Forger of Light by Nupur Tustin

Author:Nupur Tustin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Foiled Plots Press
Published: 2021-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-Two

Hurriedly excusing himself, Blake stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the museum’s courtyard.

“Hello.” He held the phone firmly to his ear as he stood by the parapet looking down at the clusters of blue and white hydrangea surrounding the stone-and-glass Roman mosaic below him.

“Blake, it’s Ella,” his personal assistant began, rather unnecessarily, he thought. He knew exactly who it was. “Listen, I ran the partial you read out to me, got quite a few names, but no Sofia.”

He digested this. So Sofia had driven someone else’s car to Cambridge. That wasn’t a surprise.

“Blake?” Ella’s voice rose, anxious.

“Still here.” He angled the mouthpiece up as he spoke. “Listen, so none of these cars are rentals, right? She was driving a car registered to someone else?”

“None of the plates I’m looking at are reported stolen. Meaning—”

“Meaning, she may have been driving the killer’s car.” A surge of excitement pulsed through Blake. They were getting closer.

“Or whoever ordered the killing,” Ella said. “Some of the vehicles on the list are registered to women.”

“Or whoever searched the place a second time,” Blake mused. Was Sofia working for the woman who’d slipped into the apartment shortly after Reynolds had been killed and torn the place apart?

“Searched the place a second time?” Ella’s strident tones pierced his ear. “What do you mean searched the place a second time?”

“I thought I’d mentioned it to you.” He explained what Celine had discovered.

“If you want my opinion, whoever it was had to be in league with Reynolds’ killer as well,” Ella provided a deft analysis of the situation. “Who else would have a motive to go in there?”

“Anyone who wanted to make a quick buck on a Rembrandt.”

“Rembrandt? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Nope, Reynolds had the goods on a Rembrandt.” He gave her the details. “If only we knew which one.”

“Looks like you’ve made good progress.” Ella hesitated.

That gave Blake pause. His personal assistant had cut herself off so abruptly, it was obvious. That usually meant he’d overlooked something.

“Anything else you want to tell me?” he asked after hearing crickets for several seconds.

“You know that partial you had me track down?”

“Yup. What about it?”

“It may or may not mean anything, Blake, but the SAC wanted me to track down the same plate. He had the tag end of it just like you did.”

“I see.” Blake frowned. He didn’t see at all. And he didn’t like it either. But he needed to probe a little further. “Walsh give you a reason?”

“Just that his golfing partner had caught a suspicious vehicle hanging around his neighborhood and wanted it checked out.”

“Today?”

“Around noon. That caught my attention. It’s highly unlikely given when you guys saw her vehicle. Walsh tried to check it out himself but didn’t know the DMV codes to access the data.” She giggled. “He was really upset about that.”

“I’ll bet he was.” Blake’s lips twitched as he pictured Walsh, red-faced and irate, bursting into the anteroom where Ella was stationed.

He made a quick decision.

“Do me a favor. Don’t give Walsh any information until I’ve had a chance to look over what you’ve found.

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