All A Man Can Ask. Virginia Kantra

brothers stamped with the same harsh Slavic cheekbones and passionate Slavic mouths. One all hot energy, one all cool control. In her mind, she began to draw them.

      “I’ll see what I can do,” Aleksy said.

      “That’s what worries me,” Jarek murmured.

      Aleksy grinned. “Can you run the prints?”

      Jarek looked at Baker. The young woman shook her head. “No prints,” Jarek said. “Sorry, Miss Harper. We’ll keep an eye out, but unless they try again, it’s unlikely we’ll know who broke in.”

      He spoke to her. But Faye thought his words were meant for Aleksy.

      “I understand,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

      Jarek stood, tucking his notebook away. “Anytime. Don’t let this spoil your vacation. You have a nice place here.”

      “It’s my aunt’s,” she said, compelled to qualify. To apologize. To explain, following the pattern she’d been forced into since her disastrous error of judgment three miserable months ago. “I’m only borrowing it for the summer.”

      “I know. To paint, you said.” He gestured to the sheets of paper tacked to the display board and stacked on the table. “This your work?”

      She felt compelled to apologize for that, too. “In progress.”

      Aleksy strolled over from his post by the fireplace. “What are you working on now?”

      “That wet-in-wet of the boat at dawn. It’s not very good yet.”

      “What’s a—” He stopped himself. “Show me.”

      Impatiently she stepped to the table. “I only started it this morn—” She broke off.

      Aleksy’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

      Dumbfounded, she stared at the blank spot in the center of her work space. “It’s gone.”

      Jarek withdrew the notebook from his breast pocket. “Your painting?”

      Aleksy’s sharp gaze swept the table. “What else is missing?”

      “Nothing. That is— The photographs,” she said uncertainly. “I had an entire roll developed yesterday. Right here.”

      The two brothers exchanged glances.

      “Bingo,” said Aleksy.

      “Do you remember the subject of the photographs, Miss Harper?” Jarek asked.

      She ran a hand through her hair. “Not really. I didn’t take any one subject,” she explained. “I like to get different images on film. I do field sketches, of course, but you can get so much more detail with photographs. Rocks, water, interesting vegetation…”

      Aleksy scowled. “But the missing painting—that’s of a boat, right?”

      “Yes.”

      “Do you know whose boat? Where was it?”

      His investigation was spilling and flowing into her life like a watercolor wash gone horribly wrong. Her home had been invaded. Her work had been stolen. And from Aleksy’s rising excitement, she sensed things were about to get even worse.

      “It was tied up across the lake.”

      “At Freer’s dock? Is it his boat?”

      Oh, dear. “I don’t think so. That is, I only saw it there once. When I went back the next morning, it was gone.”

      By the doors, the uniformed officer was quietly packing her bag to go.

      “What type of boat?” Jarek asked.

      She spread her hands in frustration. “A boat boat. Not a sailboat. I don’t know boats. It was sort of beige.”

      “Beige.” Aleksy blew out a short, exasperated breath. “I thought artists were supposed to be observant.”

      “Ask me about the quality of light or the contrasts in tone,” she flashed back. “For everything else, I’ve got snapshots.”

      He grinned, his good humor apparently restored by her own display of artistic temper. “And did you take a snapshot of the boat?”

      She elevated her chin. “I took several.”

      “All of them missing?”

      She pushed at a stack of half-finished paintings; lifted a plastic palette. “Yes. The whole roll is gone.”

      “Could you have misplaced them?”

      She was too used to questioning her own judgment to resent his question. Much. This was her work they were talking about. “No. They were on this table this morning. I’m sure of it.”

      Jarek scratched at his jaw with the end of his pen. “Who knows about your picture-taking habit, Miss Harper?”

      Her uncertainty returned. “I suppose anyone could have seen me out with the camera… And I get the film developed in town.”

      “Weiglund’s Camera?”

      She supposed in a small town the chief of police would know most of the merchants. But it was oddly charming, all the same. “Yes.”

      “Well, if Greta Weiglund knows about you, then everybody in town knows,” Jarek said, with a glint of humor that was hard to resist. “Thanks, Laura. That’ll be it.”

      Officer Baker let herself out the front door.

      “Faye.” Aleksy leaned in on her other side with the steady look and oh-so-sincere smile he’d tried on at their first meeting. She was flanked by Denkos. Surrounded. “It would really help us out if you could describe the boat.”

      She was not amused. She would not be charmed. But she might be helpful, and, if she were lucky, they would go away.

      “I can do better than that,” she said. “I can show it to you.”

      Excitement flared in his eyes. “Where? How?”

      Oh, my. She smoothed her hands down her skirt, trying to hide their trembling. “The photos are only backups for the sketches. I still have my sketchbook.”

      His smile warmed to something real. “Clever girl,” he said softly. “Show me.”

      She flushed and dug in her canvas bag for her pad. She thumbed through the watercolor sketches—color impressions of a cloud-layered sky, a wooded bank, posts in a river with the sun behind them—until she found her study of a moored boat at dawn.

      Both men bent over the table to look.

      “Do you recognize it?” Jarek asked Aleksy.

      Aleksy grunted. “Not from my files. You?”

      “It’s a beige boat with a cabin.”

      “You’re a fat lot of help.”

      Jarek smiled thinly. “You want me to take it further?”

      “Take what further?” Faye demanded and then bit her lip. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to be involved.

      The Denkos ignored her anyway.

      “I’ll take it. For now,” Aleksy said.

      “Don’t step on any more toes,” his brother warned. “I’ve got a good relationship with the feds and I want to keep it that way.”

      “Don’t worry. I’m unofficial.”

      “Be very unofficial,” Jarek said. “Start with Mark.”

      Aleksy looked revolted. “DeLucca?”

      “He knows boats.”

      “Yeah, but—”

      “He’s going