The Pegasus Secret by Gregg Loomis Read Free Book Online

Grumps stretched and belched again.
    At first, the bedroom seemed untouched.
    Then Lang noticed that one of his silver hairbrushes was on the side of the dresser opposite where he normally left it. A photograph of Dawn faced the room at a slightly differentangle. Someone had been careful but not careful enough.
    Stepping around the bed, Lang opened the single drawer of the bedside table. The Browning nine-millimeter he had carried for years was where he kept it. Besides the gun and a box of ammunition, the drawer was empty.
    Lang was certain he had put the Polaroid and appraisal of the picture there for temporary safekeeping. Who would steal a Polaroid?
    The memory of the smoldering ruin in the Place des Vosges was his answer: someone who wanted to leave no trace of that picture.
    He shook his head. Stealing the painting and the photo . . .
    Lang took a quick inventory of his home. A few items were an inch or so out of place but nothing else was missing. Perhaps the disappearance of the three items made a sort of illogical sense. The thief had been unhurried but left the sterling silverware, a pair of gold cuff links and studs, and the pistol. The purpose of the break-in had clearly been the Poussin and all evidence of it.
    Why?
    Lang had no idea but every intention of finding out.

C HAPTER F OUR
1
     
    Atlanta
The next day
     
    Lang was waiting at Ansley Galleries when it opened the next morning. The same purple-haired girl was behind the counter with the same bored expression.
    “Our copy?” she asked. “Good thing we keep copies of all our appraisals, like I told you. You’d be surprised how many people keep ’em in the house. There’s a fire or something and both the art and the appraisal’s gone.”
    “And the Polaroid,” Lang asked, “you said you keep an extra of it, too?”
    She nodded, chewing a wad of gum. “Yeah, the Polaroid, too.”
    He smiled weakly and shrugged, a man embarrassed by his own ineffectiveness. “Dumb me. Can’t remember where I put the envelope with them in it. Be happy to pay for copies.”
    The gum snapped. “No problem.”
    A minute later she was back. The copy of the photograph, though not in color, was remarkably clear. He handed her a twenty.
    She shook her head. “Happy to help. You lose that, we’ll charge for the next set of copies.”
    Outside, he pretended to search his pockets for car keys while he checked up and down the street. If there were watchers, they were out of sight.
2
     
    Atlanta
An hour later
     
    “High Museum as in art museum?” Sara asked incredulously. “You want me to get the number of the art museum?”
    Lang settled behind his desk, speaking through the open door. “What’s the big surprise? I go to the museum, theater, ballet, et al, regular culture vulture. You don’t remember my getting tickets for you for the opening of the Matisse exhibit?”
    Sara shook her head without a gray hair moving out of place. “Lang, that was years ago. And it was one of your clients who got the tickets.”
    “Just find out who the director is, okay?”
    Two hours later, Lang parked in the MARTA lot behind what appeared to be white building blocks dumped into a random pile by a giant child. The contemporary edifice had to be one of the ugliest in a town not known for its architectural treasures. Lang’s theory was that Sherman’s destruction of the city a century and a half before had given Atlanta an atavistic insensitivity to structural aesthetics. The High Museum was named for the donors of the site,the High family, not for any preeminence in the art world. In fact, the concrete and glass housed a collection surprising only in its modesty when compared to similar institutions in comparable cities.
    Lang passed by the circular ramp inside the main hall and took an elevator to the top floor. Exiting, he passed a modern mural on canvas that an alert janitorial crew anywhere else would have recognized as a painter’s drop cloth and hauled outside to the