Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Nothing.
He would be back from his meeting at any moment.
A floor vault.
Maybe Var had one just like Abakar. Clearly Var knew where to look for the paintings, and not many people had the money or resources for a floor vault, so perhaps he knew because he owned one himself?
I stomped on the carpet where I was standing. Solid.
I took a few steps and stomped again.
Still nothing.
A few steps more and another stomp.
“What are you doing?”
I screamed as I grasped my chest.
Var was standing on the threshold.
“I was… I was… um… breaking in my new shoes!”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, they were a little tight and so the best way to break them in is to stomp around on the carpet.”
There was no freaking way he was going to buy that.
Var shrugged and walked past me. “Whatever. Close the door on your way out.”
As I walked past him, his phone rang. I grasped the doorknob and made a show of closing it… just very slowly.
With his back turned, he didn’t even notice me.
“No. No word on the forger yet. Did you pull the Masaccio from the German auction?”
Aw, they found the Masaccio. I liked that one. I’d forged what looked like an artist’s sketch of his masterpiece Madonna and Child with St. Anne. Collectors loved to peek behind the curtains and peer in at an artist’s method through sketches like that. It would fetch as much as a painting, but it would also not be put to the same level of scrutiny.
“I know the Triad are pissed. I’ll call Haoyo and smooth things over.”
The Triad as in the extremely dangerous Chinese Triad gang?
“They need to understand that all operations are paused until I take care of the forger.”
Take care of the forger?
I knew what that meant in mafia-speak.
Crap.
CHAPTER 22
VIVIAN
After rushing home, I stopped short of my apartment door.
There was music playing.
I didn’t leave any music on.
My hand shook as I carefully tested the doorknob. Locked.
My hand continued to shake so badly that I dropped my keys on the floor.
I stopped to listen.
Would the metal clang make the music stop?
No.
Knowing I couldn’t exactly call the cops and tell them I’m scared of my stereo, I picked up my keys and entered.
Nothing looked disturbed.
The song playing had a pleasant, lilting harmony that was vaguely familiar.
As I carefully searched in each room, under the sofa, and behind the shower curtain, I continued to listen.
The same song played repeatedly.
Then it clicked. It was the Mona Lisa song. The one sung by Nat King Cole, except this version was in a foreign language.
It was in Russian.
With my hand curled into a fist, I slammed it against the stereo button, turning it off.
Opening the fridge, I reached for the bottle of wine from a few nights earlier. Twisting off the cap, I drank straight from it.
As I leaned against my kitchen counter, I considered the options.
Either this was the mysterious Russian retrieval specialist sending me a message that he was watching and impatiently waiting.
Or…
It was Var fucking with me.
He had been out of the office for close to two hours today.
While I thought it was giving me time to search his office, what if he had been here in my apartment doing the same thing at the same time?
At that thought, I turned and rummaged through my new Gucci purse. Once I found my keys, I examined them for any signs of… well, I wasn’t really sure what the signs were for copying a key.
Clay from a secret key mold like in the movies?
Oil from the hardware machine that copies keys?
Metal shavings?
Nothing.
If it was the mystery Russian dude sending me the message, I needed a Plan B.
And if Var was on to me, then it was highly unlikely I would ever find the other five paintings. He clearly would hide them somewhere other than his office, where I was free to snoop.
My only option was to possibly create one more Mona Lisa fake to appease the Russian.
Taking another slug of my wine, I walked into the bedroom. After checking under the bed and in the closet again, just in case, I changed into an old man’s shirt and yoga pants.
Putting my hair up in a scrunchie, I moved into the second bedroom, my art studio.
I placed the poplar plank canvas on the easel.
I only had one left and maybe enough paint to finish another Mona Lisa.
In order to create the impression of a hazy, seamless transition from dark to light with no visible brushstrokes like da Vinci, I’d have to use impossibly thin layers of oil paint and let it fully dry between layers.
The sfumato process could take weeks, even months. Rushing through the delicate process would make it more obvious it was a fraud, not the real deal, but perhaps it would be enough to get me out of trouble.