Page 89 of In Plain Sight

She shook her head, and his throat seized to see the disgust written all over her face. “The fact that you have this in your possession? I would never have believed this of you. It… it calls into question your whole character.”

That was when Senator Cain’s world came crashing down, and he knew they were through.

“Please…. You can’t tell anyone,” he pleaded. “Just give me a chance to send it back to where it came from.”

“And where’s that? The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum? Because I’m pretty sure that wasnotwhere you got it from.” She glanced around the room.

“What are you looking for?”

She gaped at him. “A phone. I’m calling the police.” Her eyes glistened. “I have to call them. Don’t you see that?”

“I can’t let you do it.”

Cheryl blinked. “Who’s going to stop me? You?” She made as if to brush past him, and he grabbed her. “Let go of me.” She struggled to free herself, and then….

Oh hell no.

Friday, August 3, 2018

“WHAT HAPPENED?”Gary asked in a low voice.

Senator Cain stared at him, tears trickling down his cheeks. “She fell. But she hit her head on the metal grate around the hearth.” He swallowed. “I knelt beside her, but she was out cold, blood pouring from her head.”

“What did you do?”

The senator regarded him with wide eyes. “I panicked. I knew I’d probably killed her.”

“Did you check for a pulse?” Dan asked.

“Yes. It was there but very weak. She lay so still, and there was so much blood. I knew I needed help—sheneeded help—but what could I do? I couldn’t let it get out, but I had to dosomething. So….” He sagged in his chair. “I made a phone call.”

Gary leaned forward. “Who did you call, Senator?”

“The same person who’d loaned me the Rembrandt—Bruno DiFanetti.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

GARY DIDhis best to maintain a calm exterior.

“That’s not a name I expected to be associated with a senator. How on earth do you come to knowhim?”

Senator Cain picked up his glass and drank. “The summer of 1990—July, I think—he called me. He said he had something that might be of interest to me. Well, as soon as I learned who he was, I told him he had nothing that could possibly interest me. Then he mentioned the art collection, and….”

“And suddenly he had your attention,” Dan interjected.

He nodded. “DiFanetti said he had its crowning jewel, but that it would come at a price.”

“Didn’t that set off alarm bells?” Gary asked.

“Of course it did, but my curiosity got the better of me. I told him if he had something to show me, he would need to bring it to the house. I wasn’t about to venture into unknown territory, and the house had been shut up for the summer. Cheryl was working at the Athenaeum, and there was no one around.” He paused. “You can imagine my surprise when a laundry truck turned up. But when I looked inside….” Senator Cain swallowed. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I recognized it instantly. And then a little sanity returned. I told him I couldn’t afford whatever he was asking.”

Dan stared at him. “Your first thought was tobuyit? Knowing what it was? Where it came from?”

Senator Cain arched his eyebrows. “I said alittlesanity. The more I looked at it, the more certain I became that I had to have it. I would have killed to possess it. All those paintings in my collection? Yes, they were good, some even brilliant, but aRembrandt?”

Gary tilted his head. “You’ve said twice now that it was a loan, but I’m sure Bruno DiFanetti wanted something for it. What was the price he mentioned?”

“He said the people he represented would call on me to fight in their corner. Even get me elected. And sure enough, in 1991, at the age of thirty-seven, I was a senator. But I knew what it meant.” Senator Cain set his jaw. “They’d hold it over me forevermore. I was tied to them. If I refused, they’d make sure word got out.”