Add in the (assumed)Madonnatheft, and Valentina’s reach seemed bottomless.
Her phone rang. She grabbed it. Her heart dropped—Montgomery, not Lucia.
She straightened. What if they found out about theMadonna?
“Dr.Montgomery, how are you?”
“Fine. I’m so sorry to call you on the weekend, but I’m beyond confused.”
“Oh, no. What’s going on?”
“Ms.Lewis is…displeased about theMadonnasituation at the ball.”
Penelope tensed. “I thought you showed it to her?”
“Yes, of course, but it’s not the same, seeing it lying there in a case in the Conservation Lab, is it now?”
“I guess not.”
“Anyway, she’s one of our biggest donors, and apparently she wanted to show it to her fiancé. Some romantic story about Italy—I only caught half—but now she’s making a big deal out of it.”
“OK, but what were we supposed to do, given the humidity spike?”
“That’s the thing. I promised her a private showing once the humidity issue was resolved. And when I checked the logs to give her a time frame, the issue had already been fixed. Here’s the weirdest part…”
Montgomery’s voice dropped. “I reviewed the HVAC logs. There was no maintenance, nothing. The humidity spiked for six hours, just enough to pull theMadonna—thencorrected itself. No adjustments. No requests. It fixed itself. Like magic.”
“Thatisodd.”
“Lewis also mentioned other promised private night viewings. Like this was a series.”
“What series?”
“Exactly! I’ve checked every record. No such session ever existed. Yet she swears someone at the Meridian promised them.”
“Who could even make such promises?”
“That’s the question,” Montgomery said.
“I hadn’t worked with director Allen for long, but she was by the book. If these viewings were discussed, there should be a record.”
“I agree. That’s why it’s so mystifying.”
Unless you know what actually happened.
After the call, Penelope revisited her notes on theMadonna.The discrepancy she’d flagged months ago had haunted her ever since. She’d told herself to wait. To see where it would lead.
It had led here.
A criminal conspiracy. With her in the middle.
She tried not to think how deep into this she’d gone.
Fraud, theft, cover-ups.
All in the name of justice, retribution? Did that make it better?
If she lingered on that, she’d cease to function. And then all of it—her father, everything she’d done—would be for nothing.
