The sidewalk from the rear museum exit to the narrow avenue had never seemed so long. But it was far preferable to parading them through the museum and out the main Fifth Avenue doors. This wasn’t the kind of publicity the Met wanted.
Keeping his grip on Fred’s arm tight, Joe surveyed the surroundings as they walked. There were half a dozen vehicles parked in the secluded lot to the right, service vehicles for the museum or the grounds keepers of Central Park. Around the lot, maple trees stretched their bare arms to the sky.
Joe looked again at the lot, sensing that something wasn’t right. Fire danced over his nerves. Then he realized what had struck him as odd. Sunshine bounced off all the windows of the vehicles—except for one.
The first body dropped at the same time Joe heard the shot.
Lauren couldn’t understand what Mr. Clarke was saying to her. She told him to try again. She fumbled to repin her hair. If she couldsteady her hands, if she could only repair what this morning had done...
Then Anita was there. She took the pins from Lauren and fixed her hair.
Peter stood at the doorway of the room, talking to two security guards, or maybe they were policemen, but she didn’t know what they were saying.
“Lauren!” Mr. Clarke gripped her shoulders, and his voice broke through at last. “Your father and Mr. Klein have been shot. An ambulance has been called, but it will be too late. Lawrence is asking to see you.”
The words reached her by degrees, as though coming from a great distance. A sickening awareness rolled over her. She stood from where she’d been sitting near the coffin, realizing that the man who’d forged it and the man who’d arranged it all each had need of one now.
Black spots dotted her vision. Lawrence had already been dying to her in pieces small and large. This new death, the physical one, could not be more painful than when he had abandoned her to a gunman this morning. It would only be more final. “Take me to him.”
Anita offered to run for her coat, but Mr. Clarke said there wasn’t time. Lauren couldn’t feel anything anyway, not even the wind she supposed was cold.
Mr. Clarke held her up and walked with her outside. Maybe Anita went with them, maybe she didn’t. Lauren’s vision narrowed to one thing. Two bodies lay on the sidewalk. One was covered with a blanket over his face, but his blond hair showed. The other was Lawrence, covered up to his neck.
“There’s no hope of saving him,” Mr. Clarke said of her father.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”
And then she was alone, on her knees beside him. The blanket that hid his body didn’t cover the thick, metallic smell of blood.
Eyelids fluttering, he looked at her. “I have ... to tell you,” he struggled to say. Something gurgled in his chest.
Pushing down the bile that threatened, Lauren leaned closer to hear.
“Tony Moretti did this,” he said. “I kept records and proof of everything.” He whispered where to find it. “It’s all there.”
Lauren watched his life fade. Time stretched between his breaths. “What else?” she asked. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?” This was his last chance, and they both knew it. Which words would he choose to give her, knowing she’d carry them forever, as she had carried Mother’s?
Lawrence coughed, and blood dribbled from his mouth. “It’s not ... my fault.” On that rattling exhale, he died.
CHAPTER
36
Night had fallen on Manhattan. Joe sat in the small, cold room in the jail with the attorney prosecuting Connor Boyle for the murder of Wade Martin. With thick blond hair, smooth cheeks, and an unlined face, Mr. Radcliffe couldn’t have passed the bar exam more than a handful of years ago. Most criminal lawyers had reputations as bulldogs, but Radcliffe resembled a golden retriever.
While the attorney reorganized paperwork, Joe silently prayed again for Lauren. In the aftermath of the double homicide, Mr. Clarke had brought her to the station, where both their statements had been taken, and then he’d seen her home with a promise to Joe that he’d take care of her every need. What she needed, Joe thought, was a mother, so he had asked Clarke to bring Lauren his. Mama would wrap her in love until Elsa and Ivy could get to her. She’d stay as long as Lauren wanted. Joe would return to her as soon as he could.
He tapped his pencil on the notebook splayed open on the table. Beside it was the recording Lauren had captured on the microphone she’d worn. Next to that was a box containing all the evidence and notes Lawrence had promised in his final breath. It was exactly where he’d told Lauren it would be in his apartment, hidden inside a reproduction bust of Napoleon. It corroborated what Fred confessed, but it went further than that, too.
Mr. Radcliffe cinched his paisley necktie tighter. “Let me make sure I understand this all correctly.” He’d requested that Joe help lay out all the evidence, but the attorney needed to have a firm grasp on the story, too.
“Lawrence Westlake started the forgery ring to get the cash he needed for the Napoleon Society venture,” he began. “The museum in Newport cost a fortune, to say nothing of the cost of filling it with actual antiquities. That had been his aim, at least at the start.”
“Right,” Joe said. “His goal had been to have a legitimate museum with genuine artifacts. From what I could gather, the forgeries started as a means to an end.”
“And this Fred Klein, the registrar at the Met? How did Lawrence meet him?”
Joe told Mr. Radcliffe that according to the explanation Lawrence had left behind, Fred had been a connection of Dr. DeVries’s, alias Daniel Bradford. The doctor and his wife weren’t at home when Joe sent officers to pick them up. Joe figured they were long gone and wouldn’t be coming back.
