Fatal Forgeries

by Ritter Ames

  First physical torture session was Tuesday. Less than a week since I was nimble enough to scale a sixteenth-century French chateau. Now, only five days later, I had trouble climbing stairs. Between a therapist with the soul of a gestapo agent and the overexertion of the previous day, by four that afternoon I was feeling whiny about life in general. I compensated by eating my way out of the tormenting pain, devouring a Mars bar with my sore leg propped up on a chair. When the room phone rang, I thought seriously about ignoring it. My leg hurt that much. Hell, my whole body ached. But the bell was so loud and annoying I didn’t want to have to listen to it anymore. At least I knew for sure it wasn’t Lincoln. He’d sent me the copy of the original video—the proper pixelated one running in news hours as promised—and pledged to leave me alone until I cooled down. His words, not mine. The man was obviously an optimist.

  “Hello.”

  “Laurel Beacham? This is Margarite. I am in your hotel lobby. Jack Hawkes said you would love to talk to me.”

  Ohmigod, yes. It was hard to believe that only Thursday I’d asked Jack about meeting with her. Too many things had happened in the meantime.

  I started to say I would meet her downstairs. Then I thought about what I wanted her to tell me and changed my mind.

  “Would you mind coming up here?” I asked.

  “Not at all. What room?”

  A couple minutes later, I was opening the door for her. She breezed in with the same cosmopolitan flair and Sophia Loren looks and grace that drew me to her the first time we’d met. As I hopped away, she asked what happened.

  “Occupational hazard,” I said. “Nothing that won’t be right as rain soon enough.”

  She laughed. “There is plenty of rain outside today in London. You shouldn’t have long to wait.”

  Since she was a coffee drinker like me, I made us each a cup before we got too far into the conversation. I started things off by congratulating her on having such a terrific son as Dylan.

  “I hadn’t known until last week the two of you were related,” I said. “But once I did, I realized I wasn’t surprised. I think I’d recognized it subconsciously already because your eyes are so much alike.”

  She smiled. “Yes, is so true. As is the way you look much like your dear mother.”

  Well, that was as good a segue as any, I thought. I hobbled over to the room safe and opened it to remove the jewelry case, the compact, and everything each of those items contained.

  “I’ve been receiving gifts lately from a relative of Paul-Henri Aubertine,” I said.

  “Moran?”

  I nodded, opening the jewelry case to withdraw the large photo of my mother and Aubertine. “Was their affair ongoing? Or…”

  She sighed. “Your mother was so young when she agreed to marry your father. They were engaged when she and Paul-Henri met. It was…” Her hands wiggled as she raised them from her waist to shoulder height. “Electric. No two people had ever fallen in love so quickly.”

  “But…?”

  “Paul-Henri was honorable and Catholic, and though he loved your mother, his family was quite…angered by his brother’s business. And your mother was promised to someone else when they first met. They were in similar circles of friends and saw each other several times a year. Paul-Henri tried to deny his attraction, and when willpower disappeared he told her about Moran and the family’s empire. He loved her, but he wanted no secrets. She listened and understood. She was also conflicted because both of your grandfathers were in business holdings together, and she knew any indiscretions on her part would impact her own father’s fortune. Paul-Henri felt guilt and she felt guilt. He thought his words would drive her away. And they tried again to stay apart. Many, many times.”

  Margarite stood and paced the room as she talked, moving her arms gracefully with her words. “Your grandparents wanted an heir. Both sides. The Beachams especially. Also, your mother’s parents pressured her against divorce. She thought giving her husband a child would make things better, and she truly wanted to be a mother. She tried hard to get pregnant and not miscarry. The miscarriages happened four times, each more heartbreaking than the last. She thought a baby would make everything right. But it never worked out and she had all but given up. Even tried those painful fertility treatments and surgery options, but nothing was successful. Then, out of the blue, she was pregnant with you. And she was so happy at first.”

  “At first?”

  “Oh, she was happy about you, don’t misunderstand. However, she counted back, and began to worry. She’d gone off for a weekend during the time, and…”

  “She slept with Paul-Henri and my father around the same time I was conceived.”

  Margarite hurried over and took my hands, sitting beside me. “Don’t think badly of her. She was such a wonderful person, and so very unhappy too much of the time. But she smiled and pretended. Everyone loved her.”

  “Do you believe her death was an accident? Or Paul-Henri’s car crash? It happened in a similar manner. Do you think it was too similar?”

  She shook her dark head, but the look on her face showed frustration and anger, rather than uncertainty. “Your mother asked for a divorce. That bas—I’m sorry. But he said if she left she had to leave you behind. Never would she let such a thing happen. She would stay and do everything possible to keep his cruelty from touching your life. She told him this. She’d stay, but only because she didn’t want unhappiness to touch you.”

  “How long did this conversation occur before her accident?” I asked.

  Margarite shrugged, but it was a shrug of resignation rather than ignorance. “Maybe three weeks.”

  I thought about so many things in a millisecond. How I couldn’t remember not having Grandmamma beside me at every turn. How soon after my mother’s death my grandfather secured my protection with my faithful Bruno and the ever-vigilant Kelly. Maybe there were rumors of potential kidnappings in our social circle. Maybe there was something more. Throughout this time, I missed my mother, though I didn’t remember her. Yet I never felt unhappiness until my grandparents both passed away.

  “Thank you.” I reached over and hugged her.

  She clung to me as she spoke. “I should have told you sooner. But how could I?”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the information you want to hear.”

  Pulling back, I smiled and said, “I honestly don’t know what I do want to hear. But you have given me a wonderful gift. You told me about the times my mother was happy. The times she was with Paul-Henri. And while hearing she gave up future happiness with him to keep me from being hurt is sad to hear—”

  “It did not help anyway.”

  “But it fills my heart to know she loved me that much,” I said, squeezing her hand.

  “Are you going to keep trying to find out who your father is?” she asked.

  “I honestly don’t know. Probably. It all depends on whether I can get the means to test a sample from one of the men whose genes can definitively be matched to mine. I can’t see Ermo Colle or Rollie and Moran willingly take the test. It could have been easily accomplished years ago when I didn’t have a clue about what the outcome would have meant. Art runs through my veins as surely as does anyone else’s blood. And art is a connector between me and all of these men. Regardless of who I’m related to, for me to recognize what I want to choose to do, I must see the outcome as a true bond instead of some forgery concocted for their own means. The thing they each fear from me the most isn’t something I’ve brought to the party. If I continue with this, I need to find a way that not only keeps from masking the truth, but won’t bind me to a conundrum they’ve created themselves. No matter whose daughter I truly am, I’m still my own person. Their names, their plans…can’t dictate my future.”

  Tears glistened in Margarite’s dark eyes, and I knew similar tears shined i
n my own. Eyes exactly like my mother’s.

  “Did Margarite tell you what you needed to know?” Jack asked when he arrived for dinner that evening. He’d been involved in Rollie’s interrogation at Scotland Yard, but he gave me enough information to assume there was still much they needed to know. They were at least able to get him remanded into custody, despite a high-priced solicitor turning up to pitch for bail.

  I’d napped after Margarite left, trying to keep myself from thinking too hard about what we’d discussed. Just before Jack arrived, I ordered room service and requested champagne. I put on a long black velvet party gown to hide the repairs on my leg and added a pair of my mother’s chandelier earrings to keep attention on the part of me that wanted to smile.

  “She told me things I needed to hear,” I said. “No great revelations. No absolute truths. But I do recognize I want to keep going with this investigation on her death. If you’ll help me, of course. I want to know the truth about her death. If one—or other—parties should be blamed, I want them to pay for their deeds. However, if accidents truly happened, I want to turn it over to karma and brush the residue of memories and regrets from my hands.”

  We sat at the small round table in the corner of the room. Jack poured the wine and handed me a glass. A plate of artichoke and stuffed mushroom hors d’oeuvres sat between us, and the steak and potato main course stayed warm in the heated container on the cloth-covered shelf of the rolling cart I’d left by the door. I wanted food to warm and strengthen me tonight.

  “You realize,” Jack said, taking a sip of the wine, “even if no one is guilty of your mother’s death, if we reach a conclusion on the heist mission we’re on now, one of the men your mother knew and cared about will be in jail. Whether it’s Ermo Colle, or Paul-Henri’s relatives.”

  “Que sera, sera.”

  “You’re sounding very philosophical.” His teal eyes held my gaze. Frankly, I didn’t want to look away.

  I sipped from my glass. “I’m just realistic.” I smiled.

  Jack frowned. “You know, that song always bothered me. The way a happy feeling and melody was put to such ambiguous words.”

  “There’s a lot of ambiguity and bittersweet aspects to life. Like the Caravaggio painting Nico and I set out to return to the owner, only to see it start a chain reaction that ended up with more people hurt—or worse. However, the family whose plight started the whole endeavor, the ones who hadn’t had the painting in their home for several generations, they’ll receive back the gift originally stolen from them. Dozens of family members have been born since the painting disappeared and never knew its tie to them. Other older ones died years ago without knowing what happened to the masterpiece. And though they’d missed seeing it for years, it will again hold a place of honor and make family members smile every day.”

  “Despite the fact you risked your own life and reputation to return it to them.”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  He grinned and said in his Southern Charmer voice, “You can give a guy a heart attack always doing those kinds of right things.”

  I laced the fingers of my left hand with his. “Much like art, the interpretation of acts depends on who is looking at the pictured events.” I raised my glass and smiled. “Let’s toast to happiness. I think my mother would like that.”

  Our glasses made a lovely tingling clink.

  “So you’re happy?” he asked.

  “I’d be happier if you’d spend the night.”

  “I believe that can be arranged.” He stood and pulled me into his arms. Dinner could wait.

  Duty, however, could not. His phone rang and I returned to my chair.

  “What? How?” he asked.

  I heard loud chatter over his phone, but I couldn’t make out the words. On the other hand, Jack’s rapidly darkening face was easy to read.

  “Yes, right. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  He hung up the phone and began apologizing.

  “It’s fine, I get it.” I held up a hand. “This kind of thing goes with the job.”

  “You don’t understand. Rollie is gone.”

  “His lawyer got him released on bail?”

  “No, he apparently had help within the police department.”

  Who needs bail money when bribery works so much faster? Before we had a chance to talk further, my phone rang.

  “Would you mind handing it to me please? It’s on the lamp table.” I pointed.

  Jack glanced at the screen. “It’s Max. You sure you want to take it?”

  “If I don’t answer now, he’ll just keep calling.” I held out a hand. “Hello, Max.”

  “Why did you let me think this Caravaggio is an original? I trusted your judgement and now I look like a laughing stock!”

  I let him rant on for another half-minute, but the upshot of the conversation was the Caravaggio in the tube that he took back to New York after cutting through miles of red tape was the second copy that disappeared ahead of us gaining the one we took to Barcelona. When he emailed me a picture of the forger’s mark that appeared near the lower right corner, the confirmation was complete.

  “Max, it had to be switched sometime after you got it from Cassie’s. It hadn’t been out of my possession except when it was in the hotel vault. The copy you have was stolen from Scotland Yard last Thursday. It obviously didn’t leave the building, and the switch was made when you were there.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Superintendent Whatley told us about its disappearance out of property on Friday, just before we flew to Barcelona.”

  Max spluttered. “It wasn’t out of my sight either, and locked up in a safe otherwise. How could this have happened?”

  Jack and I stared at one another as I said, “You had to go to Scotland Yard with the painting, right? And to offices of several government officials?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have to assume whoever stole the copy from Scotland Yard used one of your meetings to switch the Caravaggios.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Did you ever leave the painting alone in a room? Or were you distracted at any time the Caravaggio was accessible to another person?”

  “Hmm…I need to think about this. I may need you to do some investigation from your end as well. Let me make some calls.”

  “Fine. Talk to you later, Max,” I said, then I turned off my cellphone. I looked at Jack. “He’ll likely try to call me all night. I’m going to have the desk hold any calls I get on the hotel line, but I’ll tell them to put through any from you.”

  He nodded. “The question is, did whoever helped Rollie escape also switch the copies? Or are there two Moran moles we need to find in Scotland Yard and/or British government?”

  “My guess is the latter.”

  “Unfortunately, I agree.”

  Jack never returned or called, but when I went downstairs the next morning to go for coffee and a donut, the Serbian desk clerk smiled and handed me eighteen phone messages from Max saying “call right away.” I handed the stack back to him and said, “Please throw these in the trash.”

  Two children and their mother sat on one of the sofas in the lounge area, giggling and pointing out the front window. My newspaper reader was gone.

  “The older dark-haired man…” I pointed toward the sofas. “Did he check out?”

  The clerk nodded. “Yesterday evening.”

  I’d never even talked to him, but for some reason I missed him. Just seeing that recurring presence, I supposed.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  About two weeks after Barcelona, I was back in the office and going over construction invoices when I received a phone call from Danny Williams, Jack’s techy friend. It amazed me the people I could get to know because of Jack, and know them even better when he wasn’t leading the conversation. Even learn they h
ad a first name.

  “Hi, Danny, what’s up?”

  “How you moving, Blondie?” he asked.

  Okay, maybe getting to know some people better wasn’t always the best idea. Especially when they’re young and cocky. “I’m off crutches but staying away from heels.”

  “Balance still suck?”

  “Is this some kind of pep talk? Because if it is—”

  “I just want to make sure you can get to the Tate without falling down.” He chuckled.

  “What? Why?”

  “The face you gave me is moving. Entered the front door two minutes ago.”

  “I’m leaving now.”

  “Call me when you get close to the museum, and I’ll give you an updated location.”

  “Will do.” I was already pulling on my coat and hurrying as fast as I dared down the stairs. My slower-than-normal pace allowed me to use the taxi app at the same time, and once I got to street level I only had a few minutes’ wait time in the frigid February temps.

  “The Tate Modern,” I told the cabbie. “And please hurry whenever possible.”

  “Will do.”

  Once I started thinking about everything that happened, how Rollie disappeared as well as the Caravaggio, I began shifting puzzle pieces to try to determine who was behind the vanishing acts. I located photos of various suspects. Some I could get online, others from security sources, and I went by Danny Williams’s command center one afternoon to get reacquainted with the sharp-eyed guy and see if I could get him to do me a favor. There was one picture in particular I felt played the biggest behind-the-scenes role in what ultimately occurred.

  When Danny ran that photo through one of his facial recognition programs, he confirmed my hypothesis. This person became The Face, and Danny spent the last week and a half watching to see if the person showed up anywhere in London on CCTV.

  The cab moved through the surge-and-stop traffic, and I cursed my luck this happened in the middle of the day. The Tube would have been faster, but too many long walks and flights of stairs kept me from trying to use the system yet. I’d only been back in the office two days. As soon as I could see the Tate building in the distance, I phoned Williams.