Page 51 of Fastest Kill

"Noted," he said, at the same volume.

Nothing else needed to be said. They both knew what the mirror was and what they would do about it.

The auction officially began at eight p.m after drinks were refilled and guests had enough time to mingle.

The room was arranged with the confident minimalism of events that charged enough per seat to assume their guests didn't need anything as crude as comfort.

Forty chairs, ten rows of four, angled toward a low stage where the auctioneer stood patiently.

The pieces from the pre-auction viewing were brought through one by one, each in its case, each introduced in the precise, uninflected language of someone being paid to describe objects without speculating about what they had been used for or where they had come from.

Frederica sat with her catalog in her lap and studied the room instead.

Twenty-two buyers. Eighteen men, four women. Three clearly acting as proxies.

The security was better than the Ephesus Museum. She counted six guards in this room alone, professional, one at each entrance, and two working the room's perimeter. No visible weapons, but the jacket cuts on two of them were wrong in ways that confirmed they were carrying.

The auctioneer's assistant was another bodyguard. Frederica clocked the earpiece and the other woman's body language, which belonged to someone whose actual job was watching for trouble.

Dario had his bidding paddle and a glass of the wine that had been served from a side table. He was working the room from his seat, just radiating a kind of attentive stillness that made people around him feel he was interested in them.

Frederica had watched him do it in Ephesus, and yet she still couldn't figure out how he managed it. It was a type of charisma that couldn't be manufactured. You were born with it, or you weren't.

Cases one through six moved through without incident. She bid on two to establish the Ferraros as present and serious, and not specifically here for one item.

Case seven and the mirror came through. The room shifted, people leaning slightly forward because something significant was on the block. Three paddles went up on the opening bid.

One of them belonged to a man Frederica hadn't noticed in her initial sweep. She frowned. That wasn't like her. She noticed everyone.

He was seated toward the rear left, where she would have sat if she hadn't needed to play the Amelia role, because it was close to the exits.

Frederica leaned closer to Dario and smiled as she whispered in his ear. "Tesoro mio, do you know that man?"

"No, I hadn't noticed him," he replied, and something flickered in his eyes. This man hadn't been on the guest list, and Dario hadn't spotted him either. That made it doubly strange.

"Ah, never mind. He must just remind me of someone from work," Frederica said, for the benefit of anyone listening in. Dario's hand on her thigh gave a slight squeeze to let her know they were both having the same suspicions.

Frederica risked another glance at the newcomer. Not large. Not immediately remarkable in any way identifiable way. The suit was good, the posture easy, the face that of a well-maintained man in his late fifties with blonde hair silvering at the temples and pale eyes.

There was something about those eyes, though, that made another sliver of unease run through her. Frederica didn't hesitate and raised her own paddle again for the mirror.

The bidding ran six rounds. The strange man matched every increment without hesitation or visible interest, the paddle going up with unhurried patience.

Dario came in on round four with a jump bid that should have shaken the room. The man's paddle went up before the auctioneer finished calling the new figure.

At round six, Dario leaned over. "He's going to take it," he said, voice below anything the nearest bidder could catch. She knew. She had known since round two.

"Never mind, darling," she said sweetly and let her paddle rest.

The auctioneer's hammer came down. The room applauded with the appreciation of people who pretended they hadn't wanted that particular piece.

Dario touched her hand once, and Frederica turned her palm up and let his fingers close around it for a moment before she released it.

"I need another wine," she said and rose to her feet. She went to get another full glass from the side tables, keeping up the appearance of being outbid, and needing a drink to soothe her disappointment.

The auctioneer had moved onto the next item when Frederica sensed someone moving up behind her. The back of her neck tingled in warning, and she had spent enough of her life trusting that particular instinct to turn her head before she had consciously decided to.

He moved to stand at the table beside her. Waiting to be noticed and entirely confident and calm.