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of the plastic surgeon and his two assistants were found stuffed into an oil drum off a highway in Spain. Their throats were slit so deeply, they were nearly decapitated. But before they were killed, they were tortured, probably to find out if they’d shared details about Menendez’s new identity with anyone else. The plastic surgeon was Sean.”
    Nick took a moment to absorb the shock. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.”
    “It wasn’t made public. Sean was quietly buried in the family plot. His obituary said he’d had a short illness.”
    Nick had never met Serena’s older brother, but he knew all about him. Sean was a hardworking, straight-arrow, responsible young man who’d graduated from Oxford University Medical School, married a nice girl, and never had so much as a speeding ticket. Serena, on the other hand, had graduated from Oxford with a bachelor’s degree in fine art and started breaking into estates, galleries, and museums.
    “Why did Sean agree to operate on Menendez?” Nick asked.
    “Sean had big gambling debts. He was about to lose his practice, his wife, his house, everything. He was embarrassed to ask the family for help. The loan sharks put Menendez on to him. I suppose Sean thought the operation would get him out of the hole he’d dug for himself. Instead, he dug himself a grave.” She shook her head. “The two of us had it all. We came from a wealthy Oxford family, we had Oxford University educations, and what happened to us? He became a compulsive gambler who got himself killed, and I became a thief who will probably die in prison.”
    “How can I help?” Nick asked.
    “I want to find Menendez and destroy him, but I don’t have the skills to do it. You do.”
    “I’m not an assassin.”
    “I don’t want you to kill him. I want you to take him down. Gut his empire. Empty his bank accounts. Reduce him to nothing. For Menendez, that would be even worse than death. And I want to help you do it, so you’ll have to break me out of jail, too.”
    “I’ll do what I can to take down Menendez, but I’m temporarily leaving you behind bars. I don’t want to raise any red flags that might spook Menendez.”
    More than that, he couldn’t take a chance on Serena tagging along and discovering he was working for the FBI.

Kate and Bernard were in the conference room having an early breakfast of French bread and butter and a few slices of aged ham when Nick knocked once on the doorjamb and stepped in.
    “Do we have an agreement?” Kate asked Nick. “Will she tell us where to find the stolen property?”
    “Not until she has written assurance from the United States, German, and Turkish authorities that her sentences will be reduced,” Nick said.
    “That could take weeks,” Bernard said.
    “She’s not going anywhere, no?” Nick said. “We can wait. But the same can’t be said for the things you want. The paintings must be kept in climate-controlled conditions, away from moisture and heat. Who knows if they are?”
    “She does,” Bernard said.
    Nick shrugged. “I’d move quickly if I were you, just to be on the safe side.
A bientôt.
”
    “Casse-toi,”
Bernard muttered when Nick left the room.
“Débile.”
    Kate didn’t need to speak French to know a profanity and insult when she heard one.
    “That goes double for me,” she said, earning a smile from Bernard.
    Kate returned to her room at the Ibis Orléans Centre Gare, a modern three-star hotel directly across from the train station with the charm of a budget chain in the States. She’d been looking forward to a moment of calm to reorganize, but she’d walked in to the sound of the shower running and Nick’s fake mustache lying on the bed like a tiny dead hairy animal.
    “Débile!”
she yelled in the vicinity of the bathroom.
    There was no answer so she kicked off her shoes, stretched out on the bed, and put the pillow over her face. She heard the water stop running, then sensed she wasn’t