nodded toward the computer. “I think we have something.”
Surprised, he turned to look at the monitor and discovered she was right. “Usually takes longer.” A lot longer. He chalked it up to luck and rolled his chair back over to the screen and began to scroll through the information. Felicity came to stand behind him and read over his shoulder.
“Julia Forsythe,” Finn said, reading out loud.
“American,” she said as he continued to scroll. “Interesting.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Nothing specific, just that I haven’t discovered too many of you Yanks in this line of work, that’s all. At least at such an advanced level.” She smiled at him. “You being the exception, of course.”
He didn’t bother to correct her assumption, thinking she was baiting him for precisely that purpose. “My experience is that it doesn’t seem to hold to gender or race.” Now he smiled. “A thief is a thief.”
She didn’t respond to his baiting either. And he found himself regretting they would never fully be able to just be themselves with each other. Too much was at stake, for people who mattered. Well, in his case anyway.
He turned away to another computer and began typing in the pertinent information. She was still standing at the other monitor, scanning through what little info there was on the hit.
“One prior arrest. Grand theft. A felony,” she said, making a humming noise, but no other comment. “Charges were dropped.”
“The arrest was enough to get her prints in the system. That’s all we needed.”
“You’re not going to find much then, are you?”
“I’m not researching her criminal history.”
Felicity looked up at that. “Oh?”
“As you said, not much there to look into, and what is there isn’t exactly a surprise, on the surface anyway.”
“Says here, last known address is San Francisco.”
“Still is,” he said.
She walked over to stand behind him. “My, my. You are rather connected, aren’t you?” She leaned down to peer more closely over his shoulder as additional information about one Julia Dawn Forsythe, age thirty-three, single, scrolled onto the screen in front of him now. “Impressive.”
It was that, he thought. Knowing what their setup was capable of didn’t mean he still didn’t enjoy watching it in action every now and again. He’d sent the information back to their home system, with an alert to Mac, who’d set up a direct link into Rafe’s database, which extended well into realms it probably shouldn’t. Finn didn’t ask questions. He just enjoyed the results.
“She’s an art dealer,” Felicity said. “How convenient.”
“With a rather impressive private studio,” Finn followed.
“I’m surprised her arrest wasn’t more of a put off to her clientele.”
“She was arrested four years ago. She opened this studio just under two years ago.”
“And already such a success. Interesting.”
He shifted to look at her, but she kept her attention on the monitor. “I launched Trinity around the same time.”
“But you said you’re not-for-profit. Your funding comes from investments made from your inheritance.”
“True, but—”
“It says here her taxes last year showed her to be in the red by almost a million dollars.”
“Maybe she had private funding as well.”
Felicity looked dubious. “And shall we make a bet on the likely method used to secure this private funding?”
“She could just be a dealer who uses Reese to obtain objets d’ art for certain clients who wish to remain anonymous.”
“For a hefty finder’s fee. And dealers willing to take risks can make an even better turnaround for their investment.”
“You sound as if you know something about this.” He looked at Felicity, who’d straightened and taken a step back.
“Hardly, darling.” Rather than take offense, though, she laughed quite naturally. “Why ever would I want to part with something I worked so hard to obtain?”
It was a classic Felicity Jane response; confident and self-effacing, all at once. And yet, he wasn’t buying it this time. “Money?” he said.
“I have more than I could spend in several lifetimes, so that would hardly provide motivation.”
“Maybe not for you, maybe for the Foundation. It can’t be easy maintaining your ancestral holdings.”
She tilted her head. “Someone’s been doing a bit of digging, too, I see. But to answer your query, no. The Foundation and my ancestral holdings, as you so quaintly call them, are maintaining themselves as well as can be expected, without my turning to a life of crime to help uphold them.”
So then why have you? he wanted to shout. He’d already asked her once, outright, but she’d danced around the answer by turning it back on him. Perhaps if he hit close enough, he’d see the truth of it in her eyes. “Maybe it’s the thrill of obtaining the piece, and, once secured, it no longer holds any fascination. So it would only make sense, then, to get rid of it. Enter John Reese.”
“I told you, we’ve worked together on Foundation business. And his work with, and for, them would pass the closest scrutiny.” She didn’t respond to the rest, other than to say, “I thought we were in a race to track down the whereabouts of one Julia Forsythe? Surely your prurient interest in the motivation behind my recreational pursuits can wait until we’ve located our quarry.”
Recreational pursuits. “I am tracking. If you worked with John in the past as a client, rather than as a peer hunting the same piece, then it holds that you might know something of Miss Forsythe.”
She sighed. “I knew of John and his reputation—both good and bad—prior to this little adventure, yes, but, and I say this for the last time, I’ve never purchased anything from him personally, regardless of provenance. I’ve never dealt with Miss Forsythe in any manner. Anything else?”
She held his gaze with ease, her tone flat, indicating her displeasure with the direction of his questioning, but nothing more. Or less.
“But you know of her?”
She shook her head. “I know of her kind. There are a lot of less-than-scrupulous art dealers in the world. In this city alone, in fact. It doesn’t say more or less for her that I’ve not heard of her. She could be quite the big thing in the States, for all I know.”
Every question he asked seemed to net him no information, other than to add more questions to his list. It was frustrating on several levels, mainly
