After work that evening, while Elsa and Ivy were out, Lauren brought the box of letters to the living room and searched them until her eyes grew bleary. Dad never mentioned finding a pectoral in the year 1898 or beyond it.
Sighing, she leaned her head back on the sofa. She hadn’t really expected to find a record of it. If that piece had been in his possession all this time, he would have shown it to her. That’s what he did. He missed birthdays and holidays, and never apologized for any of it in all the letters she’d read. In fact, he’d only apologized about all of that to Lauren after she’d been hired at the Met. But he did show Lauren the treasures he’d found. Except this one.
“I need to ask him about it,” she said aloud, trying to convince herself. She had no desire to call him tonight.
A honking horn from outside snapped her circuitous reveries. Sitting up, she looked through the box again. She’d only read letters her dad had written from 1898 on. Maybe she ought to read those written by Mother. The chances that she would be the one to mention a specific find of his seemed small, and Lauren thought she’d already read through all of them, anyway.
She pulled all the letters out of the box to sort through them again and found one that had been lying flat on the bottom. It was from 1898, in her mother’s hand. Lauren skimmed the first couple of paragraphs. Then,
I wanted to wait until your return to tell Lauren about my diagnosis. She deserves to have both parents here to support her. But now you tell me you’re extending your trip indefinitely, and for all your words, I could not decipher the real reason why. Do you realize I have yet to feel my husband’s arms around me since I learned I have cancer?
Lauren knew something was wrong. I had to tell her, Lawrence. As soon as I did, she ran into your office and locked the door. She locked me out, as you have done. I don’t blame her—she’s a child of five and doesn’t understand. Perhaps in your office with its maps and pictures of Egypt, she can be far away from here, and far away from the news she is too small to carry.
I wish you were here to comfort your daughter, even if you won’t come home for me. My only recourse was to go outside and climbthe tree outside your office so I could climb through the window. I pulled on a pair of your trousers under my dress—let it never be said that you’re the only Westlake who loves an adventure—and did my best to climb that tree. I would have succeeded, too, if only I’d been two inches taller to reach the branch I needed. Next, I went to the carriage house for reinforcements but found the ladder had all but rotted. By this time Nancy found me, and I was so exhausted from my failed attempts I hadn’t the strength to fight her off when she brought me back inside. I suppose it was the sight of blood that made her a little hysterical. It was only my hands from the bark. And perhaps my knees. I’m afraid your trousers will never be the same.
Neither will Lauren.
Tears coursed down Lauren’s cheeks. She remembered that day. She remembered running from what her mother had told her and doing her best to hide from it. She remembered Mother knocking on the door and calling her name. Lauren had covered her ears and rocked back and forth under Dad’s desk. All the while, Mother had been trying to reach her, sick as she was.
Why hadn’t Dad come home? Why had he left his wife with such a burden to carry on her own? Anger bubbled and steamed, the pressure building inside Lauren. Swiping the tears from her face, she read on.
You’ll never guess who paid us a call here today. Theodore Clarke was in the area visiting his good friend Dr. James Breasted, who teaches at the University of Chicago. The last time Theo called on me I was a young woman living in Manhattan under my parents’ roof.
You must have told him about my diagnosis—did you?—because he arrived with the most gorgeous flowers. Glorious roses in every shade of pink and yellow, with green hydrangea blooms, bursting with life and beauty and fragrance. He brought five vasesfull, which kept Nancy busy placing them throughout the house. Anyhow, he came when Lauren was romping about outside.
It felt so good to speak with another adult, aside from Nancy. I’d have rather spoken to you, Lawrence, but you weren’t here. He was. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to have someone to talk to, who listened to me. We didn’t get more personal than propriety allowed, I assure you. He didn’t stay overlong—not even long enough to see Lauren, for he had another appointment to keep. But I shall enjoy the flowers as long as they live, and remember that on this day, I felt cared for, or at least noticed. By someone.
The letter fluttered to her lap. That explained how Mr. Clarke had known Mother. Had he previously been a suitor? Aunt Beryl would know. In any case, Lauren was touched to hear of Mr. Clarke’s attentions when she needed the comfort of kindness, but Dad could not have enjoyed her referring to him as Theo. Had he been jealous? If he had said so in a reply, that letter had not survived. But she couldn’t help but wonder if this played into the rivalry between them. Did Dad feel replaced? Threatened? He shouldn’t, but sometimes people felt what they feared.
Cleo jumped on the mantel, threaded between the picture frames, then leapt to the bookcase. Before Lauren could stop her, the cat had found the shabti figures and knocked them to the floor.
“No!” Lauren lunged from the sofa but stopped when the two pieces broke into six. Dad had said they were made of faience. He said he’d excavated them himself years ago and kept them with her in mind all this time.
She’d never questioned whether they were real. Never questioned whether her father himself was a counterfeit.
Sometimes people felt what they feared. And sometimes they saw what they wanted to see.
Lauren scooped up the broken figures. The insides of the pieces were white.
“Plaster,” she whispered. “Painted plaster.” She hurled them back to the floor and watched them shatter.
Through the haze of white dust, she saw in her mind’s eye the photographs Joe had brought of the forged papyruses and scarabs.
In her second article, she had written that plaster would show white if an artifact was scratched, chipped, or broken. Dad omitted it. Now she knew the real reason why. Even if those scarabs Joe had shown her didn’t have the errors in the text, she’d bet they’d been made of painted plaster.
If Dad was fake, so was their so-called restored relationship. The dream she’d cherished, a mirage. A hole ripped open inside her where the love of her father should have been.
Joe was right. Dad was as guilty as Dr. DeVries. The photos she’d seen from Mr. Vandermeer today only added to the evidence. What a fool she’d been to let him back into her life, to place so much attachment on a man who only wanted to use her.
Mechanically, she swept up the mess on the floor. But the mess her father had made was so much bigger than she could manage.
Hands shaking, she stuffed the letters back into the box and retired to her room for the night. She fell into bed, burrowing into the covers, and begged for a deep and dreamless sleep.
“What does Tony Moretti do on a Friday night?” Oscar McCormick looked even younger in the plain clothes he wore for the stakeout. Headlamp beams from oncoming traffic flashed over his smooth-cheeked face.
Joe swiped a hand over the stubble that said he hadn’t shaved since four o’clock this morning. Then he turned the wheel, steering the unmarked police car onto 6th Street, heading southwest. “We’re about to find out.”
They’d waited outside Tony Moretti’s known place of business—an office building in Midtown—long enough for their worst enemy to be boredom. You lose focus, you look away, you miss the thingyou’re waiting for. Then they’d spied Moretti getting into a black Rolls-Royce. Now they were on the move.
