Northern Light

by E. J. Russell

  Chapter Three

  Luke’s blood beat in his temples, his professional fury hopelessly tangled with his personal horror. Stefan had always been lean, but he’d never been gaunt. Not like this. Back at the conservatory, he’d supplemented his scholarship by modeling for the life drawing classes, his proportions perfect. Muscles smooth. Defined, but not outrageously cut.

  Now, with his cheekbones thrown into greater relief by the dark hollows under their crests and his stomach almost concave under his shrunken thermal Henley, the only thing he could model for would be a public service poster on eating disorders or, Godpleaseno, the consequences of unsafe sex in the days before antiretrovirals.

  Was this why Stefan had resorted to forging? Desperation? Luke lurched forward. Stefan’s eyes widened and he sucked in a breath, a hand rising as if to ward off the crazy man having a meltdown in his kitchen.

  “Do you even have a phone?” Luke’s voice grated on his own ears, harsh and over-loud. “I lost cell reception miles from this fricking mountain.”

  Stefan’s forehead puckered. “I’ve got a sat phone, but it only works if I take it down the hill and get clear of the tree-cover. Do you need to make a call?”

  “Not me. You.”

  “Me?” Stefan snorted. “Not likely. No one to talk to.”

  “What if you need a doctor? The hospital?” Luke shoved his fists in his pockets to keep himself from grabbing Stefan’s shoulders and shaking some sense into him. “Jesus, how do you refill your meds without a car?”

  Stefan’s humor-the-crazy-guy expression morphed into WTF. “What are you talking about? What meds?”

  “Aren’t you…you know.” Luke dropped his gaze, unable to look at Stefan’s face when he said it. “Sick. Positive.”

  The punch on his shoulder took Luke by surprise and he staggered back a step, his bad leg threatening to buckle.

  “You douchebag.” Stefan socked him again in the same spot. Shit, those bony knuckles were going to leave a bruise. “You think because I’m thin, I’ve got AIDS?”

  “You don’t?” Luke’s leg did buckle then, and he braced himself on the island’s pitted red Formica top. He closed his eyes for as long as it took him to thank God. When he opened them again, Stefan’s face was inches from his own, and the burn in his blue eyes made Luke glad the lopsided knife block on the counter was empty.

  “Only two men ever fucked me. You and Marius.”

  “Was Marius—”

  “As irony would have it, you asshole, Marius was in perfect health when his plane crashed.” Stefan’s voice wobbled on the last word. He swallowed and dashed a hand across his eyes. “What about you?” His voice steadied and he brushed his shaggy hair off his forehead. “Been celibate since I saw you last?”

  Jean-Pierre led the parade across Luke’s mind, followed by Klaus. Charles. Geordie. And a dozen others down the years, every fricking one of them a sad counterfeit of the man standing in front of him, all failed attempts to fill the Stefan-shaped gap on Luke’s emotional gallery wall. “Of course not. But—”

  “One of them share a little too much with you?”

  “No! I’m clean. I’m…wait…” Luke pinched the bridge of his nose and clenched his eyes shut. “Why are we having this conversation?”

  “You tell me. You brought it up with one of your patented assumptions.” Stefan backed up, leaned against the sink, and folded his arms. “Christ, Luke. Try asking the question before you pass judgment.” His frayed cuffs rucked up his arms, displaying the prominent bones of his wrists. His bare wrists.

  Luke hit pause on the Fuck, no loop running nonstop in his brain and pulled his head out of his ass long enough to see the light. “Where’s the Rolex?”

  Stefan shrugged, his expression stony. “Hocked it.”

  Luke’s gaze snapped to Stefan’s hands.

  “Yeah. It’s gone, too.” Stefan uncurled his right hand and touched his little finger where the platinum signet used to be. The one Marius had given him at his twentieth birthday party, triggering the long, messy build-up to Luke’s fight and flight. “Why’d that bother you so much?” Stefan’s voice was soft. No recrimination. No accusation. Just curiosity. “Marius gave me other gifts. Why did that one push your final button?”

  Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? Marius, crown prince of the Prescott art philanthropy dynasty, had always been a pain in Luke’s ass, strutting around the conservatory as if he owned the place. Well, he did own the place, or his family did, but it was his implied ownership of Stefan that had spiked Luke’s asshole-o-meter. He shifted his weight onto his good leg. “It felt different. Like a personal claim.”

  “Marius’s family endowed my scholarship. We were friends. I couldn’t refuse his gift, and it was unfair of you to ask.”

  “Caveman response, I guess.” Luke worried the smooth lining of his coat pockets with the tips of his fingers. “It was something I could never afford to give you.”

  “I didn’t care about that,” Stefan whispered.

  “I did.”

  “Well.” His voice assumed a brittle brightness. “Good thing I kept it. When I pawned it, it fed me for three months.”

  Luke turned away, staring at the fire in the squat wood stove. He’d never doubted that even dead, Marius Worthington Prescott the fucking Fifth could take better care of Stefan Cobbe than Luke Morganstern ever could. When Stefan’s name stopped popping up in the trades, Luke had assumed he was taking time to grieve, secure in whatever provisions Marius had made for him. But he’d never checked. Never contacted Stefan after the crash.

  Awesome. Another wrong move in his never-ending string of craptascular wrong moves.

  Maybe if he’d pushed his stupid stubborn pride aside and flown back from Europe for the funeral like he’d been tempted to do, to re-stake his claim to Stefan Cobbe like some unevolved Viking asshole, they wouldn’t be here now. Luke wouldn’t have tried to outrun his guilt and grief and ended up halfway down a mountain under a ton of ex-Fiat. Stefan wouldn’t have entered the downward spiral that had begun with peddling his jewelry and ended with possibly peddling his future and his freedom.

  What-the-hell-ever.

  He exhaled, the breath taking his remaining anger along for the ride, and faced Stefan again. “Have you sold anything since Marius’s crash? A painting, I mean, not personal possessions.”

  Stefan’s gaze cut to the right and he lifted one shoulder. “Not really.”

  “Painting much?” Come on, Stef. Tell me. If you confess, I can help you. God, please don’t make me send you to jail.

  Stefan stared down at his hands, rubbing a spot at the base of one finger. “I…sort of. Yeah.”

  Sort of. Jesus. “If you need money…” Not that Luke had much after two years of living off his savings, disability payments, and petty local jobs, but he’d find a way.

  “No.” Stefan lifted his head, chin thrust out at a belligerent angle. “I’m a painter. I’ll make money when I sell a canvas.”

  “Stef—”

  “I said no. I’ve got enough debt to pay off. I won’t take on any more.” His hand fisted in his shirt below his collarbone. “Least of all from you.”

  Luke’s throat tightened. Yeah, he’d already proven he wasn’t the go-to guy, hadn’t he? “If you need someone to rep your work, I know some good people. Legit. They’d love your style.”

  Stefan shook his head. “I’ve got an agent. Thomas Boardman. He owns this place and North Coast Gallery, down in Wheeler. I live here in exchange for letting him act as the exclusive rep for anything I paint.” His mouth lifted in a wry smile. “With a slightly higher commission to offset the room and board and art supplies.”

  North Coast Gallery. Home of the fake Arcoletti. Luke clenched his teeth, swallowing his suspicions. It might be a coincidence that a guy with enough talent to forge any painting in the known universe was installed here in the gallery owner’s shack in the middle of nowhere, like some impoverished, indentured servant.

&nbs
p; Too bad Luke didn’t believe in coincidence.

  But if he didn’t voice the question, he could pretend he didn’t know the answer. Plausible deniability. Yeah. He could live with that. He cleared his throat. “This was a mistake. I need to go.”

  Stefan nodded, no surprise on his face. “Yeah. I figured. Luke, why did you—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Why did I what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was…um…nice to see you again. Will you be back? Before you leave Oregon?”

  The lost expression on Stefan’s face twisted Luke’s gut to hell and gone. He turned away and crossed the room like the fucking coward he was. “Yeah. Sure,” he lied. He opened the door onto utter blackness. Those stupid alternative energy lamps glowed brighter than the Florida sun compared to the murk beyond the porch railing. “Damn it. When did it get dark?” Luke pulled the keys out of his pocket and fumbled them like a third-rate juggler. Stefan caught them before they fell and handed them back.

  “About six. It gets dark early this far north. Anything wrong?”

  Luke buttoned his coat against a chill he couldn’t blame entirely on Oregon. “Nope. I’m fine.”

  “Don’t front with me, Luke.” Stefan grabbed his elbow. “What is it?”

  Luke sighed and squinted into the dark. “It’s the fucking road up your fucking mountain, okay? I had a little…incident in Europe with a non-aerodynamic Fiat. Makes driving on switchbacks a challenge, especially at night.”

  “Got it. No problem.” Stefan ducked behind the door and reappeared, pulling a faded blue sweatshirt over his head. “I’ll drive you down and walk back up.”

  Luke gaped at him. “Walk? Are you nuts?”

  Stefan shrugged. “It’s not far.”

  “It’s seven fucking miles. In the dark.”

  “I’m used to walking. I’ve got the world’s biggest flashlight, and we haven’t had a mountain lion sighting around here for months.”

  “Mountain lion?” Luke’s voice broke like a thirteen-year-old’s and his eyes widened so far he was surprised they didn’t fall out and roll across the porch.

  Stefan’s grin held seven kinds of payback. “Kidding. Give me your keys.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Stefan caught Luke’s flinch when they rounded the first turn.

  “You okay?”

  “Fantastic. Slow down.”

  The speedometer hadn’t hit ten miles per hour yet. “I’m riding the brake, Luke. The only thing moving us forward is gravity.”

  “Gravity sucks.”

  Stefan glanced at Luke. For less than a second, he took in the barest glimpse of Luke’s profile, limned in foxfire glow from the instrument panel. Long enough to register his tight jaw, his compressed lips, and his hands locked on his knees.

  Stefan shifted his gaze back to the road.

  A yard from his bumper. Pale face. Dark suit. White shirt.

  “Christ!” Stefan stomped on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop in a clumsy pirouette. Eyes peeled wide, mouth agape, Stefan tried to remember how to breathe.

  Next to him, Luke clung to the oh-shit handle over the door, chanting, “Godnogodnogodno.”

  Stefan put a shaking hand on Luke’s leg. “Are you okay?” Luke’s eyes were clenched shut, his teeth bared around a low moan. Stefan tightened his grip. “Luke! Answer me. Are you hurt?”

  Luke’s eyes flew open. “What? No. I don’t think…no, I’m fine.” He leaned against the headrest with an audible thump. “Jesus.”

  “Good. Stay here. I have to see if he’s okay.”

  “Who?”

  “The man in the suit. Tux. Whatever. The one in the road.”

  “There’s no one there.”

  Stefan peered through the windshield. The high-beams lit nothing but empty road, trees, and silver flecks of drizzle. He didn’t remember an impact, but he had to make sure. He turned off the engine, grabbed his flashlight, and got out of the car. “Be right back.”

  He walked to the edge of the road on unsteady legs and ran the light along the verge and over the embankment. Nothing. Not even the glint of small animal eyes. Behind him, the car door slammed and Luke’s footsteps crunched the gravel in an uneven tempo. Stefan spun around.

  “You are hurt. You’re limping.” He moved to intercept Luke, who held up a hand, warding him off.

  “Old injury.” He opened the driver’s-side door, dome light revealing the grim set of his mouth, key alarm peeping like a forlorn mechanical bird.

  “Let me drive.” Stefan reached for Luke’s shoulder, but Luke twisted out of the way.

  “No.”

  “Be sensible. This road doesn’t scare me shitless.” Stefan attempted a reassuring smile. “I promise to keep the near-death experiences to a minimum.”

  The muscles bunched in Luke’s jaw. “You can’t promise that. No one can promise that. Ask Marius.”

  Stefan’s breath left his lungs in a rush, as if Luke had punched him with a fist instead of with remorse. “You shit.”

  “I didn’t mean—” Luke exhaled hard and rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Look, my point is, when he climbed into the cockpit, he didn’t expect his plane to crash. You can’t promise what you can’t control.”

  The adrenaline from the near-miss still buzzed in his veins, and Stefan crowded Luke against the car door. “No second chances, is that it? One little mistake and you write me off.”

  “Little mistake?” Luke shoved at his chest with a balled-up fist and Stefan staggered, his worn-out sneaker sinking in the mud at the edge of the road. “This mistake is hardly trivial.”

  “I thought I saw someone in the road. I stopped. You wanted me to plow ahead? What if he’d really been there?”

  “I’m not talking about this.” Luke waved a hand over the roof of the car and his voice rose to a shout, jagged and out of place in the still woods.

  “Then what?”

  “Why?” Luke’s jaw worked as if he were wrestling with his words. “Why the hell are you forging a dead man’s work when you have more talent than any other ten people?”

  Chapter Four

  Luke slammed the heel of his hand against his forehead. Shitgoddamnsonofabitch. He’d asked the fucking question. Now he’d have to listen to an answer he could never un-know. His chest heaved and he stared Stefan down, waiting for the words that would either damn him as a liar or condemn him as a forger. Either one would force Luke to choose between rebooting his career or destroying the man he’d once loved.

  Stefan blinked. Blinked again, brows drawing together in a tight vee. “What?”

  For some reason, maybe aftershocks from his Fiat-flashback or mortification that Stefan had witnessed his resultant freak-out, the bewildered affront on Stefan’s face kicked Luke into art investigator asshole mode. “Did you think you’d get away with the fake Arcolettis because he was a relative unknown? Because all his pieces except one are in private hands?”

  “Who the hell is Arcoletti?”

  Luke guffawed, sounding unpleasant even to himself. “Good one.”

  “No. I mean it. Who’s Arcoletti?”

  “Jeremiah Arcoletti. American realist painter. Disappeared in 1945 along with all thirteen canvases from his last collection.” Luke’s eyes popped wide. “Holy shit. That’s it, isn’t it? The lost collection.” He poked Stefan’s shoulders with stiff fingers, peripherally aware arguing in the middle of a dark mountain road was ridiculous and possibly suicidal, but he didn’t give a flying fuck. They’d finish this now. “Is that your plan? Recreate the lost collection out here in your little studio in the big woods?”

  “Stop it.” Stefan batted Luke’s hand away, his gaze fixed on the ground, avoiding the question. Pleading the artistic Fifth. Last refuge of the guilty.

  “Where’d you see his work? The museum in Amsterdam? Hell, in all those years of prancing around with Marius, you could have seen every fricking one of the privately held pieces. Marius had the connections for it. You could toss his name
around to get access to the Gordon letters, too. Damn it.” He dropped his arms, suddenly spent. “The Stefan I knew would have cut off his hands before he’d counterfeit another artist’s work. What’s happened to you?”

  “What hasn’t?” Stefan’s eyes were wide, his pupils huge in the combined light of headlights and flashlight. “But I swear. I’ve never heard of this Arcoletti.”

  “No? Then tell me. What’s coming off your easel these days? Studies in Monochrome? The Picture of Oregon Gray?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  The feeble disavowal flipped Luke’s asshole switch back on. “Don’t give me that shit. You don’t paint with your eyes closed.”

  “No. I just…” Stefan’s voice was hoarse, and he clutched his flashlight to his belly, casting warped, inverted shadows across his face and distorting his features into a death’s-head mask. “I’ve been painting, but I don’t remember them. I’m not even sure how many there are.”

  “Artistic amnesia? Bullshit. You must have seen them when you handed them over to Boardman.”

  Stefan shook his head and pinched his eyes closed. “Thomas always loads them into his car. I never look. Not after…not when they’re finished.”

  “Why? Guilt?”

  “No. I was afraid…” Stefan wrapped his arms across his stomach, pointing the flashlight into the woods. His face was his own again, drawn and haunted.

  “Afraid of getting caught?”

  “Afraid of what I’d paint next,” he whispered.

  Luke’s lips twisted. “Denial. It’s what’s for dinner. No wonder you’re so fricking thin.”

  “Why is everything black and white for you, Luke? Let in some color, for Christ’s sake.” Stefan forked the fingers of one hand through his hair. “Even a little gray would be a change.”

  Luke refused to allow the broken edge of Stefan’s voice to influence him. He’d let sentiment sway him once before and it had cold-cocked his career. “Right or wrong, Stef. It’s not that tough a choice.”

  “Fine.” Stefan raised his head and met Luke’s gaze, his shoulders shifting as if bracing for a blow. “You’ve already made up your mind, as usual. Go ahead. Turn me in to the art police.”