Sharkbait

Kai and his friends stayed over the weekend, but I wasn’t much of a hostess. I worked out, ate, and prepared for my upcoming appearances. For every Bodyglove event on my schedule, I had radio and television interviews to do. Almost all were taped ahead of time with the local hosts and played in the leadup to the event. By getting them done early, I wouldn’t have to deal with them when we were in Oregon for the next two weeks.

The extra security was over, but Alpha Steven didn’t want me alone in public anymore. That was fine with me; I didn’t feel like going anywhere. Even food didn’t get me going.

Amy finally had enough on Monday when she had to drag me out of bed for our morning run. “You’re better than this, Vicki,” she said. “I know it sucks, but life goes on. I want my Sharkbait back.” She was right. I embraced her, then started to dress for our run. I heard the sound of air brakes and a diesel truck outside, then the too-close sound of a backing alarm. “Vicki, what’s going on with the truck?”

I ran out to the kitchen in my shorts and sports bra, pulling a Bodyglove tank top over it. Amy’s vision was slowly improving, enough to tell it was a semi-truck, but not enough to read the side. “ATLAS MOVING COMPANY,” it said on the side. “Tell your Mom, have them come over just in case,” I said as I reached for the pistol we kept on top of the fridge.

“Hammer says to stall,” she replied from the phone thirty seconds later.

The truck stopped short of our garage door and set the brakes, the cab sticking out into the road. The driver got out with another man, both dressed in logo coveralls and ballcaps. The driver knocked at the door. “Who is it,” I said.

“Atlas Moving. We have a delivery for Vicki Lawrence.”

“Give me a minute to get dressed, and I’ll be right out.” The guy walked back to his coworker, and they unlocked the back of the truck and swung the doors open. I could see different-shaped objects inside, all covered with moving blankets or packed into wooden or cardboard boxes.

“We’re in place,” Susan said.

I looked out to see her with Hammer, walking down the street while holding hands. I tucked the small pistol into the pocket of my shorts and walked outside. “I’m Vicki Lawrence,” I said.

“I’ll need to see some identification before I can deliver this, ma’am,” he said. Amy came up behind me and handed me my driver’s license. He looked at it for a few seconds, then gave it back to me. “Sign for delivery, please.”

“What if something got broken during the move? Is it insured?”

“It is. There’s a signature below that for whether you have any damage claims. This signature just allows us to unload.” I read the parts, then signed where he had the X. “What is this stuff?”

“Furniture and things. We picked it up in Boston and drove straight here. We’re supposed to give you this stuff too.” He handed over a thick manila envelope with my name on it.

Emily. The office things. “Aunt Susan? Can you look at this while Hammer and I help get this stuff put away?”

They came up the driveway, and Susan took the envelope and went inside. Amy hit the button to open the garage door, allowing the movers could get their ramp down. Hammer took one look and shook his head. “You better pull your car out and park it at my place,” he said. “You’re going to fill up this garage and more.”

I grabbed my keys and made room, running back from his nearby house. Susan was running things; furniture, pottery, and sculptures were staying in the garage for now, while textiles and paintings went into the living room. She was checking items off a list as she directed things. “How much stuff did I get?”

“All of it,” she said as she flipped through the ten-page shipping manifest. “We’ll talk after they are gone.”

It took almost an hour for the men to finish. All of the items had to be unpacked and inspected for damage, then repacked for now. Susan ran the unloading while Hammer and I kept busy with the inspections, marking the containers if they were undamaged. Amazingly enough, everything came through without a hitch. I signed the spot stating no shipping damage observed and tipped the guys five hundred each for their work. “You guys did a great job packing and driving,” I said.

“Thank you, Ma’am. Have a nice day.” They loaded back up into their truck and drove off as Amy pushed the button to lower the garage door.

“What the hell just happened,” Hammer said. “This isn’t Ikea crap! These are museum-quality antiques! It must be worth a fortune!”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll explain more once I’ve had a chance to look at the paperwork and see what I’m dealing with here. In the meantime, we should eat breakfast since we missed our run.”

“Luke has breakfast ready,” Susan said. “Let’s head back to our place and eat. I take it you aren’t going to dojo today?”

“No, I’ll go,” I said. “This stuff isn’t going anywhere, and I need to keep my training up.” Hammer smiled at that; he understood the need to skip this morning’s run, but not his training.

We went back to his place, where Luke had been flipping pancakes and frying up sausages and eggs for the last half hour. We all thanked him as we grabbed plates of food and tucked in. “Susan, how much can we trust Hammer to know of the real story?”

She had to think about that for a while. “Hammer’s already suspicious, and he’s too stubborn to let things go. He knows there is more to that motorcycle attack than the NCIS let on. Maybe this is Luna’s way of forcing the issue?”

“He’ll be home from the dojo at nine,” Amy said. “We should talk to him then. That gives Vicki eight hours or so to figure out what she owns.”

“Who sent you all that stuff, Vicki?”

I took some time chewing the stack of pancakes I’d just stuffed into my mouth. Of course, that’s when I get asked a question. “I haven’t seen the paperwork, but I recognize some of the pieces from a friend’s office in Boston.”

“Who do you know in Boston who would give you millions of dollars worth of antiques?”

“A filthy-rich businessman who told me he was in love with me and wanted me to stay there and date him. He was pretty old, and I wasn’t interested in what he had to offer. I turned him down.”

“It’s a hell of a severance package,” Hammer noted.

“We’ll see. I think it will end up being a full-time job for me, just when I don’t need any more drama.” Now THAT was the absolute truth. The next Monday morning, Amy and I were flying up to Oregon for the start of the school year.

“Let the girl eat,” Susan said. “We’ve got to leave in ten minutes.”

“Luke, could you stay at our place while we’re gone?”

“Sure, Vicki. I’ll take the list Mom was using and start looking things up on the Internet. Maybe I can give you an idea of what is valuable and what is crap.”

“Thanks, Luke.” It would have been a lot less painful for me to stay home and look up stuff because I was distracted and got my butt kicked during the class. I tapped out after only thirty seconds when I was challenged, dropping three spots in the rankings.

We stopped at Sawatdee for Thai takeout; I loved their Squid Pad Thai. When we walked in, Luke was staring at a painting he had leaning up against the wall, one of several he’d removed from the cases. “What’s up?”

“We have a BIG problem, Vicki,” he said.

I put the bag of food on the table and started to get glasses down. “What kind of big are we talking about?”

By now, Susan and Amy were in the kitchen. Luke turned the screen on his computer to show me the website. “Take a look at that painting, then at this,” he said. The painting wasn’t something I’d have in my house; dark and uninteresting, it showed a woman playing the piano while another woman sang, and a large man sat facing away who must have been their instructor. Looking at the screen, it was the same. “You found it?”

“Not just any IT, Vicki. This painting is The Concert by Johannes Vermeer. Thieves stole it from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990, along with twelve other works of art.”

“Damn. Alexander was rich as hell, why did he buy stolen art?”

“Vicki, that painting was last valued at over three hundred and fifty million dollars. It’s the most valuable piece of stolen art in the entire world.”