Chapter 4 - The Blackwood Empire Strikes Back
By morning, Anna Morgan was famous for all the wrong reasons.
A security clip from Bellamy’s appeared online.
It showed Anna moving toward Preston.
Then it cut.
The next image showed Preston stepping backward and Anna shouting.
The slap was missing.
Elias was barely visible.
A headline called her a “disgruntled waitress.”
Damian had done exactly what he promised.
He had created his version first.
Anna watched the clip twice.
Then closed her laptop.
“Don’t read comments,” Elias said.
“Too late.”
They were back at the warehouse.
Helen had joined them.
Anna’s former coworkers had been warned not to contact her.
Two museum applications had been withdrawn.
Her landlord had emailed about overdue rent.
The empire didn’t need to kill her.
It could simply make her life impossible.
“I can release the recording,” Anna said.
Helen shook her head.
“Damian will call it edited.”
“It isn’t.”
“That doesn’t matter initially. Public doubt buys him time.”
Elias agreed.
“We need evidence attached to the paintings themselves.”
Anna remembered Pike’s message.
“Then we find out what twelve means.”
The auction catalog listed twelve paintings.
They compared dimensions, provenance and conservation reports.
Eleven had extensive technical documentation.
Number twelve had almost none.
Helen frowned.
“I examined it personally.”
“Where?”
“Blackwood storage.”
“Did you see the back?”
“No.”
Anna looked up.
“You authenticated a painting without examining the reverse?”
“I requested access. Damian refused because of a supposedly fragile backing board.”
Anna stood.
“There.”
“What?”
“The backing board.”
Elias understood.
“Something is behind it.”
They needed access.
Helen still had credentials for a private preview scheduled the following evening.
Anna could not enter as herself.
Elias definitely could not.
But Helen could.
And she could bring one assistant.
---
Anna wore glasses and tied her hair differently.
It was not much of a disguise.
But the preview staff expected a conservation graduate student named Rebecca Hale, and confidence accomplished what cosmetics could not.
Painting twelve hung inside a private viewing room.
Anna’s breath caught.
Even knowing it was forged, the work was extraordinary.
A solitary figure stood beside a burning house.
Elias’s supposed signature appeared at the bottom.
Anna examined the surface under portable magnification.
Pigment.
Craquelure.
Canvas.
Then the frame.
One screw on the backing board was newer than the others.
Her pulse quickened.
She removed it.
The backing board shifted.
Something thin slid out.
Not another canvas.
A ledger.
Anna stared.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Shipping numbers.
Twenty years of transactions.
Helen whispered, “My God.”
Anna photographed page after page.
Then she saw a familiar name.
Samuel Pike.
Beside it were dozens of payments.
But the final entry was different.
Pike — refused final certification.
Below that:
Containment authorized — P.B.
Preston Blackwood.
Footsteps sounded outside.
Anna shoved the ledger back.
The door opened.
Preston entered.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then he smiled.
“Rebecca Hale?”
Anna removed the glasses.
“Terrible disguise?”
“Awful.”
Helen stepped forward.
“Preston—”
“Professor Ward, you disappoint me.”
Two guards appeared.
Anna’s stomach tightened.
Preston approached painting twelve.
“You know what I find fascinating about art?”
“Your ability to destroy it?”
“No. Value.”
He smiled.
“A piece of cloth can be worth twenty dollars or twenty million depending on what people believe.”
“And your father sells belief.”
“My father sells certainty.”
Anna stared at him.
“And Pike?”
His smile faded.
“You should have stayed a waitress.”
“You should have learned how cloud storage works.”
That landed.
Preston’s eyes sharpened.
“So the recording survived.”
Anna realized instantly she had said too much.
Preston stepped closer.
“Thank you.”
He reached for her bag.
A voice behind him interrupted.
“Mr. Blackwood?”
A museum administrator stood in the doorway with three donors.
Preston’s posture transformed.
Polite.
Controlled.
Anna understood the advantage immediately.
Witnesses.
She smiled.
“Mr. Blackwood was just explaining provenance.”
Preston stared at her.
“Was I?”
Helen took Anna’s arm.
“We should go.”
Preston couldn’t stop them without creating a scene.
They walked out.
Only when they reached the street did Anna breathe.
“I photographed everything.”
Helen smiled for the first time.
Then a car door opened.
A man stepped onto the sidewalk.
Samuel Pike.
Alive.
Anna froze.
Helen whispered his name.
Pike looked exhausted.
“I don’t have much time.”
“Were you kidnapped?” Anna asked.
“No.”
“Then that photograph—”
“I staged it.”
Anna stared at him.
“With Preston?”
“No. Preston thought he was threatening you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
Pike handed Anna a flash drive.
“I made eleven paintings.”
Silence.
Elias stepped from the car behind them.
Pike saw him and began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Elias said nothing.
Pike continued.
“Damian paid me to finish Gabriel’s studies in your technique. I told myself I was preserving lost ideas. Then the money became too good.”
“Eleven,” Anna said. “You said eleven.”
Pike nodded.
“I never painted number twelve.”
“Who did?”
Pike looked directly at Elias.
“Gabriel.”
Elias went still.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Pike swallowed.
“Painting twelve is authentic.”
Elias shook his head.
“Gabriel died before—”
“Before the fire?”
Pike’s eyes filled with fear.
“Elias, Gabriel didn’t die in that fire.”
The street seemed to tilt beneath Anna.
Elias whispered, “What did you say?”
Pike handed him the flash drive.
“Damian has lied to you for twenty years.”
May you like
And for the first time since Anna had met him, Elias Muski looked truly terrified.
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