Chương 9
It did establish something Victor had repeatedly denied.
He knew Evelyn possessed photographs.
He was concerned about them.
He wanted access before attorneys were involved.
His legal position worsened.
His financial position deteriorated faster.
North Bridge Private Bank filed a civil action related to the collateral representations on Arc Array and other works.
An insurer began reviewing an older claim.
Two auction houses postponed consignments from Victor’s collection.
A museum in Boston announced it was reviewing the provenance and restoration histories of three works he had loaned.
Victor called Margaret.
She declined the first call.
She declined the second.
On the third, she answered.
He did not raise his voice.
“You have mistaken public humiliation for integrity,” he told her.
Margaret sat alone in her office.
“No.”
“You gave them private family conversations.”
“They were relevant.”
“To what?”
“To a woman almost dying.”
“You do not know that I touched that cable.”
“She says you did.”
“She was falling.”
Margaret looked at the skybridge through the glass wall of her office.
It remained closed.
“You asked me for her phone.”
“Because she was about to destroy thirty years of work based on a machine stamp.”
“She was right.”
“That remains disputed.”
“Not seriously.”
Victor sighed.
“You always wanted to be the clean one.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where you explain me to myself.”
“I’m your brother.”
“That does not make you qualified.”
“It makes me experienced.”
She almost smiled.
It was the kind of line their father would have admired.
Victor continued.
“You think handing them everything makes you separate from me. It doesn’t. The museum exists because of our family.”
“The museum existed before us.”
“Barely.”
“It will exist after us.”
A pause.
“That sounds like something you practiced.”
“It didn’t.”
“You should resign.”
“I may.”
“Then why destroy me on the way out?”
Margaret looked at the handwritten note beside her keyboard.
Because you asked for her phone.
Because I said no and then did nothing else.
Because forty-eight hours felt reasonable until someone was hanging from a railing.
She did not say any of those things.
Instead she asked, “Did you cut it?”
Victor was silent.
Margaret heard traffic through his end of the call.
Then he laughed softly.
Not with humor.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve decided.”
“I asked.”
“You’ve decided.”
He disconnected.
Margaret sat with the phone in her hand.
She did not know whether his refusal meant anything.
That uncertainty was one of the punishments she had not anticipated.
Evelyn returned to the museum for the first time six weeks after the fall.
She entered through the staff door because she could not bear the thought of walking through the public lobby.
Her ankle was mostly healed.
Nathan’s shoulder was improving.
Neither of them mentioned that he had offered to meet her in the parking garage.
She had declined.
He was waiting inside anyway.
Evelyn stopped.
“You said you wouldn’t meet me outside.”
“I’m inside.”
“That is profoundly irritating.”
“I’ve been told.”
He wore a dark suit with no sling. His left arm hung slightly stiff.
Evelyn looked at it.
“How bad?”
“Physical therapy says I’m delightful.”
“That bad.”
“Yes.”
They walked toward the atrium.
Her steps slowed before she noticed.
Nathan noticed.
He said nothing.
The gallery smelled exactly the same.
Stone, conditioned air, something faintly metallic from the temporary rigging barriers.
The hanging sculpture was still on the floor.
The upper bridge looked ordinary.
That offended her.
Evelyn had expected some visible mark.
A dent.
A crack.
Anything.
Instead the glass had been cleaned.
The railing was black.
The place where her hands had slipped looked like every other section of steel.
She stopped beneath the bridge.
Nathan stood several feet away.
“Do you remember the catch?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
“I remember falling.”
“I’d trade.”
She looked at him.
He shrugged carefully.
“The catch was unpleasant.”
“You broke two ribs.”
“So did you.”
“You dislocated a shoulder.”
“You almost landed on your head.”
“That isn’t a competition.”
“I’m winning.”
She laughed before she could stop herself.
The sound echoed oddly in the empty atrium.
Evelyn looked around.
“I hate that people call you a hero.”
“Thank you.”
“No. I mean—”
“I know.”
“It makes what happened too simple.”
Nathan leaned against a display plinth.
“I caught you.”
“You did.”
“Victor may have cut the line.”
“He did.”
“You’re allowed to say that. I’m still saying may until someone with a badge stops making me.”
She looked upward.
“What if they never can?”
Nathan did not answer immediately.
A maintenance worker crossed the far end of the floor pushing a cart.
The wheels squeaked every few feet.
“We live with what we can prove,” he said.
“That sounds miserable.”
“Sometimes.”
“And what we know?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Nathan thought about it.
“I know you were there. I know what you said. I know the cable was cut. I know he had access. I know he lied about where he was. I know he had a reason to be afraid of your photographs. That is not the same as watching him do it.”
Evelyn looked at the railing.
“I keep trying to manufacture the missing second.”
“Don’t.”
“I see his hand near the clip. Then Margaret turns. Then I’m outside. I keep thinking if I remember harder—”
“Don’t.”
His voice was sharper this time.
She turned.
Nathan pushed away from the plinth.
“You don’t owe anybody a better memory.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true.”
“What if the case depends on it?”
“Then the case has a problem.”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
He continued before she could answer.
“You were busy not dying. Your brain was not collecting courtroom exhibits.”
She hated the relief that gave her.
She also hated him for giving it.
“Stop being reasonable.”
“I’m almost never accused of that.”
They stood beneath the bridge.
Eventually Evelyn said, “I need to go up.”
Nathan did not ask whether she was sure.
May you like
That helped.
The upper level had reopened for staff access but remained closed to visitors.
