The Collector
Page 90

“Which we will be,” Lila said, “Thursday afternoon. Antonia contacted me before I came downstairs,” she explained. “Her father’s agreed to talk to us. He’ll contact us with details, but we’re invited to Villa Bastone next Thursday.”
“At two o’clock,” Ash finished. “My brother Esteban’s in the same business. I had him give Bastone a nudge.”
“Well. Good for us.”
“The next point on the map,” Kerinov said. “You’ll keep me updated? I wish I could go with you, but family and business keep me in New York for the next few weeks. Speaking of family, I have to go to mine.” He rose. “So I’ll say udachi—good luck.”
He shook hands with Ash, flushed a little when Lila hugged him after she walked him to the door. She turned back, rubbed her hands together.
“Let’s Google this Nicholas Romanov Vasin. I know we have Alexi’s notes, but let’s do some digging.”
“I’ve got a better source than Google. My father.”
“Oh.” Money talks to money, she thought. She’d said so herself. “Good idea. You do that, and I’ll see about dinner, as promised. I guess we need to check out the other two possibilities. Maybe he knows them, too.”
“Or of them. I haven’t forgotten he owes you an apology, Lila.”
“It’s not on the top-ten list of things to worry about right now.”
“It’s on mine.” He went into the kitchen ahead of her, poured two glasses of wine. “For the cook.” He handed her one. “I’ll stay out of your way.”
Alone, she looked down at the wine, shrugged, took a sip. His father might be able to add more meat to the bone, and that’s what counted. It couldn’t matter, not now, that she’d made excuses about not attending Vinnie’s funeral—and both of them knew they’d been excuses. It couldn’t matter, not now, what his father thought of her.
Later . . . Who knew what could or would matter later?
Right now she had to figure out what to cook.
He gave her nearly an hour before he wandered back through. “Smells great. What is it?”
“I’m not sure. It’s not scampi, it’s not linguine, but has elements of both. We’ll say it’s scampine. My head’s in Italy, I guess. Whatever it is, it’s about ready.”
She served it in wide, shallow bowls, with hunks of the rosemary bread Ash had picked up at Luke’s bakery, and another well-earned glass of wine.
She sampled, nodded. Just enough garlic, she decided, and a good lemony flavor throughout. “Not bad.”
“Better than that. It’s great.”
“Generally I have more successes than failures when I make something up, but my failures are really stupendous.”
“You should write this one down.”
“That eliminates the spontaneity.” She stabbed a shrimp, rolled some noodles. “So, was your father any help?”
“He knows Vasin—in that he met him once, nearly a decade ago. According to my father, Vasin wasn’t particularly social, but not the recluse he’s become in recent years. He never married, never was reported to be particularly attached to any woman, or man for that matter. Even back then he wouldn’t shake hands—though they met at a very high-powered affair that included various heads of state. He brought along an assistant who served him his own specially bottled water throughout the evening. According to my father, Vasin was pompous, fussy, eccentric without the charm, and physically very attractive.”
“Tall, dark and handsome. I did a quick Google, found some photos from the eighties and nineties. Movie-star glam.”
“Which was one of his interests at one time. He financed a few films, and was on the point of financing a remake of Anastasia—the script was being written, casting nets were going out. Then with the DNA, the general consensus that Anastasia died along with the rest of her family, the project fell apart.”
“A big disappointment, I imagine.”
“He got out of the movie business about then, to the best of my father’s recollection. And the event they both attended was one of the last times Vasin accepted an invitation to a major affair. He became more reclusive, gradually began doing all of his business as Kerinov said, by remote.”
“To have that kind of wealth, and not use some of it to see the world, to go places, enjoy them, meet people.” Absently she wound more pasta around her fork. “He must be a serious germaphobe.”
“It doesn’t, according to my father’s gauge, make him any less of a ruthless businessman. He’s been accused of corporate espionage, but his fleet of lawyers tamp that down, or pay it off—my father’s not sure which. Hostile takeovers are a specialty.”
“Sounds like a prince.”
“He certainly thinks so.”
“Ha.” Amused, she stabbed another shrimp.
“He did once allow certain access to his art collection—for articles—but that’s been shut down for a number of years, too.”
“So he shutters himself off from society, hoards art, runs his empire of businesses through technology—all of which he can do as he’s rich.”
“So rich, no one’s exactly sure just how rich. There’s something else that makes me lean, along with Alexi, in Vasin’s direction.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Twice that my father knew of a business competitor met with a tragic accident.”
“That’s a big step up from ruthless,” she commented.
“In addition, a reporter in the mid-nineties was reputedly working on a book on Vasin’s father, who was still living. On assignment covering the Oklahoma City bombing, he went missing. He’s never been heard from again, no body was ever found.”
“You got that from your father?”
“He dug back, thinking about what happened to Oliver. He doesn’t know what I’m after—”
“You haven’t told him yet? About the egg? Ash—”
“No, I haven’t told him. He’s smart enough to realize my interest in Vasin connects to what happened to Oliver. And he’s concerned enough as it is without me giving him all the details.”
“Giving him the details would at least give him answers. And I can’t lecture you on it”—she brushed her own words away—“since all I told my parents was I’m taking a little vacation.”