A Magnificent Crime by Kim Foster Read Free Book Online Page B

difficulty. In fact, it was one of the most successful things he’d ever done. And the most satisfying.
    The seed was planted. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
    He cashed in all his savings, left California, and moved up the coast to Seattle for a fresh start.
    He started working out and lost seventy-three pounds. He dropped five inches around his waist and went up two shirt sizes in his chest. Good haircuts became a ritual for him, and he began paying attention to his clothes—dressing like he meant it. Soon, Ethan started feeling really good about himself. And it wasn’t hard to notice the effect all that confidence was having on women.
    Eventually, he knew he had to figure out a career. When he sat down to think about it, there was one glaring possibility. He’d been so good at stealing back his Colby Wallace. . . . What if he just expanded that enterprise a little?
    He knew plenty about it. Could tell a real from a fake. Knew what was valuable and what was worth taking. Whether he found himself in an art gallery or a private collection, he’d be able to home in on the money.
    He started off fencing his own stuff, but it wasn’t long before he was approached by an agency, AB&T. Once he entered that world, there was no turning back. Life was too good. It’s like when a tiger gets its first taste of human flesh and forevermore becomes a man-eater.
    Becoming an art thief was how Ethan had achieved his potential. It was the only way he’d found of being able to be part of the art world and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle at the same time. That was eight years ago.
    Nice guys finish last? You bet they do.
    Ethan moved silently through the lush rooms of the Piazza Navona house, past potted palms and velvet draperies, making his way to the room he knew contained the Caravaggio.
    But when he got there, he came to an abrupt stop. He stared at the wall, at an empty square of dark ocher amid the sun-bleached butter-colored surface.
    The Caravaggio was gone.
    Ethan frowned with irritation. Okay. It was fine. They’d probably just taken it down to dust or something. Wait. The smell of fresh paint. They were having the walls repainted, in addition to having the ceiling replastered. The Caravaggio had to be in the house somewhere.
    He went upstairs to the next level and crept from room to room. Ethan was sweating a little now. A jittery feeling jumped under his skin. Time was ticking.
    At last, he went into an empty bedroom. The shutters were closed in this room, and only knifelike cracks of light peeked between the slats. A row of paintings in large, ornate frames rested against the papered walls, waiting to be replaced on the freshly painted surfaces below.
    The job was on again.
    He spotted the Caravaggio. Flipping the frame over, he cut the canvas from its frame in a matter of seconds, rolled it carefully, and tucked it into a cardboard mailing tube.
    The average person would take a good thirty minutes to properly remove a canvas from a frame. For an art thief, this was the sort of thing that could be accomplished in twelve seconds flat. It was the fruit of lots of practice.
    Now for the tricky bit. The exit.
    Ethan went to a front room and tucked himself beside the window frame. The glass was open, so he could hear outside, as well as see. He scanned the piazza, looking for anything out of place. People were sitting at sun-soaked café tables, nibbling pastries, drinking cappuccino. Afternoon crowds now lingered by the fountain’s edge, taking photographs of one another with the stone river gods of the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in the background.
    And then he saw it. A man sitting stiffly at a café, with his face turned toward the front door of the palazzo Ethan was in. Unmistakably an undercover member of the polizia . Ethan scanned for another and saw him perched on the fountain’s north edge.
    Did they know he was inside? Would they have let him just walk in? Sure they would. And let him hang