Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [157]
Now, Judith. Something’s wrong. I can feel it. He hissed the warning into her mind.
Judith flashed Bill a smile and lifted a hand toward the older man, clearly still torn that she should insist on getting him medical attention. He hates doctors, she explained, but she began to stride toward the art gallery.
They’d gone no more than five feet, when two shadowy figures stood up on the enclosed porch where they’d been sitting in chairs. Stefan’s heart sank. He recognized the couple immediately. Inez Nelson and Frank Warner waited, both looking distressed. Inez clearly wrung her hands, twisting her fingers together in agitation.
“What is it, Inez?” Judith stepped forward, compassion in her voice, on her face and in the hand she put out to touch the older woman’s arm.
Stefan’s natural inclination was to shield Judith from the couple. His warning system was so loud he could hear it booming through the blood thundering in his ears. He crowded close to Judith, his body sheltering hers protectively as he reached around her to shake Frank’s hand. “Is something wrong?”
“I went into the gallery this morning to open up before you came,” Inez explained, “and . . .” She trailed off. “You’ll have to see. I’ve called Jonas.”
Stefan swore softly to himself. The last thing he needed was a meddling sheriff around. He followed Inez and Frank into the gallery, keeping Judith in front of him, so that anyone on the street with a gun didn’t have a chance to shoot her. Once inside, Stefan saw the damage immediately. Someone had dragged paintings off the wall and thrown them carelessly on the floor after taking canvases out of the frames and removing them from the stretcher bars.
“Who would do this?” Judith asked. “We don’t get this kind of vandalism here. If those canvases aren’t stretched soon, it will ruin the paintings. Most of those are oil, but a couple are acrylic and those will be more of a problem.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “All that work destroyed.”
Stefan stepped closer to the paintings strewn around. Each of them was a painting Judith had done. He went still. This was deliberate. Ivanov sending a message? He took a quick look around at the banks of windows. He suddenly felt as if Judith was very exposed. He took her arm and pulled her away from the paintings, back into the shadowy interior where it would be more difficult for a sniper to get a clear shot.
“Inez, they look like they’re my work,” Judith said, one hand going to her throat defensively. “Are they all my paintings?”
Stefan thought she looked very vulnerable, and his heart turned over. He curled his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him. We’ll get to the bottom of this, angel.
“They didn’t destroy the artwork,” Inez pointed out hastily. “They removed the canvas from the stretcher bars. You can fix them, can’t you, Judith? After Jonas sees them, take them back to your studio and fix them before they’re ruined.”
“He’ll want to keep them for evidence,” Judith pointed out.
“Well, he can’t. He can photograph them and if that’s not good enough, too bad. We’ll let it go, because the gallery can’t afford to take that kind of loss,” Inez said heatedly. “And we’re not losing all of your work.”
“Could the vandals have been looking for something,” Stefan said, watching Judith closely.
“What could they possibly be looking for beneath the canvas?” Judith asked. “I stretch the canvases myself. They’re just wrapped around the stretcher bar and stapled with oversized stainless steel staples to keep the canvas taut.”
“Where do you get your stretcher bars?” Frank asked. He cleared his throat, glanced at Stefan and then at Inez. “Remember, Judith, the trouble I got into a few years back.”
The Russian mob had gotten their hooks into Frank and had run stolen treasures through his art gallery. He’d gone to prison for his part in the smuggling operation.
Judith shook