Page 50 of Maximus

Val grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

Elena followed her to the road, and the Rolls slammed on its brakes. Val opened the back door and pulled her into the interior. Elena landed in a heap on the floorboard as Val reached back over her and shut the door. Whoever was driving slammed on the accelerator, and they flew down the hill.

Elena’s hair had tumbled out of its pins. She righted herself and pushed her hair out of her face. “No!” She backpedaled and pushed away from Abrasha.

Val held out her hand, and Abrasha helped her up. In English, Val said, “She’s afraid of you, darling.” She handed the man a large cloth, and he started wiping his face.

“I don’t know how women wear this stuff,” the man replied. “God, it itches when it doesn’t feel slimy.”

“Stop complaining, sweetheart. It isn’t becoming. All ladies suffer through wearing makeup, and we don’t bitch about it, do we?” she asked Elena.

Elena shook her head, watching as makeup started to cover the cloth. Val reached into the man’s suit coat and pulled out a small pack of wipes. “Here, this will help.”

The man took a wipe. He smiled at Elena. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “You’re … him …” She looked at Val. “But not.” Elena pushed herself up into the seat. “What’s going on?”

“This is my husband. He’s a dead ringer for Abrasha, so we used that as a decoy. We had to age him a bit, but with the explosion, confusion, and rush, he passed as the old man.” Val took a new wipe out of the pack and turned to her husband. “Let me. You’re missing everything.”

“Thank you.” The man looked at Val like she’d placed the moon and stars in the sky.

Val kissed him and continued to clean his face.

Elena closed her eyes and shivered. The entire scene was surreal. She asked, “Did you get Abrasha?”

“Of course,” Val said.

Elena stared out the window into the dark as they wound through the mountains. “Where are we going?”

“A safe house not too far from here. We’ll wait for Max there,” Val said. “Then we’ll all go our separate ways.”

“America,” Elena said and closed her eyes. She was going to go with Max to America. She was going to work with the paintings—a new life, away from a monster who’d used his money to buy the stolen works.

She glanced at the couple when they slowed and then turned down a gravel road. Val’s head rested on the man’s shoulder. He was staring at her. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You did shock me a bit,” she said as the car hit a pothole and jolted them.

“Imagine how shocked we were when we found out he looked like that bastard,” Val said without opening her eyes.

“I couldn’t imagine. I saw some of the things he was responsible for.” She shivered and ran her hands up and down her arms. “Are you related to him?”

The man shrugged. “Only by DNA.”

Val opened her eyes and laughed. “His mom had an affair with Abrasha. His parents were troglodytes of the highest order. But he’s smart. He survived, and I found him. Life has a way of working out. This is my husband, Smithson, or Smith for short, by the way.”

Elena smiled at them. “It does, doesn’t it? I never expected I’d meet Max.”

Val smiled at her. “A pleasure. Are you going back to the States with him?”

“Yes, his people … I guess they’re your people, too … offered me a job detailing the provenance of the stolen canvases andresearching the history to try to determine the proper owner. It could take a long time to investigate each painting. There is a repository where art stolen during World War II is listed, but there aren’t many pictures, so trying to match words to art is, to say the least, an inexact science.”

“Guardian is an organization of integrity,” Val’s husband said. “Perhaps the last such bastion in the world.”

Val glanced at her man. “They are,” she agreed. Taking her hand in his, he smiled down at her.

“How long have you known each other?” They seemed so in love. “Did you meet because of Guardian?”

“Oh, that’s a long story.” Val chuckled. “I kidnapped him one night, and we flew to Europe. One thing led to another, and we ended up here in Russia on a train. I think that’s where we fell in love.”

Smith shook his head. “I was in love with you the moment I met you.”