Chương 3
Arthur nodded.
“That sounds reasonable.”
Lily looked at him sharply.
Dana did too.
Arthur glanced at the case.
“Your brother-in-law has spent years trying to get my attention.”
“My sister’s husband.”
“My mistake.”
“She died nine years ago.”
Arthur lowered his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Dana rubbed rain from her forehead with the heel of her hand. “You didn’t know her.”
“No.”
“Then don’t say it like you did.”
Arthur accepted that too.
Daniel decided he liked Dana.
The gallery was cleared in stages.
Some guests complained. One asked whether the interruption entitled him to reimbursement for the car service he had booked. Another wanted confirmation that the champagne service would continue downstairs. A woman in a white satin dress quietly placed a coat around Lily’s shoulders until Dana noticed and returned it.
The gray-haired bidder remained longest.
His name was Thomas Kell, a technology investor whose private art purchases usually attracted little attention because he paid people to keep them that way.
He stood before Woman at a Window.
“I assume my bid is void.”
Evelyn said, “The sale is paused.”
“That was not my question.”
“We will advise all bidders once title review is complete.”
Thomas glanced at Lily.
She stared back.
He seemed less annoyed after that.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I hope your father is right.”
Lily said, “He usually isn’t.”
Dana looked at her.
Lily shrugged.
“What? He loses his keys every day.”
Thomas laughed.
Even Evelyn almost did.
Then the room emptied, and the expensive quiet returned.
The lawyers arrived.
The night became less cinematic after that.
It became forms.
Names.
Phone calls.
Statements.
Photographs of documents taken on a measured table beneath neutral lighting. A numbered evidence envelope for the loose photograph. A written acknowledgment that the leather case remained in Dana’s possession. A request that nothing be removed, marked, cleaned, repaired, or rearranged before independent review.
Lily sat on a walnut bench and ate three crackers from a packet Maya found in the staff kitchen.
At 1:12 in the morning, she fell asleep sitting upright.
Her head tipped onto Dana’s shoulder.
Dana was still angry.
She shifted carefully so Lily would not wake.
Arthur sat across the room with his bow tie undone.
He looked older without it.
Daniel brought him coffee.
Arthur tasted it.
“This is terrible.”
“It’s security coffee.”
“That explains neither the taste nor the temperature.”
“It explains both.”
Arthur took another drink anyway.
For several minutes they watched rain slide down the glass.
Then Arthur said, “I signed that certificate.”
Daniel looked at him.
“I assumed you had.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Arthur turned the paper cup between both palms.
“It should not exist.”
Daniel waited.
Arthur stared toward Woman at a Window, which had been removed from the display wall and placed in the locked secure room.
“Benjamin Carter made me sign two originals. One for him. One for the firm.”
“Who was Benjamin Carter?”
“Owen’s father.”
Daniel looked toward the sleeping girl.
“What was the certificate for?”
Arthur was quiet long enough that Daniel thought he might refuse.
Instead he said, “A collection.”
“The one upstairs?”
Arthur’s jaw moved.
“Much more than the one upstairs.”
At seven the next morning, Owen Carter was making pancakes when Dana walked into his apartment with Lily.
He was forty-three, thin, dark-haired, and barefoot. He wore an old Columbia University T-shirt even though he had never attended Columbia and had acquired the shirt from a lost-and-found box at the middle school where he taught art.
He turned from the stove.
He saw the case in Dana’s hand.
The spatula dropped.
“No.”
Lily stopped near the door.
Owen looked at her.
“No.”
“Dad—”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
“He recognized it.”
Owen shut off the burner.
“Tell me you did not take that case to Harcourt.”
“They were selling Grandma.”
“Lily.”
“He recognized the seal.”
Owen’s face had gone pale.
Dana placed the case on the kitchen table.
“She was on the rooftop in a thunderstorm with two hundred strangers.”
“Thirty-seven,” Lily said.
Dana rounded on her.
“Not now.”
Owen came around the counter.
He crouched in front of Lily.
His voice stayed low.
“Did anybody open it without you?”
“No.”
“Did anyone take anything?”
“No.”
“Did you leave it anywhere?”
“No.”
“Did you show them the stock papers?”
“Mr. Whitmore saw some.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I was busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Stopping your painting from being sold.”
He stood.
“Not my painting.”
“You said it was.”
“I said I thought it was part of the Carter trust.”
“You said Grandma was in it.”
“That doesn’t make it ours.”
“That isn’t what you said last month.”
Owen pressed both hands against the table.
His nails were stained green from paint.
He taught sixth and seventh graders during the day and repaired frames three nights a week for a shop on Amsterdam Avenue. In the four years since he had begun looking into the old family papers, he had also developed the habit of making statements at midnight that became less certain by breakfast.
Dana knew this.
Lily knew it better.
“You went there after I told you not to.”
“They listened to me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“They never listened to you.”
The words hit cleanly.
Dana closed her eyes.
Owen looked at his daughter.
The apartment seemed suddenly full of small noises: the refrigerator motor, rain ticking against the window unit, a neighbor dragging something heavy across the floor upstairs.
Lily’s chin began to tremble.
She hated it and pressed her mouth closed.
Owen’s anger collapsed before hers did.
He sat at the table.
One pancake burned in the pan.
Nobody moved to save it.
Finally Dana did.
She carried the pan to the sink and turned on the water.
Smoke rose.
“You both need sleep,” she said.
Owen rubbed his face.
“Did Arthur say anything?”
Lily looked at him.
“He said you owned everything.”
May you like
Owen’s hands stopped.
Dana turned from the sink.
