Zaragova’s eyes narrowed. “You may try.”
7
Allyson waded through the boxes, papers, trinkets, souvenirs, and junk that cluttered Zaragova’s house. The older woman lay dead on the linoleum floor in the kitchen, a pool of blood congealing around her.
Torture wasn’t Allyson’s favorite thing to do. She preferred quick, clean kills. It was more time efficient, and she didn’t exactly enjoy seeing people in pain. The Russian woman, on the other hand, had pissed her off. So she made an exception.
Allyson went through her usual process of getting a prisoner to give up information: a bullet through the top of each foot then the knees, elbows, stomach, and after all that if they wouldn’t talk, a shot to the head.
Typically, if a victim wouldn’t give up the information she needed by the time she got to the second kneecap, they weren’t going to. It was something she’d learned over the years.
Early on in her career of thievery and the occasional murder, she’d actually felt bad for one of her victims. She’d shot the man in the foot, and he’d told her what she wanted to know. In a moment of ridiculous mercy, she told him to go on his way and turned to take her leave. As soon as she did, he pulled a gun out from an ankle holster and pulled the trigger. The weapon misfired, but Allyson heard the click. When she turned around and saw the man pointing the gun at her, she unloaded her entire magazine into his chest. From that point on, she didn’t take any chances. Her victims always had to die. Unless, of course, they told her what she wanted up front.
She would have left Zaragova alone if she’d just come clean from the beginning. But the old woman wanted to hold onto her secrets for whatever reason. A thought occurred to Allyson as she stepped over another box and returned to the narrow hallway. If the Russian told the other thief about where the painting might have gone, Allyson would already be significantly behind. The bluff about catching up to her competition didn’t work. Zaragova saw right through it.
Allyson turned down the dimly lit corridor and stopped at the first door. It was open and revealed a room that dramatically contrasted the rest of the home. It was neat, almost clean save for a little dust here and there in the corners. She took note of the photographs on the walls and the medal hanging just to the right of her shoulder. She kept her weapon drawn and at the ready next to her side just in case the old woman wasn’t home alone. Allyson figured that if there were someone else there, she would have already seen or heard them. She also knew to always keep on full alert, especially in a situation like this.
She slid her feet across the creaky wooden floor to the desk where one of the drawers on the left side had been left open. Allyson scanned the room for anything else that might be helpful but saw nothing. All that was out of the ordinary was the open drawer and an old black-and-white photograph of two men. A few feet away, the closet doors were closed. She immediately raised her weapon and took two cautious steps over to the folding doors. Pulling on one of the knobs highlighted its lack of use as rods and wheels scratched along rusty tracks. She stepped back and kept the gun pointed into the closet, but the only thing she found inside was an old Red Army uniform, a World War II-era rifle, a pair of black shoes, and a box of shells.
Allyson frowned and lowered her weapon. She took a deep breath and calmed her nerves. Her eyes darted around the room, returning to the desk and the photograph on the surface.
She picked it up and stared at the image. Immediately, she recognized the man on the right. He was in several of the pictures on the wall. She assumed he was related to Zaragova, probably her father. The other guy, however, she didn’t recognize. Her eyes narrowed, and she peered at something in the background behind the two men. Allyson’s heart picked up a tick as she realized what she was looking at. It was the missing Bellini.
Knew that old woman was lying to me.
Out of sheer curiosity, she flipped the photograph over and looked at the back. The writing was sloppy and the ink had faded over the decades, but the name on the surface was unmistakable.
Arjen van der Wahl.
Allyson lowered the picture and stared out the little window at the barn beyond the lawn. Tall grass blew in the wind, and heavy raindrops started pecking at the glass.
Van der Wahl. She thought about the name. She’d seen it somewhere before but couldn’t place it right away. It was clearly of Dutch descent. Her mind rolled through the possibilities. If this was a picture of Zaragova’s father — and from all the other images in the room, it was reasonable to assume so — then perhaps this van der Wahl was the one to whom he sold the painting. Of course, this also assumed that Zaragova’s father sold the painting to begin with. Based on her limited knowledge of the situation, that made sense.
Time was short, and with a dead body in the kitchen, the necessity to leave of greater importance.
She stuffed the picture into her pocket and headed for the door. She shoved her other hand into the opposite pocket and withdrew her phone. Her fingers flew across the touch screen and entered the name of the man on the back of the photograph. A few seconds later, the search provided links to several different articles and websites containing information on Arjen van der Wahl.
Allyson reached the door and opened it but then realized she’d just left a contaminated crime scene. Her fingerprints would be all over the place. Hopefully the Russian authorities wouldn’t be as vigilant as in other countries. She tapped the first link to save it and then took a quick inventory of the room. With all the boxes lying around, the place would burn easily. All she needed was to ignite it.
The barn out back would likely have fuel.
She hopped down the front steps and ran to the outer building. The door hung open,and she stepped inside. An old tractor that looked like it hadn’t been used in twenty years sat rusting away in the middle of the building. Off to its side were a few metal fuel tanks. Allyson checked the first but found it to be empty. The second was half-full, more than enough to take care of her needs. She just hoped the diesel wasn’t too old. Fuel went bad over time and if it had been sitting around for more than a year might not ignite the way she hoped.
Back inside the building, she hauled the canister to the kitchen and opened the lid. She poured the fuel liberally around the body first and then doused a good number of the boxes in the adjacent room until the container was empty. She walked back to the kitchen, stepping carefully around the blood and fuel, and opened one drawer after another. In the third drawer, she found a box of matches and moved back over to the door where she’d ended the trail of diesel.
Allyson struck the match and squinted as she set it to the pungent, damp box nearby. It took a second,but the fuel took the flame and came to life, creeping along the floor to the body and branching out to the other boxes in the home. Ten seconds later, the place was filled with black smoke, the fire consuming everything it touched. She turned and ran to her car. A blaze like that wouldn’t take long to be noticed by someone, and she had no intention of being noticed.
She slid into the car, turned the ignition, and pounded the gas. Gravel shot out from behind the vehicle and she guided it back through the woods to the main road. Once on the asphalt, Allyson retrieved her phone once more and glanced at the article she’d pulled up on van der Wahl. Her eyes alternated between the road and the screen, carefully navigating the twists and turns leading back to the highway.
According to the article, van der Wahl was a wealthy businessman in the 1940s and ’50s. His primary residence was in Amsterdam, but he owned properties in several places in Europe. His businesses included textile mills, granaries, cocoa processing plants, and a few cheese factories.