Northern Light

by E. J. Russell

  Luke searched Stefan’s face for some flicker of remorse, some acknowledgement he accepted the enormity of his crime. Nothing. Only the droop of his lips and a telltale glitter in his eyes, hinting at unshed tears. But for what? Sorrow for his actions, or regret because he’d gotten caught? “Can you give me a reason not to?”

  Stefan’s breath caught in what might have been a laugh if his face wasn’t so bleak. “Guess not.” He saluted Luke with a middle finger. “Enjoy your drive.”

  Stefan turned and strode uphill, the beam of his flashlight bouncing from road to hillside, and Luke’s last trace of adrenaline drained away.

  The lousy car sat perpendicular to the road, driver’s door ajar. If he was lucky, he’d manage to creep down the hill by midnight. He shut the damn door before the brainless chime of the key alarm drove him nuts. He sighed, deep and exhausted, and leaned his forehead against the car roof, the beaded rain icy against his heated skin.

  “Shit.”

  Stefan balled up his sweatshirt and slung it into the corner of the living room. He yanked open the liquor cabinet door and poured himself a hit of the good Scotch. After he knocked it back, he poured a second.

  The burn in his belly had nothing to do with the liquor. Christ. Luke suspected him of forgery. Luke. The man who should know him better than anyone else in the world believed Stefan capable of the ultimate painterly crime. The Scotch threatened to reverse course and he hastily set the bottle and glass on the coffee table. He collapsed onto the leprous leather sofa, one arm across his eyes, the knuckles of his other hand pressed against his mouth.

  When Luke had stormed out of their tiny Connecticut apartment, Stefan had expected him to walk back in at any minute, any hour, any day, gruff and sheepish as he always was after one of their Marius-induced arguments. When days turned into weeks, he’d gotten the nerve to call Luke’s family and discovered Luke had left for Europe. Indefinitely.

  Only one thing had filled the gaping hole that losing Luke had torn in Stefan’s chest. He’d retreated into his studio for hours, without eating, without sleeping. Burned through dozens of canvases, an outpouring of his passion and despair as if he’d ripped the paint from his veins. When he’d emerged, exhausted and empty, Marius had been waiting and Stefan hadn’t had the strength to resist anymore.

  Marius had loved him. That made everything worse, twisted the guilt-edged knife a little deeper. Because Stefan had been grateful to Marius, admired him, was fond of him, but had never loved him.

  Stefan loved Luke. Always had, from the first moment their gaze had met in that life drawing class. Luke’s mouth had quirked in that lopsided smile of his, dimple creasing his cheek, and Stefan had realized being naked in front of this man was a huge problem and was getting huger by the second, judging by the titters of the first-year students in the front row. He’d pulled the drape over his lap, but not before Luke had grinned at him and covered his own lap with his giant sketch pad. Good thing the class had been life drawing and not oils, or the students would have used up the conservatory’s entire stock of cadmium red trying to capture Stefan’s full-body blush.

  He sat up, propped his elbows on his knees, and stared at his hands. God, to paint again, as he had in those days. To recapture the joy that had welled up in him, intoxicating him with the glory of color and light and shape. That joy had dimmed when Luke disappeared, and snuffed out completely in the wreckage of Marius’s plane.

  Stefan curled his fingers into claws, his claws into fists. Whatever he had to do to find it again, to connect his brain to his brush and his brush to his canvas, he’d do it. Anything.

  He grabbed his glass, stood, and walked out the back door. After he fired up the generator, he cleared the last swallow of Scotch and entered the studio, eyes watering and throat burning. A wave of dizziness washed through him and he dropped the glass on the table, closing his eyes as the room tilted. Shit. Maybe he should have eaten something first.

  But when he opened his eyes, his vision steadied. The room bloomed with that wonderful glow, the soft, diffuse northern light he’d never experienced anywhere but here. It filled the room and brightened the windows, as if it shone from outside the studio instead of inside, reflected against black glass.

  The studio seemed to shift around him, caressing him, cocooning him like a favorite suit of clothes. The tubes of paint lined up on the rough-hewn worktable under the windows called him, each color a different note in the beloved siren song. They reeled him across the room and he giggled when he staggered from the effects of the alcohol.

  Sweat prickled along his scalp, beaded on his forehead and upper lip. Too hot. He yanked his shirt off. Dropped it. Kicked it out of the way. Shucked off his jeans. Nothing between him and the canvas. As it should be.

  He picked up a narrow sable brush and paced the perimeter of the studio, flicking the delicate point over his knuckles. Tracing a figure eight on the back of his hand. Stroking the inside of his wrist with the soft, dark kiss of a lover who would never betray him.

  He was made for this. To spill his guts along with the color from his brush. Heat built in his belly, his chest, his temples. He didn’t want to paint. He needed it, lest that heat explode outward. Sizzle along his skin. Consume him, flesh and breath and bone.

  He picked up his palette and scrabbled for a handful of paint tubes, the colors he wanted leaping to hand, acknowledging his mastery.

  He stalked the easel, his vision focused, irising in, pinpointing the only thing that mattered. Contracting until, as he faced down the canvas, the room winked out.

  Chapter Five

  After three hours creeping down the mountain, Luke stopped the car on the side of the blessedly straight, beautifully flat, thankfully paved road. Thank God. Safe at sea level again. He leaned his head against the steering wheel, willing his heart to slow, his breath to deepen, and his stomach to settle. Twenty minutes later, the sweat had dried on his forehead, but his belly still clenched, refusing to release its last knot, the one that had nothing to do with the drive.

  Stefan. How could he prostitute his talent like this? Luke would have given his left nut to possess a fraction of that gift, yet Stefan squandered it on fraud, the lies so plausible in his mouth that he must have had plenty of practice. Jesus, he’d always been so honest. Transparent. When they’d been together, Luke had had to bar Stefan from the weekly conservatory poker games because it played such hell with the grocery budget.

  He checked his cell phone. Still no reception. He had a few choice words for Mystery Client, most of them beginning with the letter F, but he wanted the satisfaction of delivering them in person.

  He threw the car back in gear and compensated for his snail’s pace down the hill by speeding all the way into town. Cell service didn’t return until he pulled into the crappy motel’s parking lot.

  He shot a text at Mystery Client. We meet. Tomorrow. No more bullshit.

  He expected M.C.’s usual immediate response, but got nothing. Not then. Not during his mediocre take-out enchilada dinner. Not during the three hours he spent surfing the hotel’s six TV channels while he trolled the art gossip websites on his smartphone, praying he wouldn’t find a mention of a lost Arcoletti for sale.

  The damn incoming text alert didn’t ping until the ass-crack of dawn. If Luke had actually been asleep, the terse 10:30 and accompanying map link would have pissed him the hell off. Instead, it added another layer of dark to the black mood hovering over his head like the ever-present Oregon clouds. By the time he drove ten miles up the coast to a too-cute-for-words beachfront development, he was surprised lightning didn’t shoot out his ears.

  Marooned in a sea of post-modern bungalows, M.C.’s turreted gray Victorian looked vaguely startled, like a hen that had unexpectedly hatched a brood of gerbils. Luke stalked up the cracked sidewalk to the heavy oak door and vented some steam by banging on the tarnished brass lion’s-head knocker.

  The door creaked open. An elderly man with a shock of wavy white hair and a head
turtled forward on rounded shoulders peered up at Luke from shrewd brown eyes. He leaned heavily on an ebony cane, but Luke believed firmly in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Equal anger for all.

  “What’s with the secret agent bullshit?”

  The old man harrumphed. “Your presentation could use work, Morganstern.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Luke cocked one eyebrow, holding out his hand. “Yours sucks, too.”

  M.C. chuckled. “So I’ve been told.” His grip was firm, his hand dry and knobbly. “William Franklin.” He gestured Luke into the house.

  Luke crossed the slate-tiled entry and halted in a double-wide archway. He’d expected to see default cramped Victorian clutter, but the first floor clearly had been renovated for someone with mobility issues, something Luke could appreciate. A year after his recovery, his walker and cane long abandoned, his condo was still spare and open. Franklin’s color scheme, a wash of muted sea tones, wouldn’t have been out of place in Sarasota, either. Against the gray Oregon clouds and drizzle? Overcompensating.

  Franklin saw Luke’s raised eyebrows. “Don’t blame me. My granddaughter’s a decorator.”

  Luke shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers to prevent them from curling into fists. “When you hired me, were you aware of my previous association with Stefan Cobbe?”

  Franklin settled himself in a peach brocade wingback chair. “Who?”

  Luke’s belly tightened and his breath sped up. “You sent me up that godforsaken mountain to bust him and you don’t even know his fricking name?”

  Franklin flapped a hand, unfazed by Luke’s temper. “I’ve suspected something fishy since July. Wasn’t sure until that fake painting showed up at the gallery last month.”

  Luke stopped pacing the pastel Aubusson and shot Franklin a hard glance. “If you knew all about the fake, why hire me? Why not inform the police directly?”

  “Got my reasons. Your friend admit to painting that picture?”

  “He didn’t deny it. Exactly. He claims he can’t remember.” Luke scowled, the wound of Stefan’s ridiculous evasion still fresh. “He swears he never heard of Arcoletti.”

  Franklin leaned back in his chair, smiling as if he’d snagged the Pietà on eBay. “Ah.”

  Luke barreled ahead. “North Coast Gallery’s displaying it as an original Arcoletti, but Boardman knows where it came from. I take it he’s not particular about the provenance of his stock.”

  “Bah. Thomas Boardman. That fool. He’s changing the name. Arcoletti Galleries.” He drew out the syllables.

  “Based on one fake painting? A little presumptuous, isn’t it?”

  “Thinks he’s entitled. He’s Arcoletti’s great-nephew. Sole remaining member of the family. Suppose he’d be Arcoletti’s heir if Arcoletti’d left much of anything behind other than that studio up on the hill.” Franklin planted his cane and glared at Luke from under the thicket of his eyebrows, jaw working as if he were chewing the cud. “So. Tell me about Jeremiah Arcoletti.”

  After a week of pain-in-the-ass hide-and-seek skullduggery, this guy wanted his credentials now? Screw that. Franklin wasn’t the only one who could dole out information in irritating little chunks and Luke was in the mood to annoy. He folded his arms and leaned against the mantelpiece. “He drove a Chrysler Town & Country, drank fifteen-year-old Glenlivet, and smoked Lucky Strikes.”

  “Funny guy, eh? Quit looming. You’re supposed to be one of the top experts in twentieth-century American art. I want your professional opinion of him.”

  “My opinion.” Luke sank down onto the sand-colored sofa, a glow warming his belly, defusing his anger. It had been so damned long since anyone had offered him professional respect. He’d forgotten how seductive it could be. “Okay, here it is. If Arcoletti hadn’t disappeared, he’d have been a major player in the American Realism school, along with Wyeth, Benton, and Hopper. Assuming he didn’t drink himself to death first and dropped the habit of pissing off the art critics.”

  “He pissed off everyone, the hot-tempered, egotistical son of a bitch,” Franklin muttered.

  “Wait.” Luke leaned forward. “You knew him? You can’t have been very old when he disappeared.”

  “Eight, but I wasn’t blind or stupid.”

  “So why ask me…” Son of a bitch. Luke’s lips twitched. In another forty years, he’d be exactly like this guy, complete with attitude and cane. “A test.”

  Franklin shrugged. “Had to be sure.”

  “Did I pass?”

  “Could be.” Franklin poked the air with his cane. “What’d you think of the picture?”

  “The one in the gallery? Pine at Sunset?”

  Franklin’s mouth screwed up in disgust. “Stupid name. But go on.”

  “Style, brushwork, composition. Classic Arcoletti. Perfect imitation. But I think St— I think the forger got careless. Or arrogant.” Luke pulled in a breath against a twinge of conscience, but Stefan had waived his right to loyalty when he started painting outside the lines. “There’s no mention in Arcoletti’s correspondence of anything remotely similar. Besides, anyone with any knowledge of Arcoletti would know it couldn’t be his work.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Absolutely.” Luke leaned his elbows on his knees and ticked the points off on his fingers. “Too bucolic. Some guy reading under a tree? Never. Arcoletti was an urban painter. Cityscapes. Street scenes. And he was all about night moves. He never painted a sunset in his life.”

  Franklin chuckled. “Smart fella. But it’s a copy of a real Arcoletti all right.” He jabbed a finger toward the ceiling. “Original’s in my attic.”

  Luke’s chest tightened and he wiped his hands on his chinos. “Here? Can I—” Jesus, he sounded like an adolescent with a crush, but an original undiscovered Arcoletti? Damn. He cleared his throat. “How do you know it’s genuine?”

  “I was there when Arcoletti gave it to my brother. Real name of that picture? Edward, Reading. Edward was Arcoletti’s…” The old man sniffed. Jerked his chin at Luke. “You know.”

  “I do?”

  He lifted a silver eyebrow. “I’d say you do.”

  Huh. Geriatric gaydar. Who’d ’a thunk? “Your brother was Arcoletti’s lover?”

  Franklin snorted, a dry rasp like an elderly dragon who remembered how to breathe fire but couldn’t quite light up. “Wouldn’t call it love. Not on Arcoletti’s end. Obsession, more like. Possession, if he’d had his way. Bastard was jealous as be-damned.”

  “I take it you were not a fan,” Luke said, his tone dry.

  Franklin’s gnarled hands flexed on the handle of his cane. “Hated him.” The scratchy voice held an unmistakable tremor. “Still do.”

  Apparently, Franklin had issues. Spectacular. So did Luke—yet another way they were alike—but it was time to put this shit to bed. He stood up and pulled his retainer check out of his shirt pocket.

  “As fun-tastic as this has been, it’s a non-case. No money has changed hands.” At least, none of it had gotten into Stefan’s hands or else he’d have a pair of jeans with more denim than holes. “I’ll write a letter on official Morganstern Art Investigations stationery, no charge, and tell Boardman to cease and desist or face the consequences. He removes the fake. Game over. No sale, no foul.”

  Franklin stared at Luke, stretching out the silence for almost a minute. “There’s a sale.”

  Luke’s breath stuttered in his chest. “Can’t be. I checked all my sources. No hint of a rumor of an Arcoletti on the market.”

  “It’s anonymous. Not finalized. Two paintings from the lost collection.”

  “Two?” Luke carded his hands through his hair. Stefan, goddammit. This is not what you should be doing with your life.

  Franklin nodded. “With the promise of more after the exhibit.”

  “How do you…?” Luke’s eyes narrowed at Franklin’s bland expression. This guy should never play poker, either. “You’re the buyer. How much?”

  Franklin cocked
his head and pursed his lips. After a few seconds too long, he nodded. “One point two million for the pair.”

  Luke sank onto the sofa, his hands limp between his knees. “Jesus.”

  “Boardman thinks I’m from out of town. Montreal. Expects me to show up next weekend to finalize the deal. View the rest of the collection before the exhibit in November.”

  “How—” Luke forced his voice out past the lump in his throat. “How many?”

  “Says he’s got ten pictures in his vault. Says the other three are being cleaned and reframed. He’ll have them by the exhibit on the fifteenth.”

  “Why the fucking charade? Are you trying to trap Stefan?”

  “Nah. Nothing to do with him.”

  Heat rose in Luke’s chest and he gripped his hands together, squeezing until his knuckles whitened. It’ll have everything to do with him when he goes to jail for fraud. “You’re ready to shell out a million bucks just to nail Boardman?”

  Franklin made a face as if a whiff of rotten meat had invaded his ocean-scented parlor. “Boardman. Pfui.”

  “Then who are you after? There’s nobody else.”

  Franklin’s eyes burned with a fanatic’s zeal. “Arcoletti.”

  Luke’s jaw dropped. “Arcoletti? Newsflash. Dude’s been dead and gone for over half a century.”

  “Dead, maybe. But not gone. He’s still here.”

  “Here.” Luke gestured to the airy room, about as sinister as an Easter egg. “In this house?”

  Franklin glared at him as if he could detect Luke’s impending laughter. “I’ve seen him. His silhouette, passing by my room on the way to Edward’s, the way he’d do when my parents were away. Every July, around the time of his disappearance, he’d show. This year, he didn’t. But this year, his studio wasn’t empty.”

  “So you think he’s haunting the studio.” Luke kept his tone flat, but his stomach churned. The cloak-and-dagger bullshit, the discovery of Stefan’s downfall—all because of some septuagenarian’s delusions.