“How did the door open?” asked Camille. “I don’t understand—what happened?”
“I don’t know,” Art said. “The door was locked, so I don’t know how . . .”
Art paused.
“Of course,” he finally said.
“Of course?” said Camille. “What are you talking about?”
Art went over to his backpack and dumped the contents of the front pocket onto the table. Coins scattered and rolled all over. The boy reached down and grabbed something from the pile.
“This!” he said. He held up the small white plastic card they had found in the backpack.
“That?” said Camille. “Back at the museum you didn’t even know what that was.”
“I had amnesia,” he replied. “Remember?”
“So what is it?” the girl asked.
“It’s my father’s keycard to the museum,” the boy replied. “I must have backed into the keypad and accidentally activated the door.”
Art held the card in his hand. “My dad put it in my backpack before . . .”
“Before he saved you,” said Camille.
Art picked up the journal from the table and looked once again at the verso drawing. It was hard to believe that this water stain—shaped like a large spider—had caused so many problems. The journal, the boy had realized, was the only evidence that the van Gogh painting was a fake. Without the journal there was no way to prove that the canvas on which the fake van Gogh had been painted was the same canvas once used by a little-known French artist who happened to live at the same time as Vincent van Gogh. It was clear that several people wanted the journal destroyed—one hundred and eighty-three million dollars was a ton of money. Art knew that those people would do anything to destroy the journal. And if that happened, those people would win. His father’s death would be meaningless. Art would not let that happen.
“We need to call the police,” said Art.
“I thought you didn’t trust anyone,” said Camille.
“I told you that I trusted you,” he replied. “And your mother. And Detective Evans. Let’s start there, okay? Maybe that’ll be enough.”
Camille smiled. “I can’t wait to get home,” she said excitedly.
“Unfortunately,” said a voice from across the room, “that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
A tall man in a dark gray coat stepped from the shadows and pointed a gun directly at the kids.
Chapter 40
8:45 p.m.
Saturday, December 16
GWU Department of Fine Arts studio building, Washington, DC
Nigel Stenhouse could not believe his luck.
He had not only located the boy—he had actually found the spider itself.
Truth be told, it had not been difficult finding the boy and the girl in the large brick building. He had heard them stomping around upstairs as soon as he entered the front door. Getting into the large studio had also been a snap—picking the lock on a simple dead bolt had been child’s play. He had slipped in silently and watched from the shadows.
“Don’t try anything,” said Stenhouse as he made his way over to the large table with the computer. He waved his gun in the air for emphasis. The boy and the girl instinctively backed up against the wall. With his free hand, Stenhouse reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a small flash drive, which he inserted into a USB port on the computer. The processor started humming immediately. In a matter of seconds, the flash drive would forward every file on the computer to Dorchek Palmer. Once that action was complete, the flash drive would destroy the computer’s hard drive and every bit of data on it.
But while that process was under way, Stenhouse had other business to attend to. He pointed his gun at the boy, who stood on the far side of the table in front of the massive windows. “Hand over the journal,” Stenhouse said firmly.
The boy didn’t move.
“Hand over the journal,” repeated Stenhouse.
The girl, who stood next to the boy, looked over at her friend. She was clearly scared. “Give it to him, Art,” said the girl. “It’s not worth it.”
The boy still didn’t move. Stenhouse could hear the computer humming louder and louder. The destruct phase was almost complete.
“Listen to the girl,” said Stenhouse. “Give me the journal, and everything will be fine.”
The girl placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Please give it to him,” she implored. “I just want to go home.”
The boy finally spoke. “They’re never going to let us go home.”
Camille stared up at Art in disbelief. A moment ago they were preparing to call the police—she would have been back home within the hour. And now? Now she had a large man pointing a gun at her. And if Art was right, she was never going to make it home.
“What do you mean, they’re not going to let us go home?”
Art never took his eyes off the man. “He can’t let us go,” the boy said. His voice was calm and flat, which actually scared Camille more than if he had been showing some sort of emotion. “He’s destroying any evidence this journal ever existed. Do you hear the computer? It’s overheating. This guy’s destroying all the files. And even if he gets this journal too, that wouldn’t be enough. Do you think the National Gallery will pay a hundred and eighty-three million dollars for a painting if there’s any possibility it’s fake? Not a chance—so he has to get rid of everything.”
It took a moment for Camille to process what Art was saying. But when she did, she felt as though she had been punched in the gut. “He has to get rid of us,” she said. “We’re ‘everything.’”
Art nodded. “Just like they got rid of my dad.”
The man across the table smiled, which Camille found very creepy under the circumstances. “Bravo,” the man said. “You’re just like your dad—too smart for your own good. You’ve figured everything out—the fake painting, the spider, everything. But you’ve got one thing wrong—your dad’s not dead. At least not yet.”
Sometimes the world moves fast. It flies by in a blur. Hours seem like minutes, and minutes seem like seconds.
At other times—rare times—the clock almost stands still. Events unfold in slow motion. This was one of those times.
The words from the man with the gun seemed to hover in the air.
“Your . . . dad’s . . . not . . . dead.”
The words echoed in Art’s head.
The boy’s mind fought to make sense of the words. Maybe it was a trick. He struggled to reconcile what the man had just said with what Art had seen two days ago in an underground parking garage at the National Gallery of Art.
“My dad?” the boy said. “He’s alive?”
Art’s calm demeanor was gone in an instant.
“Yes,” said the man. “And if you cooperate, maybe he’ll stay that way.”
That had to be a lie. The people who had pursued them all day were about to commit the greatest art crime of all time—how could they leave any witnesses around? Art glanced down at Camille. Her eyes were ringed with red—she seemed on the verge of tears. He knew she was exhausted. It was time to end this.
“Your dad,” she said, “he’s still alive!” Her voice was quivering. A desperate hope hung in her words.
Art nodded. Maybe the man was telling the truth. Maybe. Or maybe it was just another lie in a day full of lies. But if there was a chance—even just a small chance—that his father was alive, then the boy had to find out.
Art looked down at the leather journal in his hand. It was the key to finding out whether his father was alive or not.
The boy stepped forward and dropped the journal onto the middle of the table. He then resumed his place against the wall next to Camille. His back pressed hard into the panel of cranks, levers, and gears that controlled the lights in the room.
“Smart boy,” the man said. “Now just stay where you are and don’t do anything stupid.”
Art never took hi
s eyes off the man. He put his left arm around Camille’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “You’ll see.”
“Very touching,” the man said as he bent over to retrieve the journal from the table.
The metal click was the first peculiar thing he noticed. It had come from the direction of the boy.
It’s hard to say what happened next. All Stenhouse could remember was that it happened fast. There had been no time to react.
There had been the sudden smile on the boy’s face—more of a smirk, really. Stenhouse should have shot the kid right then and there.
He remembered that the girl’s head snapped up toward the ceiling—the briefest hint of a smile starting to form on her face.
And there was also the sudden change in light—the intensity increased rapidly. It was as if Stenhouse had a spotlight on him.
Or perhaps it had been the whirring sound above him.
Stenhouse didn’t have time to process what was going on—he just knew it was going to be bad.
And it was.
Art had put his arm over the girl’s shoulder. Camille thought he had done this to comfort her. But as soon as the man had reached across the table to retrieve the journal, the girl had felt Art’s hand lift from her shoulder. There had been a flash of movement to her left and then a metal click.
It took a moment for Camille to realize what was going on. But when she did, she smiled—Art had released the lever on the light directly above the table.
Everything happened so fast after that.
The huge metal pendant lamp dropped like a stone. The sound of steel cables zipping through ancient pulleys filled the room. The light hit the man flush on his right shoulder, and his gun dropped to the floor. The man staggered back. Camille saw a look of surprise and then anger flash across the man’s face.
There was another click, and another, and another. Art was releasing the lights as quickly as he could.
The man stepped to his left and avoided a lamp that came to a stop just three feet from the floor. He looked up in triumph, but the victory was short-lived. The next light hit him directly on top of his head. The man dropped immediately to the floor. The clang echoed throughout the room.
“Wow,” Camille said. Wow. Maybe we would go home, after all.
Art ran over to the metal shelf and started rummaging through a plastic storage container. The bin was labeled OFFICE SUPPLIES.
“It’s in here somewhere,” he said. “Dad always kept some around.”
“Kept what?” Camille asked. “What are you looking for?”
“This!” Art exclaimed. He pulled a silver circular object from deep within the box and held it out for her to see.
“Duct tape?” the girl asked.
“You can do anything with duct tape,” said Art.
He made his way around the table to where the man lay on the floor. He could see that a giant red goose egg was already forming on the man’s forehead.
“Help me turn him over,” said Art.
“Why?” asked Camille. “We need to get out of here. There might be more of them nearby.”
“Trust me,” said Art. “Now quick, before he wakes up.”
Art grabbed the man by one arm and pulled. Once the boy had the man’s shoulder off the ground, Camille bent down and pushed. The man tumbled over on his stomach. The side of his face hit the wood floor with a thunk.
Art took the man’s arms and pulled them behind his back. The boy bound the man’s wrists, hands, and forearms together with the thick silver tape. Seconds later, the man’s ankles and shins were also bound together. Art then lifted the man’s face ever so slightly and put a short piece of duct tape across his mouth.
“He won’t be going anywhere soon,” Art said.
Camille agreed. The man was basically a duct tape mummy. Even with a lot of help and a sharp knife, it would likely take a half hour to free him. Art reached inside the man’s jacket and pulled out his cell phone. He then retrieved the journal from the table.
“So now we call the police?” asked Camille. “We’ve got one of the bad guys—and the journal.”
“Change of plans,” said Art. There was no longer any uncertainty in his voice; he was no longer a blank slate. Camille could see that he knew exactly who he was, why he was there, and what he was supposed to do.
“What do you mean, ‘change of plans’?” she asked nervously. “We’ve done everything we can do.”
“Not everything,” said Art. “Now I’ve got to save my dad.”
Chapter 41
9:07 p.m.
Saturday, December 16
Downtown streets, Washington, DC
Art pressed the folded-up piece of paper into Camille’s hand.
“Promise me,” he said.
Camille nodded as she stuffed the paper deep in her pocket. “I promise.”
“I have to do this,” he said. “I have to do it my way.”
“I know,” she said
She wanted to cry, but she held back the tears. He didn’t need to see her cry. He needed to believe in what he was going to do. Camille wondered whether she would ever see him again, but she kept those doubts to herself. The quiet boy she had met the night before no longer existed. Art was now Art—focused, intense, and incredibly determined.
The boy stepped out of the shadows of the alleyway and into the heavy snow that was falling. He glanced up and down the street while putting on the gloves from his backpack—Camille still wore his blue jacket—and then looked back at her.
“Wait five minutes,” he said.
Camille didn’t respond. A moment later Art disappeared into the thick white cover of the snow.
The temperature hovered just above zero, and the snow was dropping in thick sheets. It was the wind, however, that was truly brutal. It roared down the street and straight into his face. It didn’t matter which way the boy turned or which street he took, the wind always seemed to find him. His eyes watered, and his cheeks burned. Art could feel his jaw growing sore as the cold set in, deep in his head. He couldn’t bury his hands far enough into his jeans pockets. His whole body felt stiff and unnatural. The shoulder he had injured in the car wreck throbbed in pain. But none of that mattered. Although he had plenty of money for a cab, he had made the decision to walk. He wanted to be out in the cold.
Art had taken this walk before—with his father. After two days of not knowing his own name and not remembering anything about who he was, the boy now clung fiercely to every memory. Since his mother’s death, Art had spent almost every waking moment with his father. Art didn’t have any friends to speak of—he was never in one place long enough to really get to know anyone. Instead, he had traveled the world with his father, going from city to city and museum to museum. He had probably spent more time around great works of art than any other twelve-year-old on the planet. Art had seen things and visited places very few kids his age ever got to see—all thanks to his father.
It seemed strange, but the boy finally understood why his mind had shut down for the past two days. The doctor at the hospital had called it dissociative amnesia—a loss of memory from a traumatic event, to put it simply. Believing his father had died and then barely escaping with his own life probably fit the description of a “traumatic event.” Art now understood that his mind had simply been protecting him—his father was all he had.
The boy was still putting together some of the missing pieces from the past couple of days, and the hours following his father’s disappearance remained fuzzy. He vaguely remembered waking up in a maintenance closet at the museum. He had a faint memory of taking his backpack to the coat check and leaving it there. He remembered making his way to the room where he was found by the docent—a room filled with paintings by Vincent van Gogh. It was as if something deep inside of him had been pushing him along—guiding him down a path he was now determined to follow.
Ignoring the wind, he made his way down Seventeenth Street and
past the Old Executive Office Building. President Harry Truman, his father had once explained, despised the building—Truman thought it was ugly. Art thought the structure was beautiful and majestic, particularly at night. Continuing down Seventeenth Street, the boy passed the impressive stone façades of the buildings occupied by the Red Cross, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Organization of American States, all lit up beautifully. He continued south to Constitution Avenue and took a left. Directly across the street stood the Washington Monument, barely visible behind the thick wall of falling snow. Despite the cold, Art lingered there for a moment.
And that’s when the phone in his pocket started ringing.
It was about time.
Art slipped off a glove, removed the phone, and pushed the button on the screen. Someone started speaking before the boy had a chance to say anything.
“You were supposed to report in,” a voice said. “You’re late.”
The voice was much younger-sounding than Art had expected.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Art said.
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Art was tempted to say something else, but he knew he had to be patient. Even though his bare hand was freezing, he had to stick to his plan.
“I don’t make deals,” the voice finally said.
Art ignored that assertion. “My father for the journal. That’s the deal.”
Again there was silence.
“I don’t make deals,” the voice repeated.
Art knew the person on the other end of the phone was bluffing.
“You don’t have a choice,” Art said.
Silence.
Art had him.
“You have a deal,” the voice finally responded. “When? Where?”
“The Pantheon,” replied Art. “At exactly midnight. And if my father isn’t with you, I’ll know.”
“The Pantheon?” said the voice. “What are you talking about?”
The Van Gogh Deception Page 17
