Joe looked at him. “Not extra. Necessary.”
Lauren’s eyes rounded. As Dad explained the choice of amulets to Sal and Greta, Joe and the doctor continued to stare at each other. It was like some sort of primal challenge. She couldn’t understand why.
A false smile jerked up Dr. DeVries’s lips. “If you say so. As you see, we’re both here, cooperating as you’ve insisted.”
Joe’s smile was natural, perhaps deceptively so. “I’d expect nothing less of board members who have their members’ best interests at heart.”
The words exchanged between the men were civil. Even the tone was quiet and controlled. But the energy arcing between them was nothing short of electric. If she stood too close, she’d be singed.
“Of course we do.” Dr. DeVries turned his back to Joe, paying attention instead to the transaction taking place.
“May I see the provenances, please?” Joe asked.
Lauren passed the papers to him, and he studied both, apparently reading every word.
“I assure you, everything is in order,” Dr. DeVries said.
Joe handed the documents back to Lauren. “Indubitably.” He smiled.
A muscle twitched beneath the doctor’s left eye.
“Do you have any questions for any of us about these two items?” Lauren asked Sal and Greta, redirecting the attention to the senior Caravellos.
“Your father has been doing an excellent job of answering them,” Greta said. “Sal? Do you have any questions?”
Lauren feared he’d ask how the Napoleon Society had sold a fake to begin with. He had every right to inquire. Instead, he simply laida hand on his wife’s shoulder and reminded her this was a gift for her. The decision was hers alone.
All tension diffused. In the breath of relief that followed, Lauren could hear pages turn at nearby tables, the muted footsteps of readers coming and going, the murmur of a librarian offering guidance at the carved wooden service desk.
The click and whir of a camera.
Lauren scanned the room until she found where the sound had come from. A man pointed a camera at her and took another photograph. Her scare from a few days ago at Grand Central rushed back to her.
“Joe.” Pulse trotting, she touched his sleeve and whispered. “That man over there is taking pictures of me.”
“No, he isn’t,” he told her.
She frowned at him. “You didn’t even look. He’s twenty feet behind me.”
Joe barely glanced at the man. “I see him. You’re safe, I promise.”
“But how can you be so sure? I’m telling you—”
“Trust me.” He squeezed her hands. “Please.”
For the sake of his parents, she bit her tongue before she told him how it felt for him to dismiss her concerns without even hearing what she had to say.
Making a show of looking at his watch, Dr. DeVries begged leave to go prepare for his next patient.
“On a Saturday, Daniel?” Dad asked.
“Health emergencies are no respecter of time, I’m afraid.”
Sal announced they’d made their selection and said he and Greta would gladly walk out with him. Lawrence bade them farewell and stayed behind to pack up the other artifact.
The man with the camera left, too. Somehow that didn’t make Lauren feel much better. She drew Joe a few tables over from Dad. “This has happened before. When I was at the Napoleon House with my father in Newport, he told me to come away from the window, but he didn’t tell me why. But he was scared of something,or someone. Then on the train on the way home, I thought someone might have taken a picture of me, but I quickly dismissed the idea.”
Finally, Joe was paying attention. “Go on.”
