This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(19)

Marie firmly gripped my hand. “You’re right.” She glared but didn’t approach him. “Where is it?”

Phillip looked from Marie, to me, to the door, and then back down to the floor. The damp circles under his arms grew bigger, and a glistening sheen of sweat on top of his head was reflecting the light from a lamp in his living room. He was scared out of his mind.

“I—I told you I don’t have it anymore,” he stammered.

Marie narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, you told me already, but you didn’t explain why you don’t have it or what you did with it. Care to elaborate? We made a deal. You were to return that item to the museum in Ankara.”

“I meant to,” he said quietly. He took several steps back and Marie mirrored his every move. I really hoped he wasn’t thinking of running. She’d be on him before he took a single step. He turned and meandered to the cramped front room of the house, where he sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands. “We’ve known each other for a very long time, Marie.”

“You don’t know me,” Marie snapped. “We have a professional working relationship.”

“We do,” he said. “And that’s exactly why I would never betray your trust.”

He looked like he was about to cry.

“I need to know where it is,” Marie said. “I already know you didn’t do what I told you to do with it, so what happened? You sold it?”

Phillip pressed his back into the couch. “I—I wanted to.”

Marie stepped toward him.

“Please!” he shrieked. “It’s valuable! So incredibly valuable! And there were buyers, and they were willing to pay whatever I asked. Do you know how tempting that is?”

“Do you know how ugly you sound?” Marie shot back. “It doesn’t belong to you!” I stepped away from Marie. I thought she might lose it, but instead she stared at him, her brow furrowed. “And who is ‘they’?” she asked. “There was more than one buyer?”

“It was a group of three people. They wanted to purchase the pottery shard together.”

“Is that weird?” I asked. I didn’t know what was normal in the shadowy world of illegal antiquities trade.

“Were they the buyer’s representatives?” Circe asked.

“No,” Phillip said. “I think they were related. Siblings, maybe, I’m not sure.”

“And you let it be known that you had the piece and waited for people to come to you with offers?” Marie asked.

Phillip sighed. “Yes. But this group was the only one who actually showed up. Everyone else who arranged to see it backed out.”

Marie took a beat and then spoke in a calm monotone sort of way. “When was this?”

Phillip thought for a minute. “Three weeks ago. I arranged for a showing of the pottery shard,” he continued. “I met the three people in a hotel downtown. They came to my room and then—” His eyes glazed over and he stared off.

“And then what?” Marie asked.

“I—I don’t know.”

Marie crossed her arms hard over her chest. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Did you sell them the pottery or not?”

Phillip gave an exasperated sigh. “There was money on the table, and the shard was gone … after.”

Circe and I exchanged glances.

“This is like pulling teeth,” Marie said. “Why are you acting like this? What the hell happened to you?”

“I don’t remember what happened in the room after these people showed up,” Phillip said. “I think I might have been drugged. All I know is I had the pottery fragment in my suitcase. I opened the door to let in three people. We sat down at the table in my suite, and the next thing I know, I’m lying on my back in the middle of the floor, the artifact is gone, and there’s a stack of money on the table.”

“Were you injured?” Circe asked.

He shook his head. “No. I checked my head. I thought maybe they attacked me, but I’d know if something like that happened, right?”

I shrugged. Probably, but it still didn’t make sense. He said he wasn’t hurt, so clearly, someone hadn’t gone upside his head.

He seemed to read the expression on my face and rolled his eyes dismissively. “I’m just as confused as you are, believe me. The pottery shard is gone. I have some money to show for it, but it’s only half of what I wanted, and now …” He glanced up at Marie. “Are you going to kill me?”

“I’m considering it,” she said.

Phillip jumped up from his seat and got down on his knees. He clasped his hands together in front of him. “Marie, please! I’ve always done everything you asked! I’ve returned hundreds of items to their rightful owners. This was one small thing.”

Marie turned her back on him as he groveled at her feet. “It’s not a small thing.” Her voice was low and gravelly. I had no doubt that if she turned around, her eyes would be swimming with black.

“What now?” I asked. “It’s gone. Can we try to track down the people from the hotel?” I turned to him. “Do you know their names? A phone number? Anything?”

“No, no, no,” he said. “You think anyone uses information that can be tracked? We used burner phones to communicate, and it’s not like they would have given me their real names anyway.”