Page 79 of Smoke Screen
Phin shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. According to Rory, his guy isn’t that deep. He just wantssomething.”
Why? Why? Why? People. Sometimes they made no sense. “It’s not as if he can show it off. He’ll have to keep it locked in a safe.” She held up a hand. “Trust me, I’m not naïve. I’ve been working in the art world long enough to know this happens all the time, but I’ll never understand owning a flawless piece and not being able to share it.”
“It’s not about sharing it. It’s about knowing they have it. They sit in a private vault in their basement with a thousand-dollar bottle of wine and stare at their illegally obtained art. It’s a power trip.”
“It’s astupidpower trip.”
Phin glanced at her. “Aren’t they all?”
He brought his attention back to the road, where they cruised along just a tick over the speed limit. Could he not speed up? Just a little? Get them back to the house where she could stretch her legs and breathe fresh mountain air. Maybe visit the chapel he’d told her about last night, where she’d lay down her worries inside its doors.
She shifted in her seat, studied his profile. His perfect nose. The angle of his jaw. Phin Blackwell. Total stunner.
She wouldn’t mind seeing him naked.Oh, bad girl. Bad, bad, Maddy.
Imagining Phin naked sure beat contemplating prison swaps.
These crazy thoughts. Maddening.
Even more maddening, in her opinion, was the underground world of stolen art and she’d be smart to keep her focus on that.
Not Phin.
Definitely not Phin.
“Explain to me,” she said, “how hiding makes someone feel powerful. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“I like that about you. That you want to understand the other side. You don’t just jump into an argument.”
She shrugged. “I’m a curious person.”
“My job, as you saw at Kayla’s, requires me to go to events and mingle with people. Most of them have way more money than anyone would ever need. Some give it away.”
“And the others?”
“They spend it. Giant houses, boats, whatever they can think of. Money creates a hierarchy. The more you have, the more power you wield.”
Nothing new there. That’d been the way since … well … always. “I getthat. How does hiding art make them feel powerful?”
He paused for a second, seeming to gather his thoughts while he navigated the merge onto Route 74 and finally pressed the gas, darting into the left lane.
“It’s sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “Take my buddy Senator Blakely. I could see him hiding art. He’ll do whatever it takes to make himself feel in charge. To be ‘the man.’ Talk down to people, kill important legislation simply because he can. Doesn’t matter that it hurts people.Hethinks it makes him strong when all it makes him is an asshole. He’s operated this way for years and it’s escalating. The more press he gets, the more damage he does.”
“He needs the spotlight. It’s all about the high it gives him.”
“Yes. It’s the same with stolen art. They lock a painting in a vault and it gives them that high because they have something no one else does. Even if nobody knows they have it.”
Maddy shook her head, peered out the windshield as Phin blew past a stream of slower cars. “It’s really astonishing that people operate this way.”
“Eh. Spend enough time with them and you learn how they think.”
“That’s why you’re the face of BARS. You connect with people.”
“That’s what I’m told. I figure out what makes them tick. Kinda like Rory Emlynson. I met him at some gala. We talked about art and his clients and just random crap. Four months later, he called me. A client was having an issue with a gallery that had borrowed his forty-million-dollar Basquiat.”
Now, this sounded fascinating. “What was the issue?”
He looked over at her and smiled. “They refused to give it back.”
