Second Wind by Alison Henderson

Author:Alison Henderson [Henderson, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

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Sergei Ivanov. That was a name Laurel hadn’t expected to hear again.

Sergei wasn’t an easy man to forget, as much as she might have liked to. He was lean and taut, with dark hair combed straight back from the widow’s peak in the center of his forehead and a neatly trimmed goatee. He was striking—some women might even have called him handsome—but to Laurel, his black gaze had always seemed flat and dead, and his narrow lips had a cruel twist. Every time she’d seen him, he’d been impeccably and expensively dressed. He reminded her of a top-dollar movie assassin. It might be fanciful, but in her mind, she’d given him the nickname “Rasputin in Armani.” If someone had told her the man had been voted Most Likely to Carve You Up Like a Beluga Sturgeon at the Moscow Institute for Budding Psychopaths, she wouldn’t have been surprised. And now Jake Carlson was connecting him, and by extension Richard—and possibly even herself—to the Russian mob.

“So, do you know the man?” Jake repeated.

There was no point in lying. She’d heard on TV that police interrogators rarely ask questions to which they don’t already know the answers, and Jake’s questions felt very much like an interrogation. “He was Richard’s business partner, but I don’t know him well. He didn’t come into the office very often, and even when he was there, he kept himself apart—distant but polite. I can’t say he’s one of my favorite people, but what makes you think he’s involved in money laundering?”

“Do you remember the painting Anna in Blue?”

She nodded. “It’s hard to forget.”

“Would you consider it to be highly collectible, something a sophisticated connoisseur would purchase?”

“It’s not to my taste, but I don’t claim to be an expert.”

“We’re currently working on tracking its movements for the past several months. It appears to have changed hands a number of times, each for a highly inflated price paid in untraceable cash. Some of the transactions have been tied to the organization of a Russian crime boss named Vladimir Roskov. Have you ever heard that name?”

She thought for a minute. A number of Richard’s clients had been Russian, but the name Roskov didn’t ring a bell. “I don’t think so.”

“Had you ever seen or heard of the painting before it turned up in St. James’s gallery?”

Her pulse skipped. He probably knows the answer to that question, too. “As a matter of fact, Richard sold it about a year ago. I helped process the sale.” She frowned. “But surely you don’t think Victor is involved in any illegal schemes.”

“I don’t have positive proof, but he’s made some questionable financial transactions in the past few months.”

She bristled in defense of her new employer and friend. “Victor is a longtime, respected art dealer. I don’t know anything about his finances, but the fact that he traded for Anna in Blue doesn’t prove a connection to either Richard or Sergei Ivanov or that Russian gangster, whatever his name was.”

She realized how naive the words sounded as soon as they left her mouth.

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