Chương 3
He reached the curb ten seconds too late.
He stood there breathing hard, rain dripping from his hair.
Claire arrived beside him.
“You have a car,” she said.
Daniel looked at her.
“You want to chase a taxi through Manhattan?”
“I don’t know. It sounded useful in my head.”
He laughed.
He could not help it.
One short, ugly laugh.
Then another.
Claire started laughing too.
They stood in the rain in formal clothes, laughing like people who had finally been pushed past the point at which proper reactions were available.
Claire wiped beneath one eye.
“This is horrible.”
“I know.”
“I’m not laughing because it’s funny.”
“I know.”
She looked down at her gown.
“Eight thousand dollars.”
Daniel stared at her.
“What?”
“This dress.”
“You’re worried about your dress?”
“No. I just realized I’m standing in a gutter in an eight-thousand-dollar dress, and somehow that’s the least embarrassing thing that happened tonight.”
Daniel stopped laughing.
Across the street, the taxi disappeared into traffic.
He closed his fingers around the locket.
Inside it, Michael Reyes’s scratched-out face pressed against his palm.
Back in the museum, Richard had already begun controlling the story.
He told guests there had been a “personal security matter.”
He asked the museum’s communications director to prepare a holding statement.
He instructed staff to collect recordings from the auction hall’s internal cameras.
By the time Daniel and Claire returned through the loading entrance, he was speaking with an attorney.
Daniel walked directly to him.
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Richard ended the call.
“Because I’m not sure what crime has been committed.”
“You accused her of fraud.”
“Identity fraud is not necessarily a matter for immediate police intervention.”
“You said there was blood.”
“I said there was blood in the locket.”
“Whose?”
Richard’s eyes flicked to the chain in Daniel’s hand.
“The note could answer that.”
“The note she took.”
“Yes.”
Claire came up beside Daniel.
“You mean the evidence you decided to wave around at a party.”
Richard looked tired for the first time.
“It was not intended to unfold this way.”
“No,” Claire said. “I’m sure you imagined a more tasteful public destruction.”
“Enough.”
She flinched.
Richard saw it.
He softened his voice slightly.
“Claire.”
“No.”
People had begun leaving in small groups after security stopped trying to contain them. Several looked back.
Claire did not care.
“You knew Michael’s sister,” she said. “You knew she was Daniel’s wife. And you waited until tonight. Why?”
Richard glanced around.
“Come upstairs.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“Answer me here.”
“You’re emotional.”
Daniel almost winced.
Claire became very still.
“Do that again,” she said.
Richard’s brows tightened.
“Do what?”
“Tell me I’m emotional so you don’t have to answer.”
Daniel watched their father recognize the trap.
Richard took a slow breath.
“I received information that Anna Reyes intended to interfere with tonight’s sale.”
“What sale?” Daniel asked.
“The principal lot.”
Daniel knew which one he meant.
Lot Thirty-Seven.
A fifteenth-century devotional panel called The Penitent Magdalene, owned for decades by a European private collection and displayed only twice in public. Richard had spent nearly a year arranging its appearance at the museum benefit auction. He spoke about it more often than he spoke about either of his children.
“What does Elena have to do with the painting?” Daniel asked.
Richard looked at him.
“She believes Michael discovered irregularities involving its provenance ten years ago.”
Claire stared.
“Michael was working on that painting?”
“He reviewed archival documentation related to several acquisitions.”
“You told me he handled donor records.”
“He did.”
“You told me his work had nothing to do with collections.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Richard did not answer.
Claire’s voice became smaller.
“From what?”
A museum employee passed behind them carrying abandoned champagne glasses.
The tiny clinks seemed indecently normal.
Richard said, “Michael believed certain works passing through the foundation had incomplete ownership histories. He became obsessed with it.”
Daniel felt his stomach tighten.
“What happened?”
“He made allegations.”
“Against you?”
“Against several people.”
“Were they true?”
Richard looked at him.
“That is not a simple question.”
“It sounded simple.”
“Then you don’t understand what you’re asking.”
Daniel smiled without humor.
“There he is.”
Richard’s jaw hardened.
Daniel continued. “The man who can make yes or no sound financially irresponsible.”
Claire sat on the edge of an upholstered bench.
Her wet gown pooled around her.
“Michael died while he was investigating Dad.”
Richard turned.
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“He died in a traffic accident.”
Claire looked up.
“You called it an accident before the police did.”
Silence.
Daniel felt the room narrow around them.
Richard rubbed his forehead.
“That night was ten years ago.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Claire said.
“I was informed before you were.”
“By who?”
Richard hesitated.
Claire stood again.
“By who?”
“The foundation’s outside counsel.”
Daniel stared at him.
“Why would foundation counsel know about Michael’s death before his fiancée?”
Richard looked away.
And that was the moment Daniel stopped wondering whether his father was hiding something.
The only question was how large it was.
Elena—Anna, if Richard was telling the truth—did not go home.
Daniel found that out twenty minutes later when the doorman in their building called back.
“No, Mr. Vale. Mrs. Vale hasn’t come in.”
Daniel sat in the back of Claire’s car with the locket in his palm.
Richard had offered them his driver.
They both refused.
Claire drove because she said she needed something to do with her hands.
Rain swept across the windshield.
“Where would she go?” Claire asked.
Daniel looked at Elena’s empty contact icon on his phone.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve been married three years.”
“Four.”
“Sorry.”
He turned toward the window.
Claire muttered, “That sounded worse than I meant it.”
“It’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
“No.”
May you like
They stopped at a red light.
A delivery cyclist waited beside them under a plastic poncho, one foot planted in a puddle. Daniel watched him check directions on his phone.
