She pulled up the provenance record again, then filtered back through pages of her father’s notes, some of the more cryptic, almost coded entries, which led her back to older pieces—donations to The Met, loans by The Met to other galleries—until all air fled her body.
Her stomach turned. A single drop of sweat rolled down her spine.
She’d had this hunch before going over her father’s notes. Something had always seemed off, like a fault line she’d kept circling, and now she feared it had finally given way.
She pulled out her phone and dialed her mother.
“Hey, sweetheart. Good to hear from you. How are you?”
“Hi, Mom. I’m OK. Listen, thanks again for sending me Dad’s notes, but—”
“Oh, don’t tell him.”
Penelope’s hand curled into a fist. She’d been about to ask just that. “He still didn’t want you to send them to me?”
“Of course not! You know how protective he is, but I know you. You’re just as stubborn, and I thought maybe, if you saw it all, you could finally move on and let it go. There’s nothing there, sweetheart.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” For a split second, Penelope considered asking—did you know? But what if she didn’t? She hated the idea of putting her mother in such a position. Besides, she could be wrong. Then all would have been for nothing.
“Did it help?”
“It did, yes.” Not in the way she’d hoped.
“Good, I’m glad. When will you come back for a visit?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t know. I’ll try next month?”
Her mother sighed. “How about doing it, instead of justtrying. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Mom,” her voice caught.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes. Sorry. I’ve got to go. My boss is calling. Talk soon, bye.”
“Bye, sweetheart.”
Penelope hung up and bowed her head, inhaling deeply before forcing the air back out.
Her father hadn’t just turned a blind eye. She’d recognized the signatures. The deeper she looked, the more deliberate it allfelt—like he’d carved out clean paths for people like Whitfield to walk without ever leaving footprints of his own, until he did.
No wonder he didn’t want Penelope to have his notes.
She had no idea what to do with this information. Didn’t she need further proof? Hard evidence? She supposed she could call him, but she doubted he’d tell her.
“The truth is more important than our feelings, Penelope. Always follow the truth.” His words, uttered almost three decades ago, rang in her head. Words she’d believed in and lived by. Words that, if followed through now, would destroy everything.
What about Valentina? Why had her father been the only one to fall? Surely, others were involved. Perhaps he’d been blackmailed, or Valentina had threatened him. Penelope wouldn’t put it past her. But it still changed nothing—nothing about where she stood now.
Yet, it changed everything.
For two years, she’d been consumed with grief and rage—getting into bed with Valentina, all in the name of justice. Or revenge.
Oh, she hadn’t been naïve. She’d known she could never topple Valentina or her empire. But she’d wanted to hurt her.
She’d wanted access—to transactions, patterns, pressure points. She’d mapped the cracks in Valentina’s empire like a slow fuse, even if she knew she’d never light it. If she could trace enough transfers, gather enough forged shipments, maybe she could leak it—tip off the authorities, sabotage a key deal, bleed Valentina’s empire one slice at a time.
A death by a thousand paper cuts.
