Ch 14

At 8:00 sharp, Amy, Dan, Atticus, Jake, Fiske, Nellie and Sammy skyped with Jonah, Hamilton and Phoenix who were touring in Europe and Ian and Cara who were on a 'relationship exploring' tour of Britain. Dan had referred to their trip as 'Can-Cara-put-up-with-Ian.' They had been having trouble getting along during the mess with the Outcast. They were both Alphas and had been clashing big time. Their feelings for each other were real, however. Amy suggested they get away and try to build their relationship. She was surprisingly protective of Ian and Cara.

Dan thought she wanted it to work so badly for Ian now that Natalie was gone. I wonder if I'll ever find somebody I can put up with. All the girls I know are annoying.

"Thanks for coming everyone."

"Yo, you gotta make this quick cuz', it's wicked late here in Prague. All my homies finally went to sleep and I had to wake up just to see you all." Jonah began.

"Yes, it is past midnight here in London. Please make it succinct Amy." Ian chimed in with a bleary-eyed Cara sitting beside him in their dark hotel room.

"Alright, I'll get right to the point. A unique opportunity fell into our laps today. An optional but highly valuable mission awaits all of us."

Amy continued to outline the conversation with Anne Hawley, the Gardner Museum, the suspicions on it being an inside job and the authority's involvement, or lack thereof. Jake's mother, Bianca being director of collections for the museum at the time and how Ms. Hawley specifically hunted down Amy and Jake for this mission. She finished with Ms. Hawley's plea to Amy and Jake as her last hope before retirement.

Once she had laid it all out, she added, "Technically, this isn't a Cahill matter, so, that's why at the beginning, I said it was an optional mission. I think these works of art will require the entire Cahill network's eyes and ears to help recover, but even with that, it will be very hard to get them all returned. The works of art are no doubt in private collections with owners who have no intention of displaying them to the public."

Amy stopped speaking and gave everyone time to think.

"So, you suspect these 13 works of art are in 13 different locations with 13 different owners now?" Nellie asked.

"We don't know, but, worst case scenario, yes." Amy responded.

"Yo, we're in. Ham and Phoenix too. 'Course, with my tour schedule I'm going to be pretty limited in what I can do, but I'm in some of the biggest cities in Europe and Janus strongholds nearby, with quite a bit of down time before shows each night. Phoenix my man is my opening act these days. He's got some tight pipes! I'll send you my tour schedule so you can keep it all straight."

"Thanks Jonah. We appreciate it. Go get some sleep, we'll be in touch." Amy said and clicked his Skype feed off.

"Cara and I are in," Ian said. "To be honest, once you've seen one small British town, you've seen them all. I think we're ready for some variety in our travel." Cara nodded.

"I'll work on whatever hacking you need done Amy. Just say the word. I can do that from anywhere."

"Thanks guys, you're the best. Get some sleep and we'll be in touch." Amy clicked off their Skype feed also. Now it was just the Cahills in the comm center.

"I think Sammy and I are going to be of limited help, kiddos. I want to help, really, I do, but my restaurant is brand new and I can't be gone from it. The only reason I could be here today was we're closed on Tuesdays." Nellie said apologetically.

"I'm back in the lab full time and I'm teaching a grad course in chemistry during the days. I think it's a no from me. Unless, of course, you need something from the Columbia lab, then come on down and I'll do what I can."

"Thanks anyway guys, we completely understand. No worries at all. We'll keep you posted if anything is recovered." Amy said standing to give Nellie and Sammy hugs good-bye. Everyone else stood to say good bye as well and watched them leave the mansion.

"Well, that leaves me." Fiske said. "I'm in of course."

Amy smiled at him, "Ok, well, then we have a good team."

"Amy, we're going to have to work around our class schedule. Dad will lose his mind if Att and I start skipping classes." Jake said.

"I know, which is why I told Ms. Hawley we would work on our schedule. She was OK with that. Fiske, can I count on you to be home base here in Attleboro? We'll need you in the comm center until our new headquarters are finished in Cambridge."

"I will, but I need to remind you that I am no Cara Pierce." Fiske said lightly.

"We'll make due, thanks Fiske," Amy said smiling at him. "I think our first order of business will be to visit the Gardner museum, which we ran out of time for today. Then we need to talk with your father, Jake and see what he can tell us about Bianca's notes and files."

That night, as Jake was getting ready for bed, Amy sat up in bed with the laptop open. Jake wandered out from the bathroom with his toothbrush to see what she was doing,

"Wha a ya oing?" he said with a mouth full of paste.

Amy glanced over to him, "I'm trying to find out about each of the pieces that were taken. Apparently, Vermeer's The Concert was the most valuable piece, followed by Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, his only sea scape. The others were of moderate value and a few were just downright strange. One 16th century Japanese vase and then a brass finial from the top of a flagpole, that experts believe the thieves thought was gold. Totally random, it seems."

Jake walked back to the bathroom to spit. Amy watched him. The muscles in his back flexed as he bent over the sink. His muscular legs and butt looked like something out of a Calvin Klein commercial. He was built just like an athlete.

He flipped off the bathroom light and did a funny skip-jog back to the bed. He vaulted himself over Amy to land on the opposite side of her in bed. She gave him a smile and a giggle. He could make her laugh and she loved him for that. He snuggled up next to her so their sides were touching. He leaned over and kissed Amy's cheek.

"So, what is the complete list?"

Amy clicked over to Wikipedia and ran her finger down the list for Jake.

"According to this, the thieves were really primitive in their robbery techniques. They yanked the art off the walls and attempted to smash the frames to remove them from the art. When that failed, they used box cutters to roughly cut the art from the frame, only, they didn't realize canvas was stapled from the back side, so they left a good inch of the art in the frame when they cut it out from the front side."

"So, even if we do recover the works, they'll have to be re-stretched onto new, smaller frames and the current frames hanging empty won't work anymore. Unbelievable. If this was truly a work-for-hire job, you'd think the commissioning crooks would want the entire work of art, not a portion of it. You'd think they could hire some thieves who had done this before." Jake said incredulously.

"It also says here that the security guards remember watching them roll up the canvasses before they left, only, Anne Hawley is quoted here saying the canvasses would have been so old, they wouldn't have had any pliability left to them and couldn't have been rolled up. The best the thieves could have done would be to fold them. Only the guards stand by their claim that they saw them being rolled."

Jake gave a big sigh and closed Amy's laptop lid. "Let's go to sleep, this can wait until morning."

Amy put the laptop on the night stand and flipped off her lamp. She snuggled down into the crook of Jake's arm and hooked a leg over his. Jake's right hand began to trace patterns down Amy's arm which he did every night. It had become part of their routine.

Jake gave a big sigh, "I love this. I love being with you Amy. If this is our future, then I can't wait for the Cambridge house to get finished. I want to do this every night."

Amy smiled, "Me too."