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“It was someone named Victor.” Kira cast a concerned glance at Bryce. “Is Mr. Lambert safe? What if they return?”
Bryce’s face paled. He must have come to the same conclusion.
Ivan stared at Bryce. “If I were you, I’d get your father out of town until this blows over. I can’t say if he’s a target, but if these journals prove to have any useful information, the ACS may show up looking for more.”
She wasn’t about to admit this, but the information in the journals could provide these terrorists with everything they needed to search for the missing treasure.
Bonnie stopped by their table to refill Kira’s coffee and put down their check, then moved on. “You didn’t say who has the journals. Theo obviously had money to bid as high as he did. I’m assuming he sold the journals to the Society.”
Ivan steepled his fingers together. “That’s my theory. Theo followed you after you met with him the other day, and he was the one that ran you off the road and stole the journals. I’d been tailing him, not you, that day. I just wish I had figured out what he was up to sooner so I could have warned you.”
Kira wanted to keep Ivan talking, and herself so that she’d stay awake. “Who killed Theo?”
Ivan’s eyes scanned the room, as if to catch an eavesdropper. “The ACS has an assassin. It’s most likely the same man that killed the security guard and Derek.”
One question lingered and Kira decided to go for it. “Who has the rabbit statue?”
“I do.”
The lack of sleep had caught up to Bryce. Had he heard Ivan correctly?
“You stole the rabbit statue?” Bryce blinked, trying to clear his head.
Ivan smiled. “I saw an opportunity. They were going to steal the statue. I got there first.”
“Where are the other two bunny statues?” Kira asked. His partner must have had half a dozen cups of coffee, but not a muscle twitched in her body as she stared Ivan down.
Could they trust this man, even if the FBI had fully vetted him? Ivan could be a double agent, playing both sides to gain access to a treasure worth a fortune. Then again, why admit he had the statue if the latter was the case?
All the unanswered questions were giving him a migraine. He rubbed his temples.
Ivan finally broke the staring contest between the two of them. “I believe the Society has the other two.”
“And why is it so important to have all three?”
Ivan leaned forward in his seat and looked each of them in the eyes. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise to work with me and tell me what you know.”
They both nodded, but Bryce wasn’t giving up that they had pictures of the journal pages. The maps could potentially lead them right to the underground bunker. And the idea that Ivan might be a double agent burrowed deeper into the rational part of his brain, the part that was still awake and functioning.
“We’ll tell you where Theo’s secret lair is.” Bryce didn’t care. The FBI had contained the scene and Ivan would be his boss’s problem. They needed Ivan’s information now.
“That’s fair. Although I’m sure your people are already dismantling the hideout.” Ivan folded his arms. “Fenton Young was eccentric, no doubt. The guy was a big conspiracy theorist and thought everyone was out to get him. When his father passed, he inherited the art bunker and responsibility for keeping the secret. We believe there is a bunker that contains lost art from as far back as the Civil War. Fenton’s father was in the Army during World War II and saw the devastation the Nazis created to the art community. He took an opportunity to redirect one of the twenty-seven crates full of priceless artifacts and had it shipped back home. I guess he switched the labels and no one caught him. All the other crates disappeared or were destroyed. But as the legend states, one escaped—and it contained artifacts from the Amber Room.”
Bryce’s pulse thrummed with a new wave of energy. In his lifetime, he never imagined being part of such a find as a missing crate containing pieces of the infamous Amber Room.
Kira also hung on Ivan’s every word.
“Apparently Fenton started to lose his mind,” Ivan said. “Lots of isolation and paranoia will do that to a man. He refused to trust Derek and had no one to pass along the responsibility for keeping the bunker safe. So he devised a code. While the statues may have been part of the treasure from that crate, the Society thinks the statues are clues to the location of the treasure.”
Based on the note Derek had shown them, this theory might be a reality.
“He probably meant for his son to figure it out, not to sell all his belongings in an estate sale,” Kira said, “but Derek was so bitter toward his father that he packed up all his father’s belongings without realizing what he had. Fenton had left clues, but they were ignored. So . . . the three statues together lead to the treasure room. Wonder how.”
Bryce swallowed the lump in his throat. But for the grace of God, he could have wound up like Derek Young had, bitter and resentful, operating out of a place of anger over forgiveness. How much had he missed by clinging to bitterness and resentment? His own father couldn’t fend for himself, and while he hadn’t known how bad it had gotten, Bryce had avoided dealing with the situation all these years. Despite how badly the man had treated him, Bryce believed in forgiveness, grace, and the power to change that all came from his relationship with Jesus.
He ran a hand through his hair and refocused. “So without all three statues, the secret can’t be unlocked.”
“Correct.”
