Eye of the Beholder

her, she thought. "I wasn't trying to steal it, you know."
    "Could have fooled me."
    "I only wanted to get it out of sight before anyone sees it." She waved a hand at the closet door. "I was going to stash it in there until later."
    He gave that a moment of what appeared to be thoughtful consideration.
    "Why?" he asked eventually.
    She hesitated. This was the tricky part, but the entire project had been a calculated risk from the start. Now she had no option but to fight for her future.
    "There's been a mistake. Dancing Satyr should never have been installed. It's not a genuine Icarus Ives piece."
    "Are you telling me that I paid big bucks for a fake statue?"
    "It's just a little mix-up," she said smoothly.
    "I don't like mix-ups that cost me money."
    "I'm sure everything will be straightened out very quickly after the reception. But in the meantime, I don't want it in my, uh, I mean, in the hotel's collection. At least not tonight when there are so many people from the art world here."
    " You don't want it in the collection?" Trask eyed her with grave interest. "Why do you care what the art crowd thinks about my collection, Ms. Chambers?"
    "Because I assembled it." The fat was in the fire. There was no point playing any more games. "I was Edward Vale's special Deco consultant on the project. I did not approve Dancing Satyr. Obviously there was a failure of communication somewhere along the line."
    "The same sort of communication failure that took place at the McClelland Gallery two years ago?"
    Alexa was stunned into silence. Her mouth opened but nothing emerged. This was worse than she had imagined. He knew about the McClelland scandal.
    He pinned her with cold eyes. "Well, Ms. Chambers? Do I have to wonder about the authenticity of any of the other items in my very expensive new collection of Art Deco?"
    Fury flared, white-hot and intense. "Gee, I don't know, Trask. Maybe you do. Just like I have to wonder whether or not you're here in Avalon to open a resort or because you intend to take your revenge against Lloyd Kenyon."
    His brows rose. "So you do remember me. I couldn't be sure the other day when we met at the Point. You played it pretty cool."
    "So did you."
    "Guess we're both cool. Let's return to the subject of your reputation, which is not so cool. I understand that it was shredded two years ago when you were involved in that art forgery scam in Scottsdale ."
    She held his gaze. "I had nothing to do with the McClelland forgeries. As a matter of fact, I was the one who blew the whistle."
    "Got any proof?"
    "Probably not the sort you'd accept. There was no criminal investigation because none of McClelland's clients wanted to press charges."
    "Convenient."
    "It's a common enough reaction in the art world."
    He gave her an expression of polite disbelief. "What the hell kind of client would sit still for being conned?"
    "The kind who values his or her own reputation," she said.
    "Meaning?"
    "Look, the situation is not unlike what happens when a big business discovers that one of its employees has embezzled money from client accounts or that a hacker has gotten past its computer security. The corporation generally wants to keep things quiet because it fears the publicity of an arrest and trial. Clients and customers would question its ability to provide privacy and security."
    Trask's eyes narrowed. "I'm aware of how things work in the business world."
    "They aren't that much different in the art world. McClelland sold almost exclusively to high-priced art consultants and acknowledged experts who bought art and antiques for their own exclusive clientele."
    "I think I'm getting the picture," Trask said. "No so-called expert likes to admit that he or she was fooled by a series of good forgeries."
    "Exactly. Bad for business. After the McClelland incident everyone involved had a vested interest in keeping as quiet as possible. Reputations and careers were at stake. McClelland, of course, counted on that attitude. There was no investigation, no trial, and no arrest. Just lots of rumors and innuendos."
    "Rumors and innuendos, I'm told, in which your name figured prominently."
    She folded her arms beneath her breasts and angled her chin. "Actually, my name got savaged by a particularly nasty bit of insider gossip in a very influential trade magazine called Twentieth-Century Artifact. The idiot reporter who wrote the piece did so without having all the facts. He managed to imply that I was actively involved in selling