“But don’t you have enough of Mr. Clarke’s money already?” Lauren dared to ask. “He already wired the funds for this coffin you forged. Even if you split that sum three ways, or four or five, you’d still have—”
“A lot of money?” Fred laughed darkly. “One would think so. But I haven’t been paid what I’ve been promised in months. I certainly haven’t gotten a fair cut for the work I’ve done.”
Joe had checked Lawrence Westlake’s bank accounts recently, as well as the account connected to the Napoleon Society. Neither had taken in the large sums he would have expected for a forgery ring.
“Where has the money gone?” Joe asked.
———
Lauren struggled to breathe, even though Fred’s grip had loosened some. His frenetic moving behind her dislodged some pins from her hair, which tumbled to her shoulder. While the barrel of one gun bruised her temple, two other revolvers pointed at her. Well, pointed at Fred, but there was no separation between them. Joe kept him talking, and she prayed the microphone she wore caught every word.
Lawrence hadn’t said a thing. Not a single word in his own defense. Nor did he warn or plead with Fred to leave his daughter alone. While Joe and Fred talked, Lawrence was slipping away. Mr. Clarke remained, though she wished he would flee to safety, and call more police. But he stood frozen, unwilling or unable to leave. Oscar kept his gun pointed at Fred so intently she detected a tremor in his arm.
No one saw Lawrence but Lauren.
He was behind Joe now. He looked right at Lauren, and the look in his eyes was not that of a father gazing on a daughter in danger. It was one of cold calculation. He wanted to know if Lauren would keep quiet. That was all.
He was running again. He was running away from her. He would leave not knowing whether the next moments would hold life or death for the only child he had left. He would disappear from Manhattan, from her life, for good. If it weren’t for all the people he’d hurt, the crimes he’d committed, she would let him. How could she ever again be in the presence of a man like this? All her life, he’d presented himself as one kind of man, like a painted and gilded funerary mask. That mask had cracked open to reveal the rotten soul within.
Tears traced her cheeks and wet her lips. They tasted of a sorrow, fury, and grief deeper and darker than she’d ever known. She didn’t want to care. But her heart was still beating, and so she did.
Lawrence turned.
“He’s running!” Lauren cried, and Oscar gave chase while Fred swore at Lawrence for abandoning him.
Joe stayed. “Fred, if you fire your weapon, I will shoot to kill. If you let her go and submit to arrest, I won’t shoot you. It’s that simple.”
But maybe that was what Fred wanted, Lauren realized. Not to run but to escape. He might shoot himself, or he might shoot her, counting on Joe to end his life for him.
Fred’s hand shook. He grew more unpredictable by the minute. “Your father told me it would all be fine! I was the one taking the risks. Lawrence told me the names of Clarke’s team in the field, and I forged telegrams and letters about Hatsudora, making it look like they had come from his people in Egypt. I crafted the coffin, took the photographs, sent them to Clarke as if I was someone he trusted. The only thing I couldn’t fake was a mummy, but Lawrence said that would not be a problem, as long as I faked one last letter.”
His words blurred in Lauren’s mind as he rattled on about thegrand scheme to deceive Mr. Clarke. Even the fragments that filtered through didn’t make sense to her—something about Lawrence, while in Newport, paying someone to pose as a telegram carrier to intercept the messages Clarke thought he sent to Egypt.
“And now Lawrence has left me here to face this alone!” Mr. Klein yelled into her ear.
She fought the rising panic and wondered vaguely if the microphone was picking up her racing heartbeat.
The microphone. If Fred saw no way out of this room, he had no reason to keep secrets anymore.
“He left us both,” Lauren told him. “What did he do to you? Where did the money go?”
“We were blackmailed. Someone found out about what we were doing and threatened to tell the police if we didn’t cut him in on the profits.”
“Who?”
“Ray Moretti.”
Lauren closed her eyes. How many times had Joe tried to warn her that something was off with Ray? She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She saw what she wanted to see and turned a blind eye to what she didn’t.
“And the percentage he demanded kept growing. We sold him that papyrus for as much as a year of my salary. That coffin over there? Took me months to complete, but I thought it would be worth it. It’s five times the value of the papyrus. We could have all been rich, but no.”
“We?” Joe prodded.
“Daniel DeVries, Lawrence, and myself. The other two board members of the Napoleon Society had no idea what we were doing. They wouldn’t have liked it. A house divided, no? Ray and his brother, though, those two stuck together.”
Lauren’s eyes popped open. “What do you mean?”
“Ray got nervous about you and the detective hunting for forgeries. But Lawrence couldn’t be the one to tell you to quit, could he?So Tony tried to scare you into stopping. Photos, a note, a smashed statue—sound familiar? That was me who let him into your office, by the way. Otherwise he would have broken down the door, and I figured I’d spare you the headache.”
