“Do you want something, or why did you go to the ordeal to personally track me down via my ankle monitor?” I ask.
“We found this at the coordinates,” she says, handing me her phone with a photo of the coin I stole from Hedda, placed there by Rossi for me.
I look at it.
“Looks like a 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle coin,” I say.
“It is,” Shaw says. “And we know for a fact that Hedda stole it.”
“Huh,” I say. “The Met heist didn’t quite fit her.”
“I think so, too, which is why I came to the conclusion that she might try to lie low to stay in business.”
“Sounds plausible. I mean, it’s known to the underworld by now that it was her with the Mona Lisa; she’s too hot right now. No one wants the publicity around it?—”
My mind wanders off as I said it. There was this russian oligarch who wanted to hire me to steal the Mona Lisa. Hedda might have him as a buyer. But it has been such a long time ago…I mean, I turned thirty-six this year. I was twenty back then. But it’s worth a gaze.
“Are you listening?” Shaw asks me, and I realize I completely zoned out.
“Yes,” I say, and add, “Maybe you can repeat the last sentence.”
She sighs and talks extra slowly.
“I was saying that I’d really like your insight on the Fullerton heist.”
“Benjamin Fullerton, the private collector?” I say. “I thought that case was closed.”
I congratulate myself on my own cunningness, because Shaw already starts trusting me.
“His ex-wife claims she was framed, and we’re reopening the investigation to have it airtight.”
“Sure,” I say. “Not that I’d have a choice.”
We sit there another moment as darkness falls over the city.
“You should get a life,” I tell her as I get up after a while.
“I have a life,” she shoots at me.
“You’re married to a job that underpays you, and drown your loneliness in overworking and gym time. You call that a life?”
“At least I have a regard for rules and morals,” she says.
I laugh derisively. “And where do your rules and morals get you? Nowhere. They isolate you in the hope that you can tell yourself you have done everything right,” I say. She stares at me with wide eyes.
“I let you in on a little secret,” I say silently as I lean down on her. Her hair smells like rose petals, a scent I enjoy very much. “Life is not about doing everything right. It’s about failing so much so fast that you know exactly who you are and what you can do. That’s where life begins. But if you keep isolating yourself, you will never know what life has to offer for you.”
“I’m quite alright where I am,” she says defiantly.
“Are you?” I ask her. “Because all those self-help books won’t get you anywhere if you don’t act on them.”
Her eyes flash at me with anger as she explodes.
“Have you been in my apartment?” she shouts.
I am amazed by how long it took her to figure it out.
“No,” I lie.
