“I don’t think so,” Sully said, starting to enjoy himself.
“All right,” Hunter said slowly. “All right, I can see there’s no point trying to play either of you for a fool. But how does this strike you?” he went on, still aiming his remarks at Sully. “What if we get that painting out of the wall? I know people who handle fine art deals on the quiet, and we can sell it privately, through one of them—then split the money. Half for you, half for me.” Sully grinned, really enjoying himself now. “I guess I must be missing something here. I own Eagles Roost. And it’s my cellar that painting is sealed up in. So why would I want to split any money I got for it with you?”
“Because all I have to do is open my mouth and neither of us will get a red cent. Warren Russell’s widow didn’t intentionally include that van Gogh when she sold. She couldn’t have, because she didn’t know it was there. So, legally, it’s still part of Russell’s estate. Any judge would find in favor of the heirs, which is why we’d have to unload the painting on the quiet.”
Sully could feel his grin fading. Sometime in the past few minutes, he’d realized that if that painting really was at Eagles Roost, and really was a van Gogh, he’d be a rich man. Rich enough he wouldn’t have to worry about being the poor husband of a wealthy wife. But if what Hunter was saying was true, if he didn’t really own the painting, then Lady Luck hadn’t wandered into his corner, after all.
When he glanced at Lauren she wasn’t smiling any longer, either. “Do you think he’s right?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. But Elliot will be able to find out.”
“Of course I’m right,” Hunter said. “Don’t you think I looked into it? The only sensible thing to do is unload the painting and split the money. Trust me on this.”
Sully wouldn’t trust Hunter Clifton as far as he could throw him. But he wanted the answers to a couple of questions before he told the guy what he could do with his partners suggestion, so he said, “I’ve been wondering about something, Hunter.”
“What?”
“Last year, you told Ben Ludendorf you weren’t interested in the lodge itself. Only the property. Why did you say that?”
Hunter shrugged. “Just to throw you off. I didn’t want you starting to wonder why somebody’d be interested in a rundown old lodge. Now, about the painting, I—”
“One other thing,” Sully interrupted.
“What?” Hunter said more impatiently this time.
“About three months ago, a woman phoned the teacher who works for me. She claimed to be Lauren, and asked a lot of questions about my program. You know anything about that?”
Hunter shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Hunter, I don’t like playing ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ with somebody who keeps secrets from me.”
The man shrugged once more. “All right, the woman was Leroy Korelenko’s caseworker. Those people at Social Services don’t earn much, you know, so it wasn’t hard to convince her to find a promising kid she could send to Eagles Roost.”
“You mean a promising bank robber,” Lauren said.
“I suppose you could put it that way,” Hunter agreed, focusing on her. “Anyhow, when Leroy’s case was assigned to the woman, she called and convinced Sullivan to take the boy on. Then, when I wanted some information about the program, she helped me out again.”
“By wanting information,” Lauren said, recalling how Otis had put it, “you mean you were hoping to dig up dirt. Find out things that would convince the other board members that Sully’s program wasn’t any good.”
“Something like that,” Hunter muttered.
Sully shoved his hands in his pockets, resisting the urge to deck the guy.
“So?” Hunter said, looking at him again. “What do you think? Partners?”
Sully exhaled slowly. He was hardly knowledgeable about art prices, but a van Gogh had to be worth a few million. And the idea of having money behind him was very, very appealing. It would mean he’d never again have to worry about funding for his program. And, at least in the money area, things would be a little more equal between him and Lauren.
When he looked at her she was watching him, her expression saying she was certain what his decision would be. He gave her a rueful smile, knowing that if he teamed up with Hunter he’d lose not only her respect but every shred of his self-respect. Tempting as the thought of having money was, Hunter’s shady proposition went against every principle he’d tried to live by since the day he’d walked out of prison.
“No, Hunter,” he said at last. “Not partners. If you’re wrong, if the painting is legally mine, I’d be crazy to share the proceeds with you. And if it turns out it’s not legally mine, then I guess I’ll just be out of luck.”
“But you wouldn’t even know it existed if it weren’t for that letter! So I should be getting—”
“Hunter, the only thing you’ll be getting is charged by the cops—for paying Leroy to rob that bank.”
Sully glanced at Lauren and smiled again. She was digging into her purse, and he knew exactly why. She was getting her cell phone out to call the police.
WHEN LAUREN LOOKED back from where Sully’s van and Marisa’s car were idling at the curb, Frederick the doorman was clearly very relieved. He was so obviously glad to see Sully and his kids were leaving, he must have been worried her guests would burn the building down.
“All right,” she said, turning to the boys. “We’re all set? Nobody’s forgotten anything?”
When they gave her a chorus of “nos,” Sully said, “Okay, let’s move it, then. We’ve got a cellar wall waiting for us at Eagles Roost.”
“You sure Hoops and me havta ride in the van?” Billy asked him. “When the other guys get to ride with Marisa?”
“Who got to make the trip in Lauren’s Mercedes a while back?”
“Me and Hoops, but—”
“Exactly,” Sully said.
The kennel people had dropped Roxy off earlier, and she was already sitting in the back of the minivan. While Billy and Hoops reluctantly climbed into it, Tony, Terry and Freckles scrambled into Marisa’s Jaguar.
“You’re positive,” Marisa murmured to Lauren, “that Sully doesn’t mind my coming along?”
Lauren shook her head. “If there’s really a painting in that wall, he’ll be dying to know if it’s a genuine van Gogh. Besides, if it’s for real, I knew you’d want to be one of the first to see it.”
“You knew I’d want to be? How about I’d kill to be? But you told him I won’t know for sure if it’s authentic. That I’ll only be able to give him my opinion.”
“Your expert opinion.”
Marisa smiled. “Even if there doesn’t turn out to be any painting, I’m glad you invited me to come. I want a chance to get to know Sully, because the way you two look at each other…”
“What? What about it?”
Marisa laughed. “I don’t know how you’re going to work everything out, but the way you look at each other makes me think Mom and Dad are going to have some adjusting to do.”
“You think they can?” Lauren asked quietly.
“What choice do they have?”
“Oh, Dad might decide to disown me.”
“Don’t be melodramatic, little sister. He loves you too much to even consider it.”
“That’s not the way it usually looks from my side of the fence.”
Marisa eyed her for a moment, then shook her head. “Lauren, there’s absolutely no doubt about how much he loves you. I know the way he acts, it’s a little hard to tell sometimes, but… Why do you think he’s never accepted the fact that you’re all grown-up?”
“Because he doesn’t believe I can do anything right.”
“No, that isn’t really it. That’s only what he tells himself. The truth is, if he admits his baby is an adult, he might have to admit he’s getting older. And he just, oh, you know Dad. The problem lies with him, not with you, so you really have to try to not let it bother you.”
>
“Well, thanks for your analysis, Ms. Freud,” Lauren teased.
“Anytime.”
Marisa turned and started for her Jaguar, while Lauren climbed into the van beside Sully.
“What was your sister talking about?” he asked.
She glanced back at Billy and Hoops. They were both busily making a fuss over Roxy, so she quietly said, “Marisa was giving me a pep talk. Telling me that even though it doesn’t always seem like it, my father loves me.”
Sully smiled at her. “Of course he does. Nobody in the world could help loving you.”
She leaned back against the seat, so warm and happy inside that the feeling lasted the entire way to Eagles Roost.
SULLY HADN’T ENTIRELY let himself believe the story about the painting until they examined the cellar wall. But knowing where to check, they discovered a section behind the sixth step from the top that looked as if it had once been tampered with—as if part of the wall might have been drilled out and the surface resealed.
The area was about three feet across and close to a foot high. According to Marisa, the height was necessary because the painting would be stretched flat inside a wooden crate—with space above and below the canvas so that nothing was touching it.
Actually seeing the wall had made Sully decide there just had to be something hidden there. And now, as he chipped away at the plaster and lath with a hammer and chisel, his heart was pounding.
“Do you have enough room to work?” Lauren asked.
He nodded, even though she, Marisa and all five boys were tightly packed into the space under the stairs with him. Nobody wanted to miss a second of the excitement. He only wished everyone wasn’t quite as excited.
He’d explained to the boys that even if they did unearth a valuable painting he wouldn’t get to keep it if it legally belonged to Warren Russell’s estate.
But they’d apparently decided to ignore that possibility. As far as they were concerned, whatever was in the wall was bound to be the Eagles Roost program’s salvation.
He chipped away a few more chunks of plaster, then a larger one cracked free. When he pulled it off, he could see an inch or two of smooth metal.
The collective intake of breath told him the others had seen it, too.
“Is that it?” Freckles whispered. “Is that the painting?”
“No,” Marisa said, “that would be an outside case of metal, which means they were being very careful. If art is stored in wooden crates alone, sometimes mice or rats get in and chew the canvas.”
Sully began chipping faster, then told himself to calm down—reminding himself again that regardless of what the painting was worth it might not be his. Trying to keep that in mind, he continued working until the last inch of plaster broke free and the entire width of the metal case was exposed.
“Slide it out,” Lauren whispered.
There was barely room to slip his fingers between the sides of the opening and the edges of the case, but he managed it. Then he wiggled the case forward until enough of it was protruding from the wall that he could grab the end and pull it forward.
When he got it out, it proved to be a little more than three feet long and a little less than three feet wide. It weighed a fair bit, because of the metal, but wasn’t too heavy to manage.
“Let’s take it upstairs where the light’s better,” Marisa suggested excitedly. “Open it up there.”
He nodded, even though he was dying to open it right this second. The boys dashed up the stairs and into the kitchen, the three adults on their heels.
Sully laid the case flat on the kitchen table, then stood staring at it—suddenly afraid to open it. What if it was a van Gogh? But then what if it did turn out that he had no claim to it?
“If you use a knife to slit that sealer,” Marisa finally said, “I think you should be able to ease the cover off.”
Billy raced over to the counter and returned with a knife.
Sully took it from him, carefully slit the seal all the way around, then tried to lift the metal top from the case. It was tight, but he gradually worked it free. Then he took out the wooden crate that was inside and used a screwdriver to pry the lid.
His heart pounding again, he lifted the lid and revealed the painting inside.
“Wow,” Lauren whispered.
“It’s amazing,” Marisa said.
“Is it good?” Billy demanded. “Is it famous? If we get to keep it are we going to be rich?”
Nobody responded for a minute. Finally Marisa said, “We won’t know if it’s authentic until it’s been examined by experts, and that process takes weeks. But…oh, I forgot. Boys, I brought some cases of pop and bags of chips and things for you. They’re in my trunk. Here,” she added, handing Freckles her keys. “How about everyone going out and helping to bring them in.”
As they raced away, Sully shot Marisa a grateful smile for giving him a few minutes without their questions. Then he went back to staring at the painting. It was a portrait of a man, painted predominantly in blues and yellows. And even though he was no art expert, if someone had asked him to guess the artist, his first guess would have been Vincent van Gogh.
“What do you think?” Lauren asked, turning to her sister.
Sully looked at Marisa, as well.
“I think it’s either a first-rate imitation…or the real thing.”
“The real thing,” he repeated, trying not to let himself feel too elated. But even if it didn’t turn out to be his, having discovered a previously unknown van Gogh would be pretty amazing. And if it did turn out that he owned it…
“And the real thing,” he said at last, “would be worth a couple of million dollars or so, wouldn’t it?”
Marisa smiled. “You’re a bit low. A van Gogh not unlike this one, a portrait of Dr. Gachet, sold for over eighty-two million. And that was over twenty years ago now.”
MARISA HAD GONE outside saying she wanted the boys to give her a tour of the great outdoors. Lauren knew, though, she’d actually wanted to give her and Sully some time alone together.
She watched him staring at the painting for a few moments, then said, “What are you thinking about?”
He smiled at her. “Something I shouldn’t be. Grace is always warning the boys not to count their chickens before they’ve hatched. But I was thinking about what would happen if this turns out to be authentic. And if it turns out to belong to me, not Warren Russell’s estate.”
“What would happen?”
Sully wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “The first thing that would happen is I’d ask you to marry me.”
Her heart began beating faster than a hummingbird’s wings. “Sully?” she murmured. “Why don’t you ask me, anyway?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Because we’re a dolphin and a meadowlark, remember? Because we haven’t had time, yet, to figure out how things could work with you in New York most of the time and me here. Because—”
“Because you’re still worried that I have money and you don’t?”
Drawing back a few inches, he looked at her, his expression serious. “Yeah, that too.”
“It’s an awfully outdated attitude, you know,” she said quietly.
“I know. But knowing that doesn’t magically make it go away. I’m still working on adjusting my thinking, though. And with luck, I’ll turn out to be the owner of an extremely valuable painting—which would make my outdated attitude irrelevant.”
She nodded. But they could hardly count on the painting being either genuine or Sully’s. So what if he ended up deciding he couldn’t live with her having money? That possibility terrified her, because if she couldn’t have him… Oh, it was too horrible to even think about.
“Sully?” she asked again. “Would you still love me if I suddenly had no money?”
“Of course. It’s you I love, not your money. If that’s what I was after, your being rich wouldn’t bother me, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t. Because, as you said
, it’s me you love. The same way it’s you I love, not your money.”
He grinned at her. “I don’t have any.”
“That’s my point. I love you now, but I’ll still love you if that painting is authentic and you get to keep it and you suddenly have ninety million dollars.”
“That’s not the same thing at all.”
“Yes. It is. Sully, let’s get married before we know anything more about the painting.”
“Lauren, that’s crazy. It—”
“No, it’s not. What if you’re suddenly so rich you can have your pick of any woman in the world?”
“I’d pick you.”
“Then pick me now. Because I’m the same woman I’ll be a month from now or a year from now, and you’re the same man. Regardless of anybody’s money.”
“But there’s still everything else to worry about. You can’t want to live here at Eagles Roost and—”
“Why can’t I want to live here? I love it here. I could do an awful lot of the foundation work without being anywhere near the Van Slyke Building.”
“You’re really serious, aren’t you,” Sully murmured.
She nodded, desperately afraid she was pushing harder than she should, but just as afraid that if she didn’t, this was going to be the end, instead of the beginning, of the rest of their lives.
“You’d be giving up a lot, leaving the city,” he said.
Her heart skipped three beats. He was saying she’d be giving up things, not that the idea was out of the question.
“I’d be gaining more,” she whispered. “I’d be gaining you, and that would be worth whatever I had to give up.”
“You love me that much?”
“I love you more than that much, Sully. I love you more than I knew it was possible to love someone.”
When he slowly smiled, she felt bubbly inside. When he leaned closer to kiss her, though, she pressed her fingers to his lips.
She might be insanely in love, but that didn’t make her completely insane. And she didn’t want to him thinking she could change her entire lifestyle with the snap of her fingers.
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