“Right,” Caroline says, raking her ruby-red nails through her short hair. “I didn’t know about any of it. I only dug into the records after Pascal came to me, and it wasn’t easy. My father covers his tracks well. But I believe there are hundreds of them. Hundreds of fakes that are hanging in museums all over the world that have been sold again to the worst humans on the planet. He keeps me in the dark about this part of the business. He may intend to tell me now that he’s put me in charge, or he may plan on keeping the money he’s made off the books for himself and that new wife of his. She’s pregnant, you know.”
Stella shakes her head. “I didn’t.”
“It’s a boy. And when Father has been irritated with me lately he’s already threatened to leave everything to a fetus.”
“Sounds exactly like Louis.”
“That’s why we must bury him,” Caroline says. “It is the only way I can ever succeed as CEO and salvage the company. Because someone else will expose this someday, and once I properly take over I’ll be implicated. I believe he only copies the greats, only the ones he knows can fetch a high price in a private off-market sale. These rich bastards love a Van Gogh, a Monet, a recognizable Rembrandt. They hate anything by a woman, so O’Keeffe would be off the table.” She looks at me with the same sadness I saw in her eyes when we were belowground, thesame pity she had for the paintings that had been locked away. “We still store at least half of them while they grow more and more value for their owners, the sheikhs and the oligarchs. He’s a genius. You have to give him credit.”
“I do,” Stella says. “But I also know you are much smarter than he is.”
I’m starting to believe that this whole thing isn’t about Stella at all, or even about us, but about Caroline, about Stella giving her granddaughter the legacy Stella could never have.
And maybe it’s also about Stella wanting a family during her final days.
Stella pulls a delicate envelope from the pocket of her beaded caftan. She hands it to us.
“Read this. It’s a letter Jo wrote to my grandmother Claire recounting part of their last meeting. Colette and I discovered it, and a few others, hidden behind the lining of theSunflowerscanvas.”
Caroline’s calculating eyes go wide at this hint of new information. No one has told her about theSunflowersyet, but she lets Stella keep on with her apology.
“In the end Jo forgave her. I know that I have made many, many mistakes with you, but I am hoping you can forgive me.”
I unfold the delicate parchment. Lucie and Colette peer over my shoulders. I’m familiar with this handwriting by now. Jo and Claire feel almost like friends. And I had assumed it ended terribly between them. When I finish the page, I understand what Stella wanted me to see.
Lucie and Colette have their eyes fixed on me. I can tell that they want this to work, despite everything, and I can’t blame them. Our entire lives are at stake, and we’ve already come so far. Because I would do anything for these women, I’ll stay and see this through. I fold my arms over my chest. “Let’s see what the experts have to say.”
The moment is interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. They’re early.
Colette moves to answer it. My stomach tightens as two women enter carrying sleek black cases filled with what I assume are their tools. One of them stops short when she sees Caroline.
“Ms. Swanson,” she says, her voice carefully neutral.
“Madame Lindquist.”
“I was not expecting you to be part of this.”
“I imagine a lot of things will surprise you today,” Caroline replies smoothly. “But how about we all just go with the flow.”
The second woman, Eliza Sachs, I assume, sets her case down carefully on the table. “Should we be concerned about your presence here?” she asks bluntly.
“Quite the opposite,” Caroline says. “I’m the one who will be taking this information public.”
I can tell they have a hundred more questions, but a whirling dervish blasts through the unlocked front door and puts a stop to the interrogation.
“Sorry I’m late.” Amy Fox is as scattered and manic as I remember her. When she sees me, she rushes over for a hug, her wiry gray curls escaping a messy bun. I feel as though a long-lost family member has appeared and in some ways that’s exactly what she is. Amy was a junior curator when we first met. I was barely seven years old when she spotted me visiting the galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on a near daily basis. She’s the one who first bought me supplies and eventually let me shadow her as she worked to put together exhibits. And now I know she was responsible for bringing me to Stella. I grip her so tightly she gasps.
“It’s good to see you too.” She laughs when I finally let go.
“Ms. Fox, what a delight to see you here in Amsterdam. I hope your flight was comfortable,” Stella says smoothly.
“It was the first time I’ve flown first class. I don’t know if I can ever go back. They don’t stop giving you free champagne!” Amy is the opposite of the composed Scandinavians who came in before her, but they seem entertained by her antics. “I wantedto take a quick shower and freshen up, but I lay down on the bed in that gorgeous hotel for just a minute and fell asleep for hours.”
“Never mind. You’re here now. Shall we get started,” Stella says. It’s a command, not a question.
Watching art authenticators do their thing is what I imagine it’s like watching a surgeon at work, the laser-like focus, the way the rest of the room seems to disappear. They use the sharpest, most exact scalpels to slice away minuscule bits of paint from the canvases and then drop them into a test tube of liquid to see the chemical reaction. Mare wields a handheld infrared analyzer to get a visual sense of what lies beneath the first layer of pigment.
“The art of deconstructing the art,” Colette whispers in my ear as we watch, rapt.
