Lost Art Assignment Read Online Free Page A

apron over it.
    â€œRaoul, just what are you doing?” Felicity asked, stepping up behind him, delivering a kiss on his neck.
    â€œI told the security man downstairs to signal me when you came in,” Raoul answered in a strong French accent. “I knew Morgan was with you, and, as it is getting late in the day, I thought a couple of omelets might be in order.”
    â€œHe knows you couldn’t cook your way out of a paper bag,” Morgan shouted from the living room.
    â€œThat is the worst mixed metaphor I’ve ever heard,” Felicity said with a grin. “Now get to the table.”
    The table stood on a marble mezzanine at the back of the living room, against the glass wall. Actually, the wall was a series of glass panels running from floor to ceiling. Facing a huge orange sun settling into the Pacific Ocean, the three old friends enjoyed large mugs of strong coffee with fat cheese omelets, and discussed the day’s events.
    â€œI knew as soon as we made that commitment that we’d live to regret it,” Felicity said at the end of her tale. “I hate to say it, but we may well end up running through every East Coast art fence alive to locate the missing paintings.”
    â€œMy darling,” Raoul began, around a mouthful of omelet, “your beauty is unmatched and your form would shame de Milo’s Venus, but I must admit I had more reasons to come to The States from Paris.”
    â€œWhat?” Morgan gathered an errant mushroom onto his fork. “Don’t even smugglers ever just take a vacation? What’s the world coming to?”
    â€œMe dear, we been friends and more than friends for too many years to be loading me with all this flattery now,” Felicity fired back, sipping her coffee. “I know you’re justtaking advantage of me bed and board while you make business contacts.”
    â€œMmmm. Especially your bed,” Raoul said into his plate. “I just wanted you to know that I’m still in contact with the people in that business and, truth to tell, there might not be too many fences for you to sift through on the East Coast. There’s been a recent shake-up in the New York underworld, one of those periodic reorganizations. You know I sometimes deal in art myself.”
    â€œSo, you saying you know where we should look?” Morgan asked, emptying his cup and handing it to Felicity. She just stared at him. “I mean, you know a black, New York dealer who handles hot paintings?”
    â€œYou’ll never get that information out of me, mon ami,” Raoul said, quite straight faced. “But this charming young lady might very well get me to talk before daylight.”

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    â€œNice car,” Paul said. He had just left Felicity’s New York City apartment with her and Morgan. After years as a bodyguard for hire and months as head of courier services for Stark and O’Brien’s security and risk management firm, nothing seemed to surprise him. The fact that Felicity owned an apartment in New York that was identical in layout and decor to her home in Manhattan Beach, California, prompted no comment. Now, facing a brand new BMW 650i convertible in her parking space he merely remarked “Nice car.” Morgan wasn’t so subdued.
    â€œJeez, Red, you just can’t walk past anything on the lot if it’ll do a hundred fifty miles an hour, can you?”
    â€œEvery girl needs a hobby,” she said, settling comfortably into the driver’s seat’s emerald green upholstery and lowering the top. “You like to reload your own bullets, and hunt. I collect sports cars.”
    â€œYeah, and every one a special order,” Morgan said as she pulled into Fifth Avenue traffic. “I don’t think they come this way, with the interior matching your eyes. Your own I mean, not those stupid contact lenses. Now, you sure this De Camp Gallery is the place?”
    â€œWell, Raoul named it as a