Page 15 of Shopping for an Heir
“Meeting?” She gave him a blank look.
He waved a dismissive hand. “Letitia must have put it in your calendar.”
“Letitia is my paralegal. Not my assistant.”
“Oh. Right. That’s Margaret.” He shook his head quickly, as if re-centering.
Norm wasn’t usually this off. “What’s wrong?” she asked, as neutrally as possible.
“Nothing.”
“Margaret has been my admin for three years, Norm. You don’t magically forget someone like that.”
He swallowed, hard, the shell rolling off him, revealing the deeper man. The nervous glance at the door made her internal danger radar go off.
“This conversation didn’t happen.”
How bad was this?
“Of course not.”
“Look, the Hopewell case is a hot potato. The fact that your ex is an heir is a sick bit of bad luck.”
“We’re making decent billable hours off it,” Suzanne reminded him.
“And the terms of the will state that you, and you alone, must handle the case.”
She laughed. “Good one. That won’t hold up in court.”
Alarm filled his face. “We can’t take this anywhere near a court!”
She narrowed her eyes. “I think we’d better stop right here, Norm, and you’d damn well better explain what this is all about.”
Curses? Pre-Buddhist artifacts? The Taliban?
And what the hell did Gerald have to do with any of it?
“If you don’t, I resign. I know how many billable hours I bring into the firm. You guys need me. So spill.”
“The artifact is a rare religious item. Dates back centuries, likely millennia. Between age, historical value, political value, actual precious metal and gemstone content, and the competition to own it, that damn item may be worth a cool hundred million on the black market, Suzanne.”
Well.
She’d demanded the truth.
And now she had it.
Plunking her stunned ass into a chair, Suzanne’s coffee dripped out of the small opening on the top as the cup slammed into the tabletop. “Gerald’s inheriting a hundred million dollar artifact? Gerald?” She bit back the phrase my Gerald just in time.
He wasn’t hers.
Even if she could still conjure the taste of that kiss last night.
“He’s inheriting a legal and political nightmare. But the guy has no choice. It’s his fault.”
“What?”
“Have you read the file? The full file?”
“Yes.”
Phelps pulled a fat envelope out of his jacket pocket. “Good. Then you’re ready for this.”
She took the envelope and began to open it. “What’s in here?”
“The rest of the story.” He tossed the envelope on the thick mahogany-topped desk. “Read it.”
She picked it up and took a step toward the door.
“No. In here.”
Suzanne looked at him in disbelief. “I can only read the documents in here? In your office?”
“Those papers do not leave the room. They’re not part of the official record. None of this is. Hell, the actual artifact doesn’t officially exist.”
Alarm buzzed through her bones. “I’m definitely removing myself from this case.”
“Suzanne,” he said softly. Norm Phelps was anything but soft. “Read. Then decide.”
Against her better nature, she pulled the thick batch of papers from the envelope and unfolded them.
And then she read.
And read.
And gaped.
Her coffee was cold when she reached for it, drinking anyhow. After she chugged the entire enormous cup, she looked at Norm. “These papers say that eleven years ago, Gerald Wright stole a very rare religious and cultural artifact from Afghanistan, smuggled it into the U.S., and somehow it landed in the hands of Harold Hopewell.”
“‘Stole’ isn’t the right word.”
“What is?”
“‘Rescued.’ Keep reading.”
She flipped through the papers, speed reading.
Her eyes halted abruptly on a name she hadn’t read or heard in ten years.
“‘Harrison Kulli!’” Her voice cracked. “Jesus, Norm. What the hell does he have to do with any of this?”
Norm shook his head, the skin around his eyes sagging like a depressed bloodhound. “You knew him, right? In the Navy?”
She looked up sharply. “How did you know?”
“Research. Investigations. Background checks.” He gave her a one-shoulder shrug.
“You mean corporate spying.”
“Details.”
“Gerald smuggled this artifact to the U.S.? When?”
“On some sort of trip to D.C. It gets murky from there. Somehow it ended up in a private collection owned by Harold Hopewell.”
“And now Hopewell left it to Gerald as an inheritance?”
Norm nodded, sighing deeply.
“Where is it?”
“The artifact?”
“No. The Hope Diamond. Yes, the artifact.”
“It is in an undisclosed location.”
“You’re acting like this is some kind of summer action thriller, Norm. Why all the cloak-and-dagger crap?”
“Because it’s a cursed religious artifact made of gold, encrusted with rare jewels, and it has a black market value of a hundred million or so, give or take eight figures.”
Suzanne just blinked.
“Gerald inherited this.”
“Yes. And part of our job is to convince him to sell it.”
“Sell it? He can’t! It has to be given back to the rightful government. International law dictates exactly what he needs to do.”
Norm’s discomfort level shot through the roof. She could feel it radiating off him like toxic paint fumes. “Technically, no. This artifact was never recorded by a cultural institution or government body. It doesn’t exist. But even more important: handing it back to the government would lead to its destruction.”
“Under the Taliban, sure, but not under the elected government of Afghanistan.”
He gave her a gimlet eye. “You’re not that naive, Suzanne. You know damn well that a pre-Buddhist religious artifact like this, with so much significance, would be destroyed. Or melted down and sold. It wouldn’t even reach the government, no matter how hard we might try. The channel to get from A to B would be rife with interlopers.”
Suzanne studied a picture of the item. It was solid gold, a statue of a small woman with large breasts and a protruding belly, a tiny version of a human coming out of her as she gave birth.
“Inside the statue there’s an enormous emerald and a ruby, and legend says that if the gold is melted down with great care, on one of the layers there is a map, etched into the gold, leading to unlocking Indus script.”
She snorted. “C’mon. Now I know you’re messing with me. Who am I supposed to meet with today? Nicolas Cage and Harrison Ford?”
“No. Gerald Wright and the archaeologist we’re trying to sniff out to examine the artifact in question.”
“If what you’re saying is true, this relic could be something like a Rosetta Stone?”
He nodded.
Dumbfounded. She was dumbfounded.
“Wait. Where is it? An item like this should be under lock and key, with armored guards! This is ridiculous.”
“But it’s true. And the item is at Hopewell’s Boston home, protected by a security team.”
The weight of the paperwork fooled her into thinking this wasn’t as great a burden as it truly was. Norm’s explanation, this cloak-and-dagger behavior, left her suspicious and reeling.
“Then you should understand how serious this is. Our position, by the way, is to encourage Gerald Wright to sell.”
“Sell?”
“Sell the artifact. Quickly. Get out from under the item. He’s a chauffeur and an art teacher. Impress on him that the money is life-altering, We already have someone who represents a client. They have an open offer on the table of fifty million.”
“A buyer?” she repeated dumbly.
“Yes. Represented by Harrison Kulli. I believe it’s in the paperwork.”
“Harrison Kulli wants to buy the artifact from Gerald?” This was getting crazier and crazier by the minute.
“On the behalf of a client of his, yes.”
“Harrison Kulli has a client? A client for what?”
“Kulli represents an anonymous buyer.”
“I’ll bet he does. Bad pennies always turn up.”
Norm frowned. “What’s the deal with him, Suz? Why’s he bother you so much?”
“He was my commanding officer in Afghanistan.”
Norm was in the middle of eating a donut and froze. “And?”
“Do you not understand why this is setting off my hinky meter?”
He made a small huffing sound, then resumed stuffing his face. “Your ex-fiancé has just inherited an artifact that your former commanding officer is trying to buy for a client. For fifty million dollars.”
“Just another day at the office.”
He frowned, giving her an evaluative look. “It wasn’t a coincidence that Phelps, Miller was chosen to handle this particular bequest, was it?”
Suzanne broke eye contact, the paper resting in her hand like a weapon.
“I don’t think so. But what does it mean?”
“It means I need to chase down Miller and have a talk. But it also means you’re still on the case.”
“For now.”
He gave her a small, concessionary head nod. “For now.”
