If I Didn't Know Better (The Callaways #9)(79)

Mia discovered that they shared a lot of the same views on the world, and on life. They also shared a similar sense of humor and had a crazy love of really bad movies involving robots and superhuman animals.

"I can't believe it," Jeremy said with a bemused shake of his head. "You actually liked Rebel Robot III. That is so not a girl's movie, especially a girly girl like you."

"I'm not that girly."

He laughed. "You're just the right amount of girly, Mia—soft, sexy, and we fit really well together."

"We were talking about Rebel Robot," she said, a little breathless from his seductive words. "I actually thought the second movie was the best."

"I liked the first one; the other two were pale imitations."

"There's going to be a fourth one next year."

"We'll have to go," he said.

It was an impulsive statement, she told herself. He wasn't making a promise, but his words still unsettled her a little, because she'd decided not to make plans beyond the summer with Jeremy. Not even movie plans. She couldn't look that far into the future, not because she was scared she would see them together having a relationship, but because she was afraid she wouldn't.

Her breath caught in her chest, and she reached for her water glass. She didn't want to admit she was falling in love with him, but she definitely felt like she'd lost her balance.

"You okay?" he asked, giving her a curious look.

"I think I got a crumb stuck in my throat," she said, coughing a little and then sipping her water. "It's fine now."

"Good. I thought maybe it was my invitation to a movie next year that upset you."

He'd told her that what he loved most about their relationship was that they were honest with each other, but she didn't want to be honest now. Thankfully, she was saved from an answer by the ping of her phone. She pulled it out of her purse. "I'm sorry, do you mind if I read this?" she asked. "It's from Kate."

"Go ahead. I want to know what she has to say."

She read through the long text, her pulse beating a little faster with the new information. "Kate says the painting is on a list of stolen art from the museum in Paris that my friend told me about. Some of the art from that same museum was recently found in a palace in Bahrain." She looked at Jeremy. "Kate is worried that Aunt Carly was involved in either the theft or the knowledgeable acceptance of stolen art. But how could that be? I don't think Aunt Carly ever went to Bahrain. I don't even know where that is."

"Bahrain comprises a series of islands off the coast of Saudi Arabia," Jeremy said, his jaw tightening, his eyes darkening with shadows. "I was there a year ago."

"As part of a mission?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me anything about it?"

"No. Sorry," he said in clipped tones. "I can't tell you about any of my jobs, Mia, not because I don't want to share with you, but because I can't. It would be a breach of national security."

"I understand. I shouldn't have asked. Anyway, I don't think my aunt ever went to Bahrain."

"She might not have had to go there to receive stolen art. A lot of things go missing in that part of the world. There has been a tremendous amount of looting in the Middle East, and it's not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys."

"Kent said the same thing earlier. He told me that he'd never expected the enemy to wear so many faces, sometimes the face of a child."

"That was the worst," Jeremy agreed. "A kid walking toward us shouldn't have been threatening, but one day one of the kids we'd played soccer with showed up with explosives strapped around his chest."

Her stomach turned over. "That's awful."

"Which is another reason why I don't need to share my past with you, at least that part of my past. You don't need to know what I've seen. No one does."

His expression was harsh now, his eyes grim with painful memories.

"I wish you didn't have to carry those memories around, Jeremy."

"I don't carry them around; I locked them away a long time ago."

"But sometimes memories leak out. That's what happened to Kent, right? He came back to the safest place in the world and then found out he was more scared than he'd ever been. He told me that he painted his demons through the night—angry, hard brushstrokes, slashes of the brightest and darkest colors he could find. He said it was cathartic. And Kent had been with Jeremy in Delta—maybe in Bahrain.

Her stomach began to churn as she thought about the painting Kent had described. She hadn't put it together before, but his painting now sounded very much like the one she'd found covering the stolen painting.

"Oh, my God," she murmured.

"What?" Jeremy asked sharply, his gaze narrow. "What's wrong?"

"Kent's painting. He told me what it drew, and I just realized that it sounds like the one that was covering Toulouse-Lautrec's art."

Jeremy's jaw dropped. "What are you talking about?"

"Was Kent in Bahrain with you?"

Her question put anger in Jeremy's eyes. "Yes, but he didn't steal anything while he was there. He didn't smuggle out a painting and hide it in your aunt's house under his own artwork. That's ridiculous, Mia."