now, here’s this Hollywood-type messing around in his world,” Emma said. “He breaks his pattern and sends the crosses to Granddad and me, Lucas, Yank and then Aoife. But why? If he was worried Rachel was getting close to identifying him—or actually had identified him—why draw attention to himself? Then again, that’s always been the issue with him. He draws attention to himself. It’s like his thefts are a game for him.” She broke off, clearly frustrated. “I’m speculating.”
“The crosses are a form of manipulation.”
“Maybe so, but as far as we know, never to commit murder.”
Colin noticed a middle-aged couple enter the bar. It was filling up. “Do you want me to go with you to BPD headquarters?”
Emma shook her head, springing to her feet. “I should get over there before they send a squad car for me. I’ll meet you back at the apartment.” She buttoned her jacket. “You don’t have to go to Maine, Colin. I can go on my own.”
“Not a chance.” That didn’t mean he didn’t wish he and Emma could drink whiskey by the fire and talk about anything but thieves, murder and Celtic crosses. “I’ll gas up my truck.”
* * *
Colin stopped back at the HIT offices and found Sam Padgett alone in the conference room with his Texas boots up on the table. It was dark, and Padgett wasn’t a happy man. He’d taken printouts of art believed to have been stolen by the Declan’s Cross thief and lined them up on the table as if they were cards in a game of concentration. “I’m desperate,” he said, half-serious. “I thought looking at them one by one and in different combinations might help. Emma looks at them like an art historian. I look at them like a guy who doesn’t know anything about art, which, for all we know, our thief could be.”
“Come up with anything?”
Padgett glowered. “No. What the hell, maybe our guy has some deep-seated bullshit neurosis that’s driving him to steal certain types of art. Maybe he grabs pieces that all have green in them because green reminds him of his dead mother’s eyes.”
Colin dropped onto a chair. “That wouldn’t get us far.”
“I know. I planned to go for a bike ride out to Concord today. I should have.” The Texan heaved a sigh. “You ever think this thief’s playing us for fools?”
“Yep.”
“He’s been winning for ten years. Is he smart or lucky?”
“Probably both.”
Padgett sat up straight, lowering his feet to the floor. “It was a close one for Lucy Yankowski. If Yank and that Irish cop hadn’t come along, she’d have been in serious trouble. You like to think someone would have noticed something, heard her yelling—but people in that neighborhood obviously aren’t going to be thinking a woman’s trapped under a bookcase in a famous artist’s studio.”
It was a fair point. Colin updated Sam on Emma’s visit with the BPD.
“She could be a while,” Sam said. “Maisie Bristol has produced five movies for the big screen and made a ton of money. She’s on fire out in Hollywood. I downloaded all five. Want to take a look?”
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