“And here I thought you were such a warm host.”
“Oh I am.” He nodded toward the people appreciating his paintings. “I’m friends with all these people, in fact I know everyone here... everyone, that is, but you. Although there is something... familiar about you. Have we met, my dear?”
She felt another shiver, asked, “In your dreams, perhaps?”
Another smile twitched within the well-tended beard. “If only I had that vivid an imagination... Would you like a drink? More champagne, perhaps?”
She held up her empty glass. “Why not?”
“Before we do,” he said, “tell me, please, why you think my famous film prop is a fake.”
“Oh, it may actually be a film prop — I’m sure they had a backup for the real necklace, when they made that movie.”
“Real necklace?” he said innocently.
“Very few people realize that the necklace in the Hollywood Heritage Museum — which was stolen, by the way — was truly valuable, with forty-eight tiny zircons that formed the heart around the blue stone.”
“That’s simply absurd,” he said, without conviction.
“And,” she continued, with a casual, almost contemptuous nod toward the display case, “this paste job has fifty.”
He looked from her to the necklace and back. “Well!.. You’re a very bright young woman. Now, do you want that champagne?”
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Entwining her arm in Sterling’s, Max allowed him to lead her toward the foyer.
“In a way — the necklace on display is a film prop... you don’t think I would show off the original in front of guests? The more valuable of the two prop necklaces, used only for close-ups? Particularly when its... provenance is so... controversial.”
“You mean, because it’s stolen property... So, then, the real necklace is somewhere safe — bank vault, that sort of thing.”
“I wouldn’t know where it is.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t be coquettish, my dear — you stole it. Remember?”
Their eyes met and Max’s stomach did a back flip, but she said nothing; she did not think he would make a scene here — not and risk it coming out that his collection included hot property.
They got fresh glasses of bubbly from a butler and walked down one of the stairways toward the rear of the house. The crowd was thinner back here.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Sitting room. I have something I want to show you.”
She smiled. “If it’s a gun, I’m not interested... If it’s something else, thanks anyway — I’ve seen those before, too.”
“You’re such a droll child,” Sterling said, with a chuckle. “Very engaging, but that’s not what I meant. I want you to see another piece of art.”
With a shrug, she said, “All right.”
Sterling unlocked a door and they entered a large sitting room with a plush violet velvet sofa.
“For our privacy,” Sterling said, “I need to lock the door again... are you comfortable with that?”
She was not afraid of him in the least. “Go ahead.”
He locked the door and they soon sat side by side on the velvet sofa; the Mission style again predominated. A walnut coffee table separated them from two wing chairs and one wall was taken up by bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. On the opposite wall hung heavy velvet curtains that matched the sofa and presumably covered a large window that overlooked the rear of the estate.
On the wall behind the couch was what Max suspected to be the original Night Watch by Rembrandt. Near the locked door was a Remington painting that Max recognized as The Snow Trail.
“Are these the pieces you wanted me to see?”
“No.” The collector sipped his champagne, then smiled again, a toothy smile that was a little too white, a little too wide. “Did you really tell the guard outside you were Marisa Barton?”
Sterling didn’t seem to miss much, around here. Suddenly that locked door was starting to bother her. She decided to play him.
“Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” she said, “to meet the man she wants to meet.”
“And you wanted to meet me?”
Max touched his leg. “Handsome, wealthy... you do have some points in your favor, Mr. Sterling.”
He placed a hand over hers. “Thank you for putting ‘handsome’ on the list before ‘wealthy.’ ” Now he was the one who glanced toward the closed door. “But what do you think we should do about Marisa?”
Max moved closer. “Forget about her.”
“That’s an option,” he said; again they were close enough to kiss. “Or... we could invite her to join us.”
Again the air between them seemed charged, but this time in a different way, and Max forced herself not to recoil. “I don’t like to share good things,” she managed.
This part of the big house was very quiet. Were she and Sterling the only ones not out front, at the party?
“Before we decide what to do about Marisa,” he said, and eased away from her, just a bit, “perhaps we should decide what to do about you.”
He withdrew a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket and dropped it on the coffee table before them — a surveillance photo, culled from video footage, courtesy of a security cam...
... a picture of Max standing in the gallery of the Sterling mansion with the real Heart of the Ocean in her hand.
“This,” he said, and he was not smiling now, “is the piece of art I wanted you to see.”
So much for disabling the video system.
He was saying, “I take it you came here tonight to... what is your name, dear?”
She said nothing.
Sterling pressed on: “I take it you’re here to make arrangements to return the necklace, and the Grant Wood painting... correct?”
Her face blank, she said simply, “No.”
“Please don’t play innocent — why else would you come to my home tonight, risking a prison sentence, going through all the trouble of jumping the wall and skulking around like a common thief?”
“Actually, I’m a very uncommon thief, Mr. Sterling.”
His smile returned — fewer teeth, though. “That’s true, my dear — that’s certainly true.”
She folded her arms, Indian-style. “We could, I suppose, arrange a price for the return of those two items. You might be surprised by how reasonable that price might be.”
His eyes tightened; he was clearly intrigued. “Try me.”
She curtailed the intensity, the urgency in her voice. “Just tell me where you got it.”
“Got what, my dear?”
“The Heart of the Ocean. Tell me, and you can have it back... The Grant Wood might require some cash outlay, but...”
“My dear,” Sterling said. “Surely you understand that a man who deals in the netherworld of art collecting, as I do, must protect not only himself, but his sources. Anyway, why is it any of your concern, where I got that necklace?”
“I need to know,” she said, and this time the intensity bled through.
He considered what she’d said; then he said, “I may strike a bargain with you — but I must protect myself. Again, I must ask — why do you want to know?”
She could think of nothing else to tell him but the truth — so she did: “I’m the one who stole the necklace in the first place, from that museum in LA.”
“... I am impressed.”
“I left the necklace with friends, when I skipped town. Those friends turned up dead, in the meantime — and now the necklace winds up with you. I need to know how that happened.”
He seemed amused. “To avenge your friends,” he said, as if this were a quaint notion.