Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [7]
Amanda Crosby had been one of the original dealers to sign on seven years ago when Mark Hollender had first proposed the idea of a cluster of high-end shops. She’d immediately recognized the advantage of being associated with a group that would be collectively marketed as upscale and high profile. And since most of the dealers specialized in one type of merchandise or another, there was little competition among the ever-growing number of merchants in the ever-enlarging complex. In addition to selling to the private shoppers drawn to the village, there was the profitable secondary market of selling to dealers from other parts of the country who often came east seeking items for their own shops or for special customers. The shop owners at St. Mark’s had solid reputations and had networked nicely with their counterparts in other states.
Sighing heavily, Amanda walked back into her shop, pausing to wipe a speck of dust from a piece of art deco pottery on a stand to the left of the door.
“Oh, the hell with it,” she muttered, tears stinging her eyes.
All of her hard work down the drain with one stupid purchase on Derek’s part.
“Correction,” she muttered aloud as she began to repack the pottery goblet as Daria McGowan had instructed. “One more stupid purchase on Derek’s part.”
Over the years, Derek’s get-rich-quick schemes had cost him and the shop a tidy penny. This, however, was the worst. The sixty-five thousand dollars Derek had paid for the goblet—the now known to be hot goblet—had wiped them out. And if not for Daria’s assistance, Derek could very well be a candidate for a nice long chat with Interpol or UNESCO.
Amanda gritted her teeth.
“But, Manda, I have a buyer,” he’d assured her. “Don’t worry about it, okay? To get his hands on this piece, he’ll pay many times what I paid, trust me. I know what I’m doing here.”
“No, Derek, you do not know what you’re doing. Whatever it is, just let it go. Don’t make any deals, don’t buy— Derek?”
The line had gone dead, and he’d not called back.
Several days later, the goblet had arrived, and as soon as she unwrapped it, Amanda suspected they were in deep trouble. She’d immediately called Iona, whose father and sister were well-connected archaeologists and who would know how best to deal with an item one suspected might be stolen without getting arrested in the process.
But, in spite of everything, Amanda did love Derek. They’d been the best of friends since that day, junior year in college, they’d discovered they shared a passion for American primitive furniture and art deco pottery, and a desire to own a high-end antiques shop someday.
Someday had come three years after they’d graduated from the University of Delaware. With heavy backing from Derek’s parents and an equally heavy reliance on Amanda’s antiques training, Crosby & England had done relatively well—well enough to support themselves, and a little more. They’d finally accumulated a healthy bank account, thanks to Amanda’s shrewd eye. At a country auction just months earlier, she’d spotted a set of four cottage chairs that she strongly suspected might be the work of Samuel Campbell, an early eighteenth–century furniture maker from western Pennsylvania who was just coming into vogue. She’d bought