Page 108 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

On that point, Gabriel and Quinn’s fa­ther were in agree­ment.

“It’s my job to track down crim­i­nals,” Quinn re­sponded, her tone an­gry. “Some­times it’s go­ing to piss them off. I can han­dle my­self.”

“Not against some­one like Dupont,” Bren­dan said.

“Dupont is a dan­ger­ous man,” Mikel agreed. “That is why Quinn car­ries a gun, as well as hav­ing her own se­cu­rity de­tail.”

“Just tell him what you know,” Quinn said to her fa­ther.

Mikel leaned back in the chair, but a vi­bra­tion of in­tense fo­cus hummed in the air around him.

Quinn’s fa­ther set his glass on the cof­fee ta­ble be­fore turn­ing to Mikel. “You will use this in­for­ma­tion only to pro­tect my daugh­ter.” His voice sliced with a steel edge, and Bren­dan Pier­son’s ve­neer of charm peeled away to show that he might be as dan­ger­ous as Mikel or Dupont.

So that’s where Quinn’s tough­ness came from.

“Your daugh­ter will be pro­tected. Do not doubt that,” Mikel said. “How­ever, I will use—or not use—any­thing you tell me in what­ever way I see fit. I will not com­pro­mise the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

For a long mo­ment, the two men stared at each other. Bren­dan’s gaze blazed with anger. Mikel’s was ice-cold with con­trol.

“Gléas,” Bren­dan mut­tered. Gabriel as­sumed that was an Irish in­sult, judg­ing by Quinn’s re­ac­tion. “Dupont has a stolen Ver­meer, the one taken in that rob­bery in Texas three years ago where the home­owner and his mis­tress ended up dead.”

Mikel nod­ded. “No one could un­der­stand why any­one would steal that paint­ing. They could never sell it ex­cept to a pri­vate col­lec­tor who didn’t care about the vi­o­lence of its prove­nance.”

“Yeah, Dupont wanted the paint­ing for him­self. I’m told he con­sid­ers him­self a man of cul­ture be­cause he col­lects rare art­works. He ran the job him­self,” Bren­dan said. “The owner was sup­posed to be with his wife on va­ca­tion in Bali, but he ev­i­dently wanted to spend time with his mis­tress, so he stayed home.” Bren­dan’s mouth twisted in a gri­mace. “That cost him a lot more than a di­vorce would have.”

Quinn gaped at her fa­ther. “How do you know all this?”

“Whiskey and high stakes at the poker ta­ble loosen tongues,” Bren­dan said. “Es­pe­cially if a dis­grun­tled for­mer em­ployee of Mr. Dupont is one of the card­play­ers.”

Shame and dis­gust twisted the cor­ners of Quinn’s lips, and she looked at the tile floor with em­bar­rass­ment in ev­ery line of her body. Gabriel wanted to tell her that noth­ing her fa­ther did re­flected on her, even as his sus­pi­cions about her fa­ther’s ca­reer deep­ened.

Mikel, on the other hand, vi­brated with elec­tric ex­cite­ment. “Do you have some proof of Dupont’s in­volve­ment?”

“I have a wit­ness,” Bren­dan said. “The lo­cal break­ing-and-en­ter­ing ex­pert who got Dupont past the alarm sys­tem and into what he ex­pected to be an empty house. He’s will­ing to co­op­er­ate in re­turn for an im­mu­nity deal. He didn’t bar­gain for be­ing an ac­ces­sory to a dou­ble mur­der.” Bren­dan took a breath. “I also know where Dupont keeps the Ver­meer. That’s a nice stack of ev­i­dence right there.”

Gabriel saw what Bren­dan was af­ter. “You want Mikel to use his law en­force­ment con­tacts to put Dupont in prison for mur­der and theft.”

“You’re a bright lad,” Bren­dan said be­fore he turned to Mikel. “I’ve got no cred­i­bil­ity with the au­thor­i­ties, but you will know how to make sure Dupont is put away for a long time.”

“Just be­cause he’s in prison doesn’t mean—” Quinn stopped and threw a side­ways glance at Gabriel.

“Doesn’t mean he won’t send some­one af­ter you,” Gabriel fin­ished for her. Mierda! If Quinn ad­mit­ted to the prob­lem, it was worse than he thought. Fear walked down his spine.

“Maybe too bright a lad,” Bren­dan said. “But prison would slow Dupont down quite a bit.”

Mikel was giv­ing Quinn’s fa­ther a long, flat look. “I will want the wit­ness’s in­for­ma­tion and the lo­ca­tion of the paint­ing.”

Bren­dan pulled a folded square of pa­per out of his shirt pocket and stretched to hand it to Mikel. The se­cu­rity chief un­folded it, read what­ever was writ­ten there, and re­folded it, hold­ing the pa­per be­tween his in­dex and mid­dle fin­ger.

“Where is the paint­ing?” Quinn asked.

“The fewer peo­ple who know the bet­ter,” Mikel said.

Gabriel caught Bren­dan’s nod of agree­ment.

“I will think about how best to use this in­for­ma­tion,” Mikel said, but he looked back at Quinn’s fa­ther with that same flat ex­pres­sion.

Quinn gave a small hiss of frus­tra­tion. Gabriel felt for her dilemma. She was deal­ing with the fa­ther she had pro­found is­sues with and her boss whom she nearly idol­ized. Right now, the two men were in agree­ment about keep­ing the in­for­ma­tion from her, so she was forced to ac­cept their de­ci­sion.

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