Chapter 3 - The Man Everyone Thought Was Gone
Elias led Anna through a rear loading bay moments before the front door opened.
They emerged into an alley.
“Move.”
Anna followed him between two buildings.
“Who’s inside?”
“I intend not to find out.”
For a seventy-year-old man, Elias moved surprisingly fast.
They reached an old sedan.
Anna climbed in.
Only after they were several blocks away did she speak.
“Helen never told me.”
“About Gabriel?”
“About any of this.”
“Perhaps she had reasons.”
“She supervised my thesis on you.”
Elias glanced at her.
“That makes the coincidence rather uncomfortable.”
Anna called Helen.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
Elias drove to a small diner.
They chose a booth facing the entrance.
Anna spread the evidence across the table.
Auction catalog.
Portrait.
Photographs.
Recording transcript.
“This is insane.”
“Most expensive crimes look respectable from the outside.”
“Why did you disappear?”
Elias stirred his coffee.
“For years people invented glamorous explanations. Creative crisis. Secret marriage. Mental collapse.”
“What happened?”
“My brother died.”
His voice changed.
“The fire destroyed more than a studio.”
Elias described Gabriel as brilliant, impatient and generous. Elias had been the famous brother, but Gabriel had helped develop techniques that later became associated with the Muski name.
They had fought shortly before the fire.
Gabriel wanted recognition.
Elias wanted to protect the brand their gallery had built.
“I told him the world bought Muski, singular.”
Anna winced.
“I was arrogant.”
The fire happened two nights later.
Gabriel died.
Elias survived.
“And you blamed yourself.”
“For twenty years.”
“What about Damian?”
“He was beginning to collect art then. He purchased three of my paintings.”
Elias looked through the window.
“More importantly, he knew Gabriel.”
Anna leaned forward.
“How well?”
“Enough to know what Gabriel left behind.”
Her phone rang.
Helen.
Anna answered.
“Where are you?”
Helen sounded terrified.
“Safe.”
“You contacted Elias, didn’t you?”
Anna glanced at him.
“You tell me.”
Silence.
Then Helen said, “Come to my office.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
That answer surprised her.
“But if you want to know where painting twelve came from, come.”
---
Helen Ward’s university office looked exactly as Anna remembered.
Books stacked everywhere.
Conservation journals.
Photographs.
A dying fern.
Helen stood beside the window.
When Elias entered, twenty years seemed to collapse between them.
“Hello, Helen.”
She gripped the desk.
“I wondered whether I’d ever hear your voice again.”
“You knew where I was.”
“I knew where you asked me not to look.”
Anna closed the door.
“You authenticated number twelve.”
Helen nodded.
“Six years ago.”
“Knowing it was fake?”
“No.”
She opened a cabinet.
Inside was a conservation report.
“When I examined it, I found everything I expected from an authentic Muski.”
Elias read the report.
“Canvas age?”
“Correct.”
“Pigments?”
“Correct.”
“Binder?”
“Correct.”
Anna asked, “Brushwork?”
Helen looked at Elias.
“Almost perfect.”
“Almost?”
“There was one inconsistency.”
Helen displayed an infrared image.
Beneath the visible painting was an underdrawing.
Three short vertical marks crossed by a crescent.
Anna stared.
The secret signature.
“That convinced you,” she said.
Helen nodded.
“Only Gabriel and Elias knew that mark.”
Elias shook his head.
“No.”
Helen frowned.
“What?”
“Three people knew.”
“Who was the third?”
Elias looked at her.
“You.”
Helen went pale.
Anna suddenly understood.
Someone had used knowledge accessible only to the brothers and Helen.
Helen sank into her chair.
“Damian.”
“What about him?” Anna asked.
“Gabriel met with Damian the week before the fire.”
Elias froze.
“You never told me that.”
“I promised Gabriel.”
“He’s been dead twenty years.”
“He was planning to leave you.”
The words struck Elias harder than any guard had.
Helen continued.
“Gabriel wanted to establish himself independently. Damian offered financing.”
Elias stared at her.
“What did Gabriel give him?”
“Studies. Maybe dozens.”
Elias turned away.
Anna saw guilt cross his face.
The forged paintings suddenly had an origin.
Gabriel’s compositions.
Elias’s name.
Damian’s money.
But who had physically painted them?
Helen opened another file.
“Three restorers worked on the Blackwood collection over the last fifteen years. Two are dead.”
“And the third?”
“Samuel Pike.”
Anna knew the name.
A respected conservator.
More importantly, the man who had rejected Anna from an apprenticeship eight months earlier.
“Where is he?”
“Nobody knows.”
Helen slid a photograph across the desk.
It showed Pike standing beside Damian.
On the table between them sat painting twelve.
Anna noticed something.
A small jar.
Blue pigment.
She enlarged the photograph.
“Ultramarine?”
Helen nodded.
“Natural lapis.”
“That’s incredibly expensive.”
“Exactly.”
Anna examined the conservation report.
Something didn’t fit.
“If Pike wanted to imitate Elias perfectly, why use natural ultramarine here?”
Elias leaned closer.
“I rarely used it.”
“Exactly.”
Anna flipped through her thesis notes.
Muski was known for synthetic ultramarine during that period.
Natural lapis would be historically plausible but stylistically wrong.
A knowledgeable forger wouldn’t make that mistake.
Unless—
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Anna said.
Elias looked at her.
“What?”
“It was a marker.”
“For whom?”
“Someone who knew enough to look.”
Helen whispered, “Pike.”
Anna nodded.
“Maybe he wanted the forgery discovered.”
Helen’s computer chimed.
An email arrived.
No sender name.
One attachment.
A photograph.
Helen opened it.
Samuel Pike sat in what appeared to be a storage room.
He held today’s newspaper.
Beside him stood Preston Blackwood.
The message contained one sentence.
Bring Elias and the recording tonight, or Pike disappears permanently.
Helen covered her mouth.
Elias stared at the photograph.
Anna zoomed in.
“Wait.”
“What?” Helen asked.
“The newspaper.”
There was writing along its edge.
Tiny.
Backward.
Anna mirrored the image.
Four words appeared.
TWELVE IS NOT A PAINTING.
Elias leaned closer.
Anna read it again.
If number twelve wasn’t a painting, then what had Helen authenticated?
May you like
And what exactly was Damian Blackwood planning to sell?
---
