Isaac continues. “Think of your daughter. She’s in school with Madame Jansen, yes? Madame Jansen and Jo are quite good friends. Jo will never forgive you for compromising Vincent’s work and colluding with Swanson. She will have your sweet daughter thrown out of that school if she knows what you did.”
He may be right, though Jo isn’t typically vengeful, simply good at maintaining her distance when she has fallen out with someone. Then again, no one has ever betrayed her as badly as I have.
“I won’t do it. You have to let her be. Please, for her own good.” I don’t move a muscle and I don’t avert my gaze from his.
“You’ll regret this,” he sneers as he makes his way through the galleries and out of my sight.
I wait and wait for Jo to approach me, giving her the space I know she needs, but she is constantly surrounded by people. This is her night. I cannot ruin it for her. If she wanted to speak to me, she would have come to me. I made my presence known to her by lingering on the outskirts of her conversations many times.
When a bell rings signaling the end of the evening, I make my way to the exit. As I’m walking out the door I see Jo and Isaac huddled in a corner. I can’t tell if she is hoping to escape from him or with him. Our eyes meet and then I look away, just as Isaac Israels leans into Jo’s ear, perhaps whispering my worst betrayal.
33
Emma
I expect tobe paralyzed with terror when Lucie and I knock on the service door to the Musée d’Orsay an hour before the stroke of midnight.
Yet, I’ve never felt more calm.
I’ve weathered so much fear and uncertainty over the years. First with my mother and then when I lost the scholarship. For most of my life I’ve been constantly on edge and ready to flee or to fight. Now danger feels like an invitation to thrive.
“Bonsoir,” the night security guard says as he opens the door.
“Bonsoir, sir,” Lucie responds in the most authoritative voice I’ve ever heard her use. She flashes her badge while slowly and carefully explaining that she is with the gendarmerie unit that investigates bomb threats. She then rolls her eyes to make all of this seem silly and routine.
“This is the tenth check I’ve done tonight. Some kids making prank calls, I think. We’ve been to Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame,Sacré-Coeur. I told my boss we can stop responding, but you know how bosses are,” she says, trying to establish some camaraderie with the workingman.
“What do you need?” he asks, opening the door wide to allow us in. Behind him the lights in the museum are dim. I love how all museum security guards in Paris wear black baseball caps with the wordSÉCURITÉon it in all caps. Just in case the black uniform and badge didn’t tip you off.
“We need to do a walk-through. Won’t take more than twenty minutes or so.”
I pull up on Clovis’s collar as he leans forward to smell the guard’s crotch. The man recoils as though he’s afraid his balls contain contraband. Given the dank smell of marijuana wafting off him, they might.
Lucie pats the formidable dog on the head. “He can sniff just about anything out. We’ll also be using this handheld detector.” She holds up a machine inexplicably called the Explonix that looks like a ray gun fromStar Warsand cost us a fortune. “We can run all our tests right here if we find anything. We have an entire mobile laboratory.” She motions to the cases we’re rolling next to us that contain my copies of the paintings.
His eyes are glassy but he looks vaguely impressed.
“We will need you to turn off the electrical system,” Lucie continues. “They interfere with the internal calibration system of the picogram levels. And try not to get in our way. Saber here gets real protective when he’s working.” I let the dog get close again and the guard flinches. We decided at the last minute that the dog is the only thief who gets a nickname. Saber is much more formidable than Clovis.
“I’ll have to check in with the boss.”
“Of course,” Lucie says. “But we need to get started while you do. As you can imagine, time is of the essence.” Behind us someone releases a firecracker. The night is filled with joyous sounds. Everyone is spilling out of the cafés now for the fireworks showthat will explode above the Eiffel Tower at the turn of the New Year. The dog and guard are both startled by the crack, but Lucie and I don’t move. We’re unflappable. “We have to get started. We’ve got to get to the Arc by midnight. This won’t take long.” I purposely haven’t said anything. I can’t risk a bad accent. Lucie is making prolonged eye contact and he’s sweating. She’s a head taller than him, which doesn’t hurt.
“Go, go,” he says, ushering us in.
“Who else is here?” Lucie asks him as I try to keep Clovis on as short a leash as possible.
“Ten of us during the shift change.”
“Let’s start in the main security control room,” Lucie says. “Call everyone to meet us. I want them all down here. We don’t take any chances. My colleague and Saber will start sweeping the galleries.” Lucie hands me the ridiculous electronic device she’s been hauling around.
Clovis and I stride quickly onto the main floor. I let him sniff into corners and along the edges of the marble pedestals of the statues.
I’m halfway up the stairs when the lights flicker once and then everything goes black. Lucie must have been able to cut the electricals. I have a flashlight clipped to the massive utility belt on my waist. It’s in a holster next to a stun gun, the only weapon I’m carrying. French police are not usually armed, and we aren’t planning on using it. I know this museum as well as I would know my own home. Even in the dark, I know how to reach the Van Gogh salon once I make it to the fifth floor. Lucie has told him we will start at the top of the building and work our way down, but they also no longer have a way to track us with the electricity shut down. She will have also explained that the threat was highly specific to the fifth floor so we can make a quick exit after we’ve loaded up the paintings. I hear heavy breathing on the stairs behind me and feel a shiver of fear for the first time since we’ve walked in.
“It’s just me,” Lucie whispers. “Keep going.”
“Did they call the curator?”
