help me narrow down the parameters. I couldn’t even be certain of the names’ nationalities and in some names, not even the owners’ sex. Even if I did spend all night trying to track these people down, there was no guarantee the call was anything more than from a curious online browser who liked pretty, sparkly things.

“You should head home,” said Solomon, stepping out of his office and closing the door behind him. “Let Lucas work his magic and we’ll pick it up in the morning.”

“And give the thief another half day to get away? I don’t think so.”

“I like your commitment but there’s nothing more you can do until there’s a viable lead.”

My shoulders slumped. “I guess.”

“There’s no urgency for Sally Smith to leave town yet and if it’s a case of our best option being to wait her out until she returns the car, we’ll do that.”

That cheered me up, then another thought occurred to me. “There has to be a reason she wanted the car for extra time.”

“It could be that she wanted to give herself a buffer and didn’t expect the theft to go so well.”

“Maybe.”

“She could be combining this trip with something else.”

“Another theft?”

Solomon shook his head. “I was thinking maybe she has someone in town. That could be a plausible cover story if she were ever questioned about her reason for being here. It would also explain how she knew to target the retirement village for unwitting accomplices in this distraction ploy. Anyway, we’ll know more when Lucas gives us more to work with. Until then, I’ll pay a call to the Reynoldses, then home, dinner, sleep. Power down and we’ll head out.”

“I need to do a few things first,” I said. “Go ahead without me.” I closed my laptop, a thought occurring to me. In Solomon’s hand, the phone rang and he waved goodbye, turning his back to me, answering as he left the office.

I pulled the picture of Sally Smith closer and then reached for my phone. Maddox had recently sent me some photos of a woman who was a master of disguise. A woman so clever he couldn’t catch her.

I’d met her only a couple of weeks ago.

I put my phone next to the DMV photo and stared at the two women side-by-side.

Oh, boy.