Sharon took a large sip from her glass. The fact that she was flying to Oklahoma in a private jet was almost uncanny. After all, only last week, she had flown there in economy. Now, she was settling into a luxurious armchair, sipping expensive Champagne. If someone were to tell her that the next time she’d hop on a plane, it would be like this, she would have sent them for psychiatric observation without batting an eye.
Sharon’s gaze followed the tiny bubbles floating in the transparent golden liquid while her mind drifted to Chris. How she wished she could have shared this moment with him. As far as she was concerned, traveling together with Jacob and Will was no less surreal than the transportation method they were using to arrive at their destination. On the one hand, there stood that subtle tension between her and Jacob; on the other hand, there were the blunt and shameless flirtations coming from Will. Between the two of them, she felt caught between a rock and a hard place. She might have been able to handle each of them separately, but together? That was a much more challenging mission.
“Is everything all right, Sharon?”
“Yes, I guess I’m just excited,” she replied with a shy smile and took another sip.
Several hours afterward, the plane landed safely at Tulsa International Airport, and the four of them were on their way to Fairland. In contrast to New York’s skyscrapers, most of the buildings here were only a few stories high, complementing the small town far from the metropolis. A short hour later, they arrived at the familiar house, colored in a creamy white except for the red front door. Jacob rang the doorbell and waited for an answer.
After a short moment, the door opened and there stood Rebecca Hershenberg to greet them.
“I can’t believe you’re here! How wonderful!” She smiled broadly. “How did you hear the good news so soon?”
Jacob and Sharon exchanged confused looks between them. “What do you mean, Rebecca?” he asked.
“You won’t believe this, but Brandon finally woke up from his coma!” she exclaimed excitedly. “It happened last night,” she explained. “Since it was late, I went to the hospital by myself and let Becky enjoy a few hours of sleep. She’s still drained from everything she’s been through.” Rebecca gave them a meaningful look. “Justin drove her to the hospital this morning, and she stayed there. She’s supposed to come back soon. She’ll be so happy to see you!”
“That’s great!” called Jacob. “What’s his condition?”
“When I got there, he was still hazy from the medication,” she grimaced. “But perhaps it was for the best because I wouldn’t have even known how to start explaining to him who I am and what happened to his parents . . .” Rebecca wiped at her tears. “I talked to his doctors; they said it would be a long and intense rehabilitation process – and expensive, too,” she heaved a worried sigh, “but there’s a good chance that he’ll be fully recovered within a year.”
“That’s wonderful news!” said Sharon. Rebecca smiled at her and Jacob, but then she noticed the two other guests.
“And you are . . .?” she asked amicably, with a hint of suspicion.
“We also have good news,” revealed Sharon. “I think I’ve figured out what Emily had done with Helborgen’s money.”
The warmness disappeared from Rebecca’s face. “This money has only brought horrible things into our lives,” she avowed sullenly. “My daughter is dead. The father of my grandchildren was executed. My grandson almost didn’t make it out alive, and my granddaughter is traumatized. This money has been like a curse on this family.” Her hands trembled. “It’d be better if we never found it.”
“I understand how you feel,” Sharon said softly, “but you should know that Emily turned a bad thing into something good.” She looked into her eyes earnestly. “She realized there are far more valuable things than money, like a picture on the wall that would always remind her who she really was and what she was destined to be,” stressed Sharon, “whether in international exhibitions or among the walls of the local college. She was an artist in every fiber of her being, and no one could ever take it away from her.” Sharon paused, letting her words linger. “Please, give us a chance.”
Rebecca’s eyes glistened. “Come in,” she sighed.
CHAPTER 68
September 28, 2013. Fairland, Oklahoma
Rebecca opened the door wide and stepped aside as the guests entered. They turned to the living room and stopped before the impressive painting above the mantelpiece.
The large eye gave them a meaningful gaze. The brilliant hues of green inside the iris seemed to glow on the canvas.
Emily was right, thought Sharon. This was, without a doubt, the lost paradise known as the Garden of Eden. The meticulously-drawn portrait of Adam and Eve, just a moment before biting into the forbidden fruit, made her wonder. This garden had been the place where the first lie – a lie with fatal consequences – was born, just like this house, where this painting was stashed all along, had been the Mitchells’ false paradise. Their fate was bound together.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth . . .” Sharon murmured the Bible verse to herself. It seemed as though Emily hadn’t been able to break away from her birth religion after all. This was her own little reminder, a well-kept secret on display in plain sight. The eye, like a mirror, reflected, on the one hand, the celestial cloud-swept sky known to all of Magritte’s fans, and, on the other hand, the ancient and enchanted garden that had hypnotized Sharon on her last visit to this house; heaven and earth, as mentioned in the very first sentence in the Bible. Two halves of creation – opposites that complement one another – where it is not possible to fully comprehend the meaning of one without the other.
Just like a false mirror . . . thought Sharon.
“It sure seems like the work of Magritte,” Will said enthusiastically.
Cole Evergreen nodded in agreement. “Now we have to make sure it actually is.” He placed his leather briefcase on the coffee table and pulled out a kit of several vials containing unidentified fluids, thin cotton swabs resembling Q-tips, and binocular magnifying glasses. “Obviously, it goes without saying that a comprehensive authenticity check should be performed in a lab to determine with certainty if this painting is an original Magritte or perhaps a skillful copycat artist,” he explained in an authoritative tone, “but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Hold on,” Rebecca interjected. “This painting belonged to Becky’s mother, and she should be the one to make this decision.”
“What decision should I make?” Becky’s voice was heard, followed by the sound of the door being shut. When she came into the living room, she noticed the familiar faces of Jacob and Sharon. She ran toward them.
“Uncle Jake! Sharon!” she cried excitedly. “Have you heard that Brandon woke up?”
“Yes, kiddo.” Jacob hugged her. “Brandon is a fighter; I knew he wouldn’t give up that easily.”
“I’m so glad you’re here.” As Becky spoke, she noticed the presence of the other two guests.
“Becky, I’d like to meet Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Evergreen,” explained Jacob in response to her inquisitive look. “They came here to help us. We think we know where your mother stored the money.”
Becky’s eyes widened in astonishment. “I can’t believe it! Where?” she asked, looking upward at the tall Jacob standing beneath the hung picture.
“You’re looking at it.”
EPILOGUE
October 4, 2013. Manhattan, New York
“And here we are alone. And only one of us is holding a gun . . .” Ray Helborgen’s voice echoed in the background.
Sharon woke up in a panic but was relieved to find that she was tucked under her blanket, safe from harm. It was just a nightmare. Ray Helborgen would spend the rest of his life locked behind bars. She had nothing to worry about.
She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the alarm clock standing on her nightstand: it was almost 9:00 a.m. On any other day of the week, she would have already bee
n in her prime, fully awake. But today was Sunday. A day off, free from unresolved cases hovering above her head.
Sharon wondered how Jacob was spending his first weekend as an official New Yorker. She noted to herself to ask her mom to invite him over for a home-cooked meal sometime this week. After all, they were neighbors now.
As a senior marshal, Jacob faced a rather difficult dilemma when the current value of the painting was calculated and revealed: three and a half million dollars – almost twice as much as Max had stolen from the Helborgens in the first place. And yet, no formal complaint had ever been filed. Besides, returning a considerable amount of money to a crime family wasn’t at the top of this marshal’s priorities. Although the letter of the law might have required further investigation in favor of Helborgen, the spirit of justice was with Becky and her family. The Webbers had lost so much because of Ray and his crime syndicate, and they didn’t owe them a single thing anymore.
A heartwarming feeling took over Sharon as she remembered how Jacob and Becky looked at the familiar picture, the uncle’s arm around the shoulders of his beloved niece. Their familial loyalty was stronger than any blood connection.
Sharon knew that it hadn’t been easy for Becky to agree to sell the painting to William McKenzie. To her, this picture was a symbol that always reminded her of her mother; she didn’t care about its monetary value. Nevertheless, life wasn’t just about clear black and white choices. This painting might have been an important and meaningful memory, but her brother’s life was more important. The rehabilitation process was expected to be very expensive, yet she had just been orphaned, and her grandmother was long since retired. Her family needed this.
It was a decision of past versus future, heritage versus vision, and she chose to look ahead. Sharon was delighted to see, once again, the maturity the young girl displayed in the manner she explained her choices. She was intrigued to see ahead to the amazing woman she would become.
Now, when the mystery had finally been solved, and there were no more question marks or elusive killers to catch, Sharon could afford herself a few more hours of sleep. Today she had no reason to rush. She closed her eyes and tried to fall back into the warmth of the sheets, but something prevented her from doing so. She stretched her hand to the far end of the nightstand and retrieved her cell phone.
“It’s Sunday,” mumbled Chris, half-asleep.
“I know,” she chuckled.
She looked at the message screen. There were no new messages or missed calls. In her world, this was very good news. Still, a slight crease of disappointment formed between her eyes.
“What are you doing back there?” asked Chris, his voice already more awake.
“Nothing, just checking that everything’s all right.”
“Spending Sunday morning without chasing dangerous criminals or having a stressful family brunch? You must be bored out of your mind.”
“That’s right. And what are you going to do about it?” she challenged him, amused.
“Hmm . . . Good question,” he answered and enveloped her body with his big arms, gently stroking her lower back. “How about a cross-country road trip from New York to California? A friend of mine from work just offered me his motorhome for sale at a very reasonable price,” he said with grave seriousness, although it was clear that he was joking.
“I think I’ll pass,” she laughed. “Anyway, I think we’ll need more than one day off for that.” She glared at him with a chiding look, which instantly dissolved in the face of her boyfriend’s mischievous grin. Chris had a special talent for making her laugh. It was one of the things she loved most about him.
“All right,” continued Chris. “Let’s move on to option ‘B’: a picnic in Central Park! You always complain that you don’t get to go there enough.”
Sharon chanced a glance at the window. Tiny drops of rain covered the glass, but the sky seemed to be clearing up a bit.
“Getting warmer . . .” she answered playfully. “But when you say picnic, do you actually mean a hot dog from the stand on the corner of Fifty-ninth and Fifth Avenue?” She creased her forehead in suspicion.
“You read me like an open book,” he admitted.
“Too bad it’s a suspense thriller and not a romance novel,” she grumbled.
Chris stifled a giggle. “All right, here’s my final offer: how about I make us some pancakes, and we spend the rest of the day in bed?”
Like a sign from above, the sound of the growing rain crept to her ears.
“Sounds perfect.”
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Although art lovers from all over the globe would have liked to see another work by the talented Surrealist artist René Magritte found, the discovery of the “twin picture” to Magritte’s original painting, “The False Mirror”, is only a figment of my imagination. The idea came to me after spending a rainy day at the Museum of Modern Art – primarily known as MoMa – in Manhattan, in October of 2013. At that time, I had begun working on the outline of my second novel, and Magritte’s work, displayed at a special exhibition on the sixth floor, was engraved in my mind. I particularly remembered the mesmerizing picture of an enormous eye encompassing a cloud-swept sky, known as The False Mirror.
At first, I didn’t know exactly how my “artistic” decision would fit into the framework of a suspense novel. But eventually, the plot lines were spun around it so naturally that it made me wonder if this fortunate coincidence had been nothing more than the literary fate of my story. I was especially thankful for the rainy day in Manhattan that forced me to find shelter at the Museum of Modern Art nearby. I don’t think I could have imagined a more appropriate ending to my story.
As far as I’m concerned, this is only one of many examples of the way the written word draws inspiration from everyday events, how reality affects the imagination, and in what manner a few solitary moments (or in my case, a few hours) in the authors’ lives can eventually seal the fate of their books.
I’m looking forward to many more moments such as these.
Dana
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THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FALSE MIRROR
The False Mirror Page 21
