Deadlock (FBI Thriller #24)(7)
Rebekah turned into light traffic on Hazelton Avenue, only twenty minutes from Kalorama Heights and home. She thought of Rich’s younger son, Beck. He was more a gold-plated prick than a wolf. He was a health insurance lobbyist, a job arranged for him, of course, by his powerful father, her husband. He was thirty-three, five years older than she, and he made it a habit to come out of his bedroom wearing only his boxer shorts when he knew she was close by, as if he’d been waiting for her. He’d quickly graduated to coming out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around his waist. Beck had moved back to his father’s house in Chevy Chase the year before, after a nasty breakup with his then-fiancée, an investment banker’s daughter out of New York. Rebekah’s mantra to herself was: Beck, find another girlfriend soon, and leave.
Could Tucker be the wolf? Rich’s eldest son was perfectly pleasant to her, though he ignored her for the most part, regarded her as his father’s newest toy, a temporary diversion at best. That was fine with her. He seemed happy enough with his wife, Celeste, and their three sons. Celeste didn’t like Rebekah, but did she hate her enough to wish her ill? Was she the wolf? Well, speculating about it hardly mattered. She was only taking the bait Zoltan had tossed out to her, the hints and warning she’d left her with to get her to come back for another grandfather show. She thought cynically she’d probably be billed five hundred dollars for the entertainment.
Rebekah felt a wave of fatigue, and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She forced herself to focus on the meeting she had scheduled with Mr. Clement Herriot, a wealthy collector of impressionist paintings. Alas, she had bad news for him. The Berthe Morisot he’d bought at auction seventeen years before was a fake. He wouldn’t be happy, though Rebekah knew he must have suspected or he wouldn’t have contacted her to authenticate the painting. Kit had ferreted out the painter most likely to have executed Morisot’s style so beautifully—Carlos Bizet, who lived in Andalusia and was now ninety years old. Thankfully, he’d stopped his forgeries ten years before, but that didn’t help Mr. Herriot. It would certainly get his insurance company’s attention, since they’d doubtless hired an expert to authenticate the painting as well before insuring it. “No one else could have painted it,” Kit had told Rebekah. “And now Bizet’s so old, he spends his time bragging about his work hanging in museums all over the world, and, of course, in big muckety-mucks’ collections, like Mr. Herriot’s.” Rebekah thought about the wages of dishonesty, how if malfeasance went undiscovered long enough, there weren’t any wages to be paid here on earth. She’d decided long ago karma was only an inviting construct weak people used to make themselves feel better about not doing something when they should.
She planned to forget about the Big Take and the poem and the wolf in her fold. If Zoltan called, Rebekah would tell her again she wouldn’t be going back.
4
CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND
THURSDAY, NOON
OCTOBER 29
Rebekah parked her silver Beemer on a side street, pulled the strap of her handbag over her shoulder, and stepped into the bright October sunlight. She gave the hood a quick pat. She loved her Beemer, her twenty-eighth birthday present from her husband. She sighed. She had to hurry or she’d be late to her daughter-in-law’s whoop-de-do planning luncheon. Celeste wouldn’t like that at all. But her meeting with her client, Mr. Herriot, had taken longer than expected. The news she’d had to give him hadn’t made him at all happy. She didn’t blame him. Mr. Herriot had even heard of Carlos Bizet, and when she’d pointed out the details that were his trademarks, he couldn’t argue with her. He’d even grudgingly thanked her, after he’d calmed down. Delivering bad news was never her idea of fun. She’d much rather be toasting the client with champagne. Well, now she’d taken on the best of clients, Mrs. Venus Rasmussen, a venerable icon of Washington, D.C., society, and still the active CEO of Rasmussen Industries. She’d hired Rebekah to authenticate a group of six paintings she wanted to purchase for the newly remodeled executive reception area in her headquarters. Better to hire Rebekah up front than to buy the paintings and find out she’d been had, Mrs. Rasmussen had told Rebekah.
Rebekah forced herself to slow down, to breathe in deeply, to reboot. She wasn’t all that late, and no one would care anyway if she missed the soup course. So why not enjoy the perfect fall day, feel the cool breeze stirring the fallen leaves in nearby yards? She decided to relish her block-long walk to Celeste’s house in this quiet, elegant neighborhood in Chevy Chase. When she’d driven by Tucker and Celeste’s house a few minutes earlier, she’d seen the big circular driveway bulging with the cars of all Celeste’s cronies and heaven knew who else, and continued on to park next to a nice shaded curb a block away.
She’d told Rich that Celeste had only invited her to this planning luncheon because she didn’t see a way out of it. The last thing Celeste wanted was for Rebekah to complain to her husband. Rebekah knew Celeste would just as soon see her on the next transport pad to Timbuktu, considered her only a trophy wife of a rich man suffering a midlife crisis. Rebekah wouldn’t be surprised to learn Celeste offered that opinion to anyone willing to listen, and that most people Celeste knew would listen happily.
Her husband had patted her cheek, told her to suck it up because Celeste was important to him. Of course, he meant her family—with their huge donations, the power they wielded was important to keeping his seat in Congress for another term. “She also has an excellent cook, so you’ll eat well. As for all the other people there, they’ll be pleasant and, of course, talk about you behind your back when you’re out of hearing. At least it’s for a good cause.” He’d tapped his hand over his heart. She still didn’t want to go, but obligation was the engine that ran most everyone’s life, particularly if you were a politician’s wife. You were gracious even when you wanted to punch the mouth trying to manipulate you.