Michelangelo's Ghost

by Gigi Pandian

  “North knew you were alive,” I said. “He’s the one who helped you with a favor this week.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Why don’t you tell me your side?” I wondered how quickly she could spin things. She hadn’t intended to be found out, but did she have a cover story in place?

  She appraised me for a few moments. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I never meant to hurt anyone. Emotionally, I mean. I’ve never physically harmed anyone, even by accident. Ever. I’m not lying about that.”

  Lane had loved her. I knew that much, though I wasn’t going to tell her that. I was doing enough by hearing her out.

  “From a young age,” she continued, “I realized I could blend in anywhere I went. With my mixed features, people always assumed I was whatever they were. I’m sure you’ve experienced that.”

  “Our ethnically ambiguous looks.” It was true, but I didn’t want to bond with Ava right then. Even though one particularly extreme example popped into my head. When I was in graduate school, one of my Turkish colleagues had been positive I was of Turkish descent. That wasn’t an uncommon experience for me, except that in this case my colleague insisted even after I’d shown him photos of me as a small child with my Anglo father and south Indian mother. It’s human nature to want people to be like ourselves.

  Lane had once said there was another thief who was more of a chameleon than he was. It was Ava he’d been thinking about. Lane was good at blending in not because of his natural features, which were so striking they were difficult to disguise, but because he’d lived in so many countries over the course of his life. He picked up the mannerisms and languages, so with only the smallest of alterations to his physical appearance, such as wearing contact lenses, slicking his hair back, and slouching, he could seem like a completely different person.

  “Some of my family in Spain joined the Basque separatist movement, so I left for university in England to escape becoming embroiled in that mess. I did gymnastics, but I was too tall to be competitive. At least in legitimate circles. But that’s why I got tapped by someone you know.”

  “Henry North.”

  Ava nodded. “He thought I could be an asset. I met Lane through him. I was only nineteen at the time, and Lane was a few years older, just finishing his degree.”

  “I thought—”

  “You’re right that Lane was never officially part of the organization. He preferred to stay a lone wolf. That way he could choose to steal things only from rich people’s private collections.” She rolled her eyes. “But he moved in the same circles.”

  I tensed as she so easily dismissed Lane’s morals.

  “He and I went our separate ways after he graduated,” she continued.

  “It wasn’t your ‘death’ that broke you up?”

  “No. He left me because he disagreed with my principles.” She bit her lip. “If only I’d let him talk me out of it, I never would have been framed for murder.”

  “Framed,” I repeated.

  “Yes, framed,” she snapped. “A less scrupulous thief I was working with accidentally killed a security guard. He made it look like I was the culprit, since my calling card was there. I know it was stupid to use one at all, but I was young and arrogant. It was a rush to see my calling card in newspapers around the world, with the authorities baffled. But that poor guard…I never would have hurt him if I’d been working on my own. That’s when I faked my death. I stopped using my calling cards. Everything I do now is on a much smaller scale and without recognition. Only enough to get by.”

  “But your calling card in our room—”

  “It fell out of my old black bag that held the rope ladder we used to break into the Park of Monsters. I brought the bag with me because I did reconnaissance ahead of time and knew we might need to use it. I hadn’t used it in years, and it ripped that night when Mahilan fell on the stairs. It must have torn open the secret pocket where I kept an extra card.”

  “How could you do all this, with Carey?”

  She choked back a sob. “I did it all for him. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. He was a toddler when I faked my death. He doesn’t know…He thinks his mother is dead. He believes I’m his aunt who adopted him.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “My family in Japan doesn’t know I exist, so I didn’t have many choices. I left him with relatives in Spain until he was old enough to go to boarding school. They loved him but weren’t a good influence. Even though I haven’t been able to be physically present, I’ve written and talked to him every day of his life. He knows I love him more than anything in the world.”

  I didn’t know what to believe.

  “You think I wanted this life?” she shouted into the trees.

  “Why are you here, Ava? What’s your game?”

  “It’s not a game. I’m so tired of running. Carey is old enough and clever enough that he’s begun asking questions. And I missed Lane. You know what a wonderful man he is. When he appeared in the news last year, I looked him up. I didn’t reveal myself to him, because I didn’t know if I could trust him not to reveal that I was alive. North was the only person from my old life who knew. He keeps secrets, for a price. Lane, however, doesn’t have a price. I had to know if there might be a chance for us.”

  “You wanted to get back together with him.”

  “I did. But I wasn’t sure if he was seeing anyone. It wasn’t difficult to find out about you. Once I did, I had to find out if you were a real threat. I had to find out how Lane felt about you.”

  I was now so tense I was sure my neck would snap if I moved too quickly. “So you found a way to get to me. Through my brother.”

  Chapter 40

  “You’re right,” she said, blinking back tears. “That’s what I did. I arranged to ‘accidentally’ meet Mahilan. I do a lot of business around the world—just not the kind of business I tell people. It was easy. He’s a really sociable guy. He goes to lots of young lawyer mixers in Los Angeles. I thought he’d be a shallow playboy, since that’s what he seems to be on the surface. But he’s not.”

  “And you got him to propose a weekend trip to San Francisco where you’d get to meet me.”

  “I did. And by the time I’d realized what was happening, it was too late to back out.”

  “What was happening?”

  She braced her shoulders and met my gaze. “I was falling in love with Mahilan.”

  “You don’t seriously expect me to believe—”

  “Do you want to hear the whole story or not?”

  I remained silent.

  “When we met at dinner, I thought it was obvious that you weren’t seeing Lane. It was only after I heard you saying his name while looking at your phone that I knew I’d need to call in a favor from North to make sure you didn’t talk to him while we were here. That photograph of the raven on your phone, it’s from him, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know?” If she told me she had an identical one, I didn’t think I’d be able to stop myself from pushing her into the hillside brambles.

  “It’s worth a fortune, Jaya. I have a trained eye. Even in a picture, I can tell.”

  “That little bird is only a trinket.” But as I said the words, I knew they weren’t true. I’d known it was special as soon as I’d seen it.

  “No need to get defensive. It’s not enough of a fortune to make thieves like Lane and me go after it, so don’t worry, I don’t think he stole it for you. But it’s clear it’s an original work of art by a master craftsman. Probably worth thousands of dollars. And what’s even clearer is that the person who gave it to you loves you very much.”

  “The symbol of the Raven of Lisbon. The protector.”

  She nodded. “You really fooled me, Jaya. Not only because you said you weren’t in a relationship, but because of how your face lit up when you talked about Sanjay. I know I interpreted that w
rong, but at the same time, I don’t think I really did. I think you’re in love with both of them.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’m getting off track. Your love life is your concern. Now that I’ve met your brother, I truly mean that. I’m not trying to get in between you and Lane. That’s why I’m going to tell you the truth.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I’m the one who searched your office, looking through Lazzaro’s notebooks.”

  “I knew it,” I whispered. Granted, I’d only suspected it for the last hour, since speaking with Lane. But still.

  “You’d told Mahilan about the treasure earlier that day, and I knew you were going to see the woman who’d given them to you who was at the hospital. So I thought there would be time to slip into your office while you were gone.”

  “And you have the skills to do so quickly, without being detected.”

  She nodded. “Because of Carey, I don’t take big risks. But that also means I don’t have big payoffs. That school of his is so expensive. I don’t spend any money on myself, but I’m still drowning. That’s why when I heard about this find you were on to, I thought I could tag along…”

  “And steal it out from under me.”

  “It sounds so crass when you put it like that.”

  “It is crass. You broke into my office to look at Lazzaro Allegri’s sketchbooks.”

  “I already admitted that.”

  “And this morning you pretended to sleep in so you could look at the research I found at the library yesterday. You hadn’t expected me to come back early, so when you heard the key you had no choice but to leave things as they were and hop quickly into the shower, unintentionally moving your own bag so the card fell out.”

  “Very good.”

  “That sketchbook of yours,” I said. “That’s how you case places. Nobody would think twice about a beautiful artist sketching in her notebook.”

  Ava tilted her head in admiration. “Astute observation, Jaya. Guilty as charged.”

  I could barely get the next words out of my mouth. “You made Lilith Vine overdose.”

  “Definitely not guilty.” She trembled. “If what you say is true, and someone really did kill her, I’m as confused—and scared—as you.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds. I didn’t know what to believe.

  “Think about the timing,” she continued. “I only learned of these paintings when you told Mahilan about them in San Francisco. Wasn’t Lilith Vine already on the way to the hospital?”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it. She had a point.

  “Then why are you pretending to be the ghost?”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m not guilty of being our friendly neighborhood ghost. I was with you and Mahilan when we saw it, remember?”

  “I’m not only talking about the Park of Monsters. I mean this afternoon.”

  Ava’s mouth fell open. “You saw it? You saw it again?”

  “Him. Her. The person. Not an ‘it.’ But yes. I saw the ghost impersonator on the roof of the kitchen.” I thought back to the figure in flowing black robes. I imagined both the mourning dress of a devastated widow and the billowing hooded cape of a soldier. No way to tell if it was a woman, a man, or anything else.

  Ava hugged her arms to her chest. “The ghost was above us when we were cooking?”

  “It’s creepy, isn’t it? Or it would be if I didn’t know it was you. Mahilan admitted you got up from the table for a few minutes.”

  “That’s what you were asking him,” she murmured. “I went to the bathroom for two minutes. Maybe three. You said the ghost was on that high roof? And presumably not dressed in jeans and a floral print blouse. How am I supposed to have changed clothes and shimmied up to the roof in that amount of time?”

  Even Sanjay’s quick-change magician friends wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. “Fine. But at the Park—”

  “Mahilan had hold of both of our hands,” Ava said. “The three of us ran away from it together.”

  “It was dark,” I said weakly. “You could have slipped away.” But the more I thought about our encounter with the ghost, the more I kept coming back to how genuinely worried Ava was when Mahilan had fallen down the mudslide. And I hated to admit it, but her explanations weren’t hollow excuses. Ava as the culprit didn’t fit.

  “If you asked Mahilan,” she said, “I’m sure he’d tell you the same thing about being together when we saw that thing at the Park. However, I don’t advise you tell him anything about our conversation.”

  “Why not? It’s better to have his heart broken sooner rather than later.”

  “I’m not going to break his heart.” Her stone-cold words brought home her conviction.

  “How can I believe you?”

  “Even if you don’t believe me, I’ll give you a better reason to keep your mouth shut: mutually assured destruction. If you try to bring me down, I’m bringing you and Lane Peters down with me.”

  Chapter 41

  “I don’t mean to threaten you,” Ava said hastily.

  “Mutually assured destruction certainly sounds like a threat.”

  “It’s not. Really.” She clasped her hands together. Not exactly a pleading gesture, but close. “Okay. Maybe it is. But it doesn’t have to be. What I mean is that I really do want to put my old life behind me and start a new one with Mahilan and Carey. You gave Lane a second chance. Why not me?”

  “You can’t seriously think I’d let you start a life with my brother—”

  “How is it different from what you’ve got with Lane?”

  “He told me the truth about what he did. It was difficult for him, I know, but he did it. He trusted me.”

  “It’s not that simple. I have Carey to think about.”

  “Your logic doesn’t hold. Mahilan makes an obscene amount of money. If you’re truly after financial security, trusting that he’ll take you as you are seems like a much less risky endeavor than pinning your hopes on a treasure that even Lane Peters doesn’t think exists.”

  “And rely on a man? No thank you. I love him, but I’m not going to be dependent. Hold on. Lane doesn’t think Lazzaro’s paintings exist?”

  I shook my head. “And he’s pretty convincing. He gave two reasons. First, we have very little evidence the paintings were saved: only Lazzaro’s notes that hint he left the artwork in his studio at the Park of Monsters and his cousin Felix Rossi’s letter saying his wife wanted to save Lazzaro’s art. You saw the materials. You know there aren’t additional facts to support the idea.”

  Ava swore. “But you seemed so sure.”

  “I’ve been known to throw myself wholeheartedly into everything I do, regardless. I’m not so great at moderation. Anything less than a 5K run isn’t worth it, the spicier the food the better, and I go all in when I’m following a lead. Shouldn’t you have figured that out, since you’re ‘so great at reading people’?”

  “What,” Ava said coldly, “is the other reason Lane doesn’t think the paintings exist?”

  “It’s been nearly five centuries. They might technically exist, but even if they do, there’s no way they won’t have been destroyed by nature.”

  Ava spun around and cursed at the trees. “Then why are we even here?”

  “I thought we were having a lovely family holiday.”

  “Don’t be cute.”

  “Lazzaro believed his art would survive. He must have had a reason to do so.”

  “Faith?” Ava’s lip curled. “That’s why you follow a lead? Blind faith?”

  “What’s wrong with a little faith? Especially when it’s not blind. Even if the paintings have mostly disintegrated, I’m hopeful they’ll still have some value to scholars. His work could link Italy and India in ways never before seen during the Renaissance. And before the Mughal Empire took hold in India. Mughal art is what t
he world is most familiar with. It’s a big deal. But only to academics, not to the private underworld art market.”

  “You’re wrong. I know collectors who’ve paid millions for fragments of old parchments just because of who once touched them.”

  “You might be right, but I thought you weren’t big on taking risks.”

  She fidgeted. “I need to think.”

  “You don’t have long. Lane will be here this afternoon. If you want to pack up your bags, I can find a way to keep Mahilan occupied for a little while.”

  “I’m not leaving him.”

  I groaned. We were going around in circles. “Why shouldn’t I turn you in right now?” I asked. “Lane can disappear, so whatever you have on him won’t matter. And you don’t have anything on me. I know I’d be risking my relationship with Lane, but I don’t know what kind of relationship it is anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure Lane would stay off the grid entirely. I know he wouldn’t be able to resist seeing someone.”

  “If I ended it, he wouldn’t contact me.”

  “I’m not talking about you. I mean Carey.”

  The creeping suspicion pushed its way back to the forefront of my mind. I tried to reject it yet again. Ava was an expert liar. She was messing with my head.

  “Lane knows your son?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “Lancelot Caravaggio Peters more than knows him. Carey is short for Caravaggio. He’s named after his father.”

  Carey’s name. Ava wasn’t lying.

  Chapter 42

  I was glad I wasn’t standing too close to the edge of the high terrace, because all of a sudden my legs didn’t feel so steady.

  “What’s the matter, Jaya?” Ava said. “I thought you two were completely honest with each other in every regard.”

  “I don’t believe you.” The trees spun. The scent of pine was suddenly too much for me. I must have been missing something. Lane wouldn’t have withheld something like this from me.