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been of service, Ms. Woods."
    "I shall be in touch the next time I am considering an acquisition."
    Hattie inclined her head in a birdlike nod of dismissal and walked gingerly toward a black Lincoln that was parked in front of the gallery. A short, square man in an ill-fitting suit and tie straightened quickly from the fender to open the rear door for her. She gave him a vague smile as she got into the back of the big car. Then she glanced at Jonathan and lifted a thin-boned hand laden with a fortune in gold and gems in farewell.
    Silly old fool. The elderly made such easy targets, he thought. Loneliness did ninety percent of his work for him. Medications, chronic illness and the mind-clogging tendrils of dementia did the rest. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel.
    The short, square driver got behind the wheel, started the engine and eased the heavy Lincoln away from the curb. Jonathan smiled with satisfaction.
    When the Lincoln was out of sight, he walked to where his Jaguar was parked, opened the door and got inside. He glanced in the rearview mirror and grinned again as he calculated his cut on the table. All in all, it had been a good day's work.
    The table was counterfeit, of course; an excellent fraud manufactured sometime during the past few months in a small European factory that employed some extraordinarily skilled forgers. The workmanship and the phony provenance had been good enough to fool the gallery staff. At least for a short time.
    His job was to lead the right client to the right piece before its authenticity could be questioned. Timing was everything. The scam was a slick one, but to be on the safe side it was important that none of the fakes fell into the wrong hands. There were experts, although very few according to his sources, who could detect the fine nuances that marked even the most brilliant reproductions.
    He saw to it that the furniture moved quickly once it arrived at the gallery. None of the items could be allowed to stand around long on the showroom floor, where it might attract unwanted attention. For that same reason, none of the pieces was designed to appear so unique or so magnificent as to warrant excessive interest.
    He had definitely moved into the big time with this latest venture. It certainly beat the phony investment schemes he had marketed for so many years. He was moving in much higher, much wealthier social circles, too. The money was rolling in quite nicely. He would have to look into the possibility of opening one of those off-shore accounts that the real pros used.

Five
    Vesta Briggs stood alone in the two-story chamber and absorbed the soothing ambience of the past. If it were not for the heavy steel door with its computerized lock and the total absence of windows, one would never know that the richly paneled walls and the gleaming granite floor of this room covered what was, in fact, an elegant vault.
    The display cases extended from floor to ceiling. The shelves held her collection of precious antique boxes, hundreds of them, perhaps over a thousand now. She had begun collecting them years ago when she had finally accepted that, for her, there would be nothing to live for except Chatelaine's.
    She turned slowly, breathing deeply of the atmosphere of the chamber. There was comfort to be found in the immutable past: a realm that remained frozen and locked in time, a world that could be visited again and again in memory and in dreams. She savored the cold fire of the glittering, polished works of art arrayed before her. Beautiful damascene chests from the sixteenth century; elegant seventeenth-century jewelry cases; gilded toilet sets ABC Amber Text Converter Trial vers ion, http://www.processtext.com/abctxt.html
    that had once decorated the boudoirs of eighteenth-century ladies and courtesans; exquisitely carved writing cabinets from the early eighteen hundreds. Each had been crafted to hold secrets and precious objects. All were fitted with locks.
    She walked slowly across