Read Online Detect Me by Selma Wolfe - Free Book Online

at Nikki again. He looked like he did that a lot. He was at least 50 and balding, but Mark still hated the man a little.
    “Aw shoot,” the quiet police officer said suddenly, his voice echoing from all the way back by the door. He had the Van Gogh painting clutched in his hands. He was holding it carefully by the edges of the frame, but it made no difference. There was a huge hole ripped into the center of the priceless painting. The cop stared down at it and then looked up at the crowd with a dismal expression that mirrored the way Mark felt.
    In spite of the fact that Nikki was kneeling beside him healthy and whole, he couldn’t help feeling like he’d failed the world a little. If he had to choose between Nikki and The Olive Trees, there was no choice. But now something else that was precious and beautiful was ruined, because Mark hadn’t been able to stop Ghost.
    “What a shame,” Nikki said cheerfully. Mark looked around and saw that she was flat-out grinning. That was weird. And the portly security guard was grinning back at Nikki conspiratorially, which was both weird and annoying.
    “Glad I listened to you, that I am!” Rob-the-guard chuckled. “Or we’d have a big ol’ hole in one of my personal favorite paintings. That’d be a real shame, it sure would.”
    Mark frowned. He looked at the painting. He looked at the police officers, who appeared to be just as puzzled as he was. He looked at Nikki and Rob, who were still grinning like maniacs. “Sorry, what?”
     
     
     
    “I did an internship at the MoMA, back in undergrad,” Nikki explained, trying to keep the smugness out of her voice. She was pretty sure she was failing. “I, uh, I got lost a time or two…”
    “I found her wandering around the arches at 8:00 at night, skulking around like a burglar. Thought about thwapping her over the head with my baton, but she looked like a lost little kitten with those big eyes. So I escorted her on upstairs, and kept an eye out after that,” Rob volunteered. He grinned at the male cops and winked at the female one. They all looked a bit lost. Rob sometimes had that effect on people.
    “What time did you get off work?” Mark asked Nikki, the corner of his mouth starting to curl up, of course zeroing in on the one thing she’d hoped everyone would miss.
    “It’s not important.” Nikki coughed. “But 4:00.”
    Mark grinned.
    “Anyway,” she emphasized, “when I realized that Ghost was coming, I figured the best thing to do would be to get The Olive Trees out of there. I still had Rob’s number, so I called him up and asked if he could do something.”
    Rob hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants and leaned back, looking mightily pleased with himself. “Turns out I could! I’ve been here at the MoMA a long time, you know. Why, I was here way back when…”
    Nikki coughed, trying to head that reminiscence off at the pass. She’d heard it before a time or thirty. “Yep! Rob’s got all the influence you could ever need.” Rob beamed; she mentally patted herself on the back in relief. “So he replaced the painting with a fake.”
    Mark straightened up next to her with a hiss and a wince, jostling her a bit with his elbow as he fought to get upright without jarring his shoulder. Nikki immediately dropped her train of thought and put a hand around his back to help him up.
    She still had yet to process that Mark had taken that bleeding wound to the shoulder for her. The terror of that moment when the knife hurtled toward her was still fresh in her mind. She shrank away from the recollection. There was no relief from it, because almost as soon as Mark had pulled her away she’d heard a horrible ripping sound - probably more fabric than skin, but the noise still stuck in her ears - and seen pain ripple across Mark’s face before he bit it back. After that there had just been the mindless terror of not knowing how badly Mark was hurt until she’d investigated for herself and seen that