Chapter 3 - What Her Father Owed
The Saint in Blue was not famous.
That became important later.
Famous paintings attracted attention. Security. Reporters. Provenance specialists. Insurance companies.
The Saint in Blue attracted almost nobody.
It was a seventeenth-century portrait of an unidentified young woman wearing a blue gown and holding a closed prayer book.
The museum that owned it considered it a minor work.
Elena considered that unfair.
She had spent two months removing discolored varnish from the woman’s face and restoring tiny sections where the paint layer had begun separating from the canvas.
Now she was discovering that her father might have used it as a hiding place.
“You’re telling me Marcus put something inside a museum painting?” Luca asked.
“I’m telling you the crate in your photograph looks exactly like the one delivered to my studio.”
“Can anything be hidden inside it?”
“It’s a canvas stretched over wood. Technically, yes.”
“What?”
“Paper. Photographs. A thin object.”
Nadine leaned toward her.
“Documents?”
“Possibly.”
Luca picked up his phone.
“We’re going to your studio.”
Elena stood.
“No.”
Luca looked at her.
“No?”
“You are not bringing six men into a conservation laboratory.”
“Elena—”
“There are solvents, fragile surfaces, humidity controls, and approximately twelve million dollars of art in that building.”
Owen murmured, “She’s worried about us damaging the paintings.”
Elena pointed at him.
“I like you more than your boss. Don’t ruin it.”
Owen nodded solemnly.
Luca looked almost offended.
“You barely know him.”
“He apologized without looking physically ill.”
Owen turned away to hide a smile.
Luca stepped closer to Elena.
“You are not going alone.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“Good.”
“I’m bringing Nadine.”
Nadine raised an eyebrow.
Luca said, “No.”
Elena folded her arms.
“Then nobody goes.”
For several seconds they stared at one another.
Nadine finally sighed.
“I’ll bring both of you.”
The studio occupied the second floor of a converted textile warehouse twelve blocks away.
By eleven thirty, Elena was unlocking the conservation room with Luca beside her and Nadine behind them.
Owen waited outside.
Luca had reluctantly agreed to leave everyone else downstairs.
Elena switched on the overhead examination lights.
“There.”
The Saint in Blue rested on an easel.
Luca stared at it.
For the first time, Elena saw something almost recognizable in him.
Memory.
“You’ve seen it before,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“My mother’s study.”
Elena turned.
“This belonged to your family?”
“Twenty years ago.”
“Why did a museum tell me it came through a private estate donation?”
“Because it did.”
“Whose?”
“My mother’s.”
Luca approached the painting.
“She donated most of her collection before she died.”
Elena looked at the woman in blue.
“Why this one?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew about the painting?”
“Not until Marcus called three weeks ago.”
“What did he say?”
Luca hesitated.
Elena gave him a warning look.
“He said, ‘The blue woman is back.’”
Her skin prickled.
“That’s all?”
“He also said someone had started asking questions about old Harbor Arts Trust accounts.”
Nadine opened her folder.
“The Harbor Arts Trust was created twenty-four years ago. Luca’s mother funded it. The trust restored historic buildings and provided grants to small museums.”
Elena knew the name.
Everyone in conservation did.
The trust had collapsed in scandal before she attended college.
“Money disappeared,” she said.
“Four point three million dollars,” Nadine replied.
“And Marcus was blamed?”
Luca nodded.
“Not publicly.”
“Why?”
“My mother refused to prosecute.”
Elena looked between them.
“Then why did my father owe money?”
“Because someone created a private restitution agreement,” Nadine said. “Marcus agreed to repay what he supposedly stole.”
“Supposedly?”
“The original audit was never found.”
Elena remembered the contracts upstairs.
Different amounts.
Different clauses.
“You think Dad was framed.”
“We think someone manipulated the records,” Luca said.
“For seventeen years?”
“Yes.”
“And he kept paying?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Nadine answered carefully.
“More than six hundred thousand dollars.”
Elena felt sick.
Her father had lived modestly her entire life.
Used cars.
Small house.
Discount groceries.
He had told Elena there wasn’t enough money for expensive vacations.
She had assumed that was simply their life.
Six hundred thousand dollars.
“Where did he get it?”
“Salary. Retirement savings. Selling property.”
“My grandmother’s house.”
Luca said nothing.
Elena remembered crying when Marcus sold it.
He had told her maintaining the property was becoming too expensive.
Another lie.
She turned away from them.
“He let me think he was bad with money.”
“Elena.”
“Don’t.”
Luca stopped.
She stared at the painting.
“My father worked two jobs when I was in college.”
“He didn’t want you involved.”
“That doesn’t make it noble.”
“No.”
The immediate agreement surprised her.
Luca stood beside her, hands in his pockets.
“People make terrible decisions when they confuse secrecy with protection.”
Something in his voice made Elena look at him.
“You speaking from experience?”
His expression closed.
“Yes.”
Before she could ask more, Nadine’s phone rang.
She stepped away.
Elena moved closer to the painting.
Under normal circumstances, she would never touch an artwork without gloves and preparation.
She didn’t now.
She simply examined it.
“What are you looking for?” Luca asked.
“Something wrong.”
“With a three-hundred-year-old painting?”
“With anything.”
She leaned to the left.
Then right.
“Restoration is mostly learning what belongs.”
“And what doesn’t.”
“Exactly.”
A faint disturbance ran along the canvas edge.
Not damage.
Something subtler.
Elena went to the cabinet and put on nitrile gloves.
She removed a magnifier.
Luca watched.
“You just became frighteningly serious.”
“Quiet.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She glanced at him.
“Was that sarcasm?”
“Possibly.”
Elena examined the back.
Old wooden stretcher.
Museum labels.
Conservation notes.
Inventory numbers.
Then she saw it.
A strip of linen had been attached over one section of the stretcher bar.
The adhesive looked old.
But not as old as everything around it.
“Someone relined part of this.”
“When?”
“Maybe twenty years ago.”
Luca moved closer.
“My mother?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena inspected a small stamp.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“This mark.”
There was a conservation studio symbol pressed into the linen.
A circle surrounding the initials BR.
Elena knew that mark.
Her first restoration mentor had taught her to recognize it.
“Bell & Rowe Conservation.”
“Meaning?”
“They closed in 2003.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“When my mother donated the painting.”
“Yes.”
Nadine returned.
“Luca.”
Something in her tone changed the room.
“What?”
“We found Marcus.”
Elena turned.
“Where?”
“Security footage.”
“Is he okay?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where is he?”
Nadine hesitated.
Luca took the phone.
On the screen was grainy surveillance video from Union Station.
Marcus Renner stood near a ticket machine.
A backpack hung over one shoulder.
He looked nervous.
Then Elena watched her father remove his phone from his pocket.
He placed it inside a trash can.
He took off his jacket.
Put on a baseball cap.
Then walked away in the opposite direction from the train platforms.
Elena stared.
“He left his phone.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted people to think he took a train.”
“Yes.”
“He disappeared deliberately.”
Luca handed the phone back.
Elena felt anger push through fear.
“My father is hiding.”
“Probably.”
“From you?”
“Possibly.”
“From whoever sent those messages?”
“Definitely.”
She looked at the Saint.
“He brought this painting to my studio and disappeared.”
Luca nodded.
“He knew I’d examine it.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted me to find something.”
“Or wanted us to believe that.”
Elena stared at him.
“You still don’t trust my father.”
“I trust evidence.”
“You’ve known him seventeen years.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
Luca walked toward the window.
“It means Marcus was working beside my family during the Harbor Arts scandal.”
“So were other people.”
“Yes.”
“Like who?”
Luca didn’t answer.
Elena felt the pattern again.
Silence.
Control.
Half-truths.
She removed her gloves.
“Give me a name.”
“Elena.”
“One.”
Nadine said quietly, “Felix Dane.”
Luca looked at her.
Nadine did not apologize.
“Who is Felix?” Elena asked.
Luca turned back.
“My chief financial officer.”
“You think your own CFO framed my father?”
“I think Marcus accused him three weeks ago.”
“And you don’t believe Marcus?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena laughed.
“Unbelievable.”
“You think trusting someone because you love them is evidence?”
“He’s my father.”
“Exactly.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means your judgment is involved.”
“So is yours.”
That landed.
Luca said nothing.
Elena stepped closer.
“If Felix works for you, why is my father hiding from everybody?”
“Because if Marcus is right, he doesn’t know who around me he can trust.”
“And if he’s wrong?”
“Then Marcus may be trying to make me look in the wrong direction.”
She stared at him.
“You really suspect everyone.”
“It keeps people alive.”
“No. It keeps you alone.”
Something flickered across his face.
Pain.
Gone immediately.
Nadine pretended to be fascinated by her phone.
Elena looked away first.
Her attention returned to the painting.
The Saint’s blue dress glowed beneath the examination lamp.
Something about the restoration marks bothered her.
Bell & Rowe had relined only one section.
That was unusual.
Then Elena remembered something from her father.
A childhood memory.
Marcus teaching her to wrap Christmas gifts.
If you’re hiding something, Ellie, don’t put it where nobody will look.
Put it where everybody looks and assumes they already understand.
She had thought he was joking.
Elena leaned closer to the back of the painting.
“Luca.”
He approached.
“What?”
“I need equipment.”
“What kind?”
“Infrared imaging. UV. A fiber scope.”
“Can you tell if something’s inside?”
“Eventually.”
“How long?”
“Hours.”
“Take whatever you need.”
“This isn’t your studio.”
“I’ll pay—”
Elena slowly turned her head.
Luca stopped.
Owen’s voice came through the open doorway.
“Careful. She throws cash.”
Despite everything, Elena almost laughed.
Luca exhaled.
“Fine. We do it your way.”
“Thank you.”
“But you’re not staying here tonight.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“I am not sleeping in your penthouse.”
“Then choose another secure location.”
“My apartment.”
“No.”
“It’s directly underneath you.”
“That fact has become less comforting.”
Nadine interrupted before the argument escalated.
“We have another issue.”
She held out her phone.
A photograph had been emailed anonymously.
It showed Marcus entering a motel outside Philadelphia.
Timestamp: forty minutes earlier.
Elena felt hope.
“He’s there.”
Luca studied the image.
“No.”
“What?”
“The timestamp says forty minutes ago.”
“Yes.”
“Marcus was recorded buying coffee in Baltimore ninety minutes ago.”
Elena stared.
“So the photograph is fake.”
“Or one of the videos is.”
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
STOP LOOKING AT THE PAINTING.
A second appeared.
YOUR FATHER RAN FOR A REASON.
Then a third.
IF VESCARI FINDS WHAT MARCUS HID, HE’LL NEVER LET EITHER OF YOU WALK AWAY.
Elena looked at Luca.
He read the messages over her shoulder.
For the first time, she wondered whether the safest man in the room might also be the man she needed to fear.
And Luca seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Believe a stranger because they confirmed what already scares you.”
Elena held his gaze.
“You mean the way you refuse to believe my father?”
May you like
That time, Luca had no answer.
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