Capturing the Queen (Damaged Heroes Book 2) by Sarah Andre

Author:Sarah Andre [Andre, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781946310019
Publisher: Beach Reads
Published: 2017-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

Sean glanced at the reception desk. Gretch sat motionless, head firmly planted in her arms. Perfect. He had a solid hour before work began. It would only take a few minutes to find out what was hidden underneath the ugly charity painting. His heart pounded in anticipation. He laid the canvas on the empty worktable in what had been Robbie the intern’s cubicle last fall, then swiftly unscrewed the offset clips and pulled out the industrial staples.

“Damn.” Some idiot had pasted strips of double-sided adhesive tape around the edges of the two canvases. The oxidation factor of the tape alone made the need for restoration a probability. Sean slowed his work, separating in millimeter segments to make sure he didn’t damage the painting underneath. It was killing him not to tear the top canvas off like wrapping paper, but his methodical nature forced him not to peek until he’d extricated all four sides.

Dane and Anna arrived, greeting a cranky Gretch. They knew better than to disturb him on their way to their workstations. A few minutes later, the smell of percolating coffee wafted in the air. Then Hannah’s cheerful voice as she arrived. The day had officially begun. Sean rolled his shoulders and picked up his pace. He had three weeks to miraculously restore the Quran; this was so not a pressing matter in comparison.

The final edge peeled free. His pulse spiked. “Here we go,” he muttered, standing and carefully lifting the ugly canvas. The other painting emerged, magnificent and unharmed except for the strips of adhesive tape bordering the canvas.

Chills pricked his limbs. Normal lab sounds condensed down to the thick whoosh-whoosh of his heart. He sat clumsily. “Holy. Shit.”

Underneath his gloved fingertips lay Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece The Concert, stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. The most expensive art heist ever. Oh my fucking God.

Flop sweat drenched him, as if he’d gone through an entire combat karate competition with no break. “Oh my God,” he repeated, inhaling unevenly. His legs were too numb to stand. He scanned the fluidity of the scene inch by inch, jaw agape.

Vermeer had slanted in warm sunlight, bathing the dark hues of the musical-themed composition. The shafts of light masterfully led the viewers’ eyes to the bright outfit on the girl playing the harpsicord center-left, then lit a path along the black and white floor tiles directly to the man playing the lute, his back to the viewer. An older woman, presumably the man’s wife, stood to his right, hands raised and mouth open in song. A viola on the shadowed floor was visible. So was the intricately detailed Acadian landscape painted on the open lid of the harpsichord.

It was spectacular. Perfection. The work was three hundred years old and considered Vermeer’s best. Of the five hundred million dollars’ worth of artifacts stolen that night, the estimated value of this canvas was two hundred million. Minimum. It had been a while since Sean had read updates on the investigation, the various

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