Forger of Light

by Nupur Tustin

  Julia turned to Sonia. “So you told him what you’ve just shared? There’s more than one impression of B2.”

  “He seemed relieved to hear that. But I don’t think I allayed his doubts for long. He came back. We talked about paper quality, watermarks, all the usual means of establishing a print is genuine.”

  “Watermarks?” Mitch pointed to the three globes. “Is this one of them?” He turned to Celine and Julia. “Tony loved research, and he loved to incorporate what he discovered in his work. It’s evident in the pieces he designed for you.”

  He gestured around the room as he went on: “I’m willing to bet he pulled together stuff he got from you”—this to Sonia—“to create these works.”

  “Absolutely.” Sonia nodded emphatically. “The fool’s cap was a very common watermark in Rembrandt’s time. It’s in his etchings and drawings from the 1630s onward.” She pointed. “You’ll see the seven-pointed collar, the cap, and oftentimes”—her lips stretched into a pleased smile—“under the collar, what looks like a number 4 balancing on three stacked globes. Just like the one here.”

  “Good heavens, these works are more representational than we realized.” Celine shook her head. They’d been wrong about Tony’s last works. The abstraction was an illusion.

  “Absolutely!” Sonia agreed.

  Julia cast an appraising glance at the sculptures. “Based on what you told him, Sonia, which of these pieces would you say has the best chance of containing the etching?”

  The curator surveyed the pieces.

  “I couldn’t say.” She pursed her lips. “Really, the best way to establish ownership is to examine the marks on the back. Museums often pencil in an accession number on the back. Certainly, the Gardner must have done so.”

  “Pencil marks can be erased,” Celine pointed out.

  “Of course. And Tony asked about that: What if the pencil marks were erased?”

  “And you said?” Julia prompted.

  “That no mark can be effaced completely. A raking light would immediately pick it up. Those lights illuminate the surface texture, showing indentations in the paper where the pencil has left its mark.”

  Mitch glanced up. “Did that answer his question? Or did he have more? Tony,” he said, addressing Celine and Julia, “had an inveterate curiosity about everything. When something piqued his interest, he’d go down every rabbit hole he could to satisfy his thirst.

  “Guess that’s what made him such a successful fo—” he cut himself short, turning red.

  “A successful sculptor,” Celine supplied gracefully; it hadn’t been hard to guess what he’d been about to say. “You and Tony must have been close.” They’d had to have been for Mitch to be aware of—and okay with—Tony’s past.

  “We were once.” Mitch’s eyes saddened. “Then seven or eight years ago, we each got our own studio and parted ways. Kept in touch for a while. But you know how it is, you get busy, time gets away from you.”

  They contemplated his words in silence until Julia turned to Sonia again.

  “Was that the last conversation you had with Tony—when you talked about raking lights?”

  The associate curator nodded. “I offered to take a look at his friend’s print, examine it more thoroughly. But he didn’t seem too keen on that. And I didn’t press him. The raking light theory must’ve allayed his concerns. You see I told him with a print as tiny as B2, it would be hard to find a watermark. Collector’s marks would be the way to go.”

  Celine was about to respond when Penny’s girlish voice carried over to her: “First thing tomorrow as I mentioned. Fortunately Massachusetts Imaging Center isn’t charging us. There’s no money in the budget for this.”

  “No, this isn’t good, but—” Blake released an exhausted sigh. It was clear to Celine that as far as he was concerned this was a burden he could do without.

  She and Julia had finished telling him about Penny’s ill-advised announcement at the memorial and the sensitive details she’d so cavalierly thrown out later. They’d both feared it could compromise their ongoing efforts to recover the etching.

  But to their consternation, Blake didn’t agree. Either that or he’d lost his will to fight.

  He shifted his position on the armrest he’d perched himself upon. “Look, at the end of the day, I don’t think much harm’s been done.”

  Celine wasn’t sure she agreed with the sentiment. Julia didn’t either.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, blue eyes crinkling with worry.

  Penny, mingling with her guests in the Hostetter Gallery, had divulged key details of the Gardner’s plans to retrieve their etching—the exact time of their appointment with the Massachusetts Imaging Center, the technicians they were scheduled to meet, the time of their departure.

  Revelations that were entirely unnecessary, although Penny had vehemently disagreed. She’d been talking with trusted individuals who had every right to be informed. Members of the museum’s board.

  The problem was her voice had carried all the way to everyone else present. That was how Celine and Julia—walking with Mitch Finlay and Sonia Braeburn—had come to overhear the director’s remarks.

  Concerned, Celine and Julia had waited for Blake, sweeping him up to Penny’s office the moment he arrived.

  They’d found the room blessedly empty—Penny’s assistant having left for the day.

  But Blake seemed unconcerned, and Celine felt the walls closing in on her.

  “You don’t have Norton. How can you be sure the danger’s passed?”

  Blake’s shoulders slumped, making her instantly regret her words. His triumphs had been minor. He’d caught an informant, but not the mastermind.

  His jaw clenched. “I’m confident we’ve rooted out our informant.” ADA Mariah Campari’s burner phone had revealed nearly the entire tale. She’d made calls—to the same number—on key occasions.

  The night they’d barged into Sofia as she ran down the stairs in Reynolds’ apartment building; the Friday night prior to their scheduled meeting with Bev and Sofia; and an hour before Campari had called Blake demanding documents from Standish’s firm.

  But it was a hollow victory. The number Campari had called had been a burner phone, and it had been discarded shortly after her call that morning.

  “I know I don’t have Norton,” Blake ground out the words, “but we’ve got his informant. That’s got to count for something.”

  A wily general has more than one spy. Sister Mary Catherine’s words evoked an image from long past. A history lesson with the nun at Notre Dame. They’d been talking about General Washington—and his network of spies. There’d been more than one.

  There had to be more than one, the nun had explained.

  “There’s more than one,” Celine said. The sense she’d had yesterday of being watched intensified. The room felt claustrophobic. Her chest tightened, making it impossible to breathe. “There’s more than one,” she said again.

  “What!” Both Blake and Julia were staring at her.

  “More than one informant. Campari wasn’t the only one.”

  Images zipped through her mind in rapid succession—a mail truck, a mailman, shards of plaster littering a deserted roadside.

  The mailman’s watching. Make sure he doesn’t get away, Celine.

  “I can arrange for an armored van, provide agents.” Blake spread his hands wide, looking helpless. “I don’t know what else I can do.”

  Make sure he doesn’t get away.

  Celine met his eyes, her mind made up.

  “Let me accompany you. In the van. Let me come with you.”

  “No,” Blake erupted at the same time as Julia bellowed out a horrified, “Absolutely not.”

  “You’ve got to let me come with you.” She was adamant now. “It’s our only chance to weed out this other informant. If we don’t, we’ve compromised the investigation for good.”

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  The van lurched unsteadily over a bump in the r
oad, sending Celine crashing into Jonah’s skinny body.

  “Sorry,” she huffed, grabbing a panel on the back wall to steady herself.

  “It’s not your fault we have a dipshit driving the vehicle,” the reporter griped. “We should’ve gotten a trained driver for the job. Not some overpaid, paper-pushing law enforcement agent.”

  Celine saw Blake’s jaw clench, but he refused to take the bait.

  They’d been enclosed in the windowless van for nearly fifteen minutes. The atmosphere inside was musty and suffocating. Sharing the stale air and constricted space with a team of four agents was bad enough.

  But she and Jonah were wedged between the chest-high stack of Reynolds’ sculptures and the rear wall—their limbs stiff and cramped. It was an extra layer of protection Blake had insisted upon.

  Exposed to such excruciating discomfort, the patience of even the most long-suffering saint might have frayed thin. But Jonah had been whining non-stop from the time they’d congregated, in the early hours of dawn, outside the Gardner Museum on Palace Road.

  He’d initially objected to the stifling Kevlar vests Blake had insisted they both wear.

  “Seriously?” He’d held the vest up, eying it skeptically.

  Museum staff bustled past, carrying neatly wrapped artifacts—each with a hidden tracker—up the rear step of the van into the cargo area.

  “I don’t want to have to worry about two civilians getting shot on my watch. I don’t even know why I agreed to this,” Blake had grumbled.

  “These vests aren’t going to protect our heads or our limbs,” Jonah pointed out, looking disdainfully at his.

  “Just wear it, okay? Or stay the f—out of my operation?”

  Jonah had donned the vest, but the complaints hadn’t stopped. The bumpy ride, the cramped conditions, there was a caustic remark for everything. He obviously had no idea when to leave well enough alone.

  As the van jolted over another bump in the road, he went on: “I mean seriously, does the guy even know how to drive a cargo van?”

  Stung by the comment, Blake spun around.

  “No one asked you to come, shitbird. You foisted yourself on the operation, remember?”

  “I want to see this story through,” Celine replayed the reporter’s words to him. “Isn’t that what you said?” She’d had about as much as she could stomach of Jonah’s never-ending griping, too.

  The evening before, when Jonah had found out Celine would be in the cargo van transporting Tony’s sculptures, he’d insisted on coming along as well, raising Cain until Blake finally gave in.

  “Remember what you said a few days ago?” Jonah had said, pacing the length of Penny’s office. “I had the opportunity to be part of the investigation? Well, I still want to be part of it. You guys owe me, and you know it. The progress you’ve made on this case wouldn’t be possible without my contribution.”

  He’d had the forethought, he reminded them, to jot down the partial license plate that had helped track down Sofia. Had run a story with more innuendo than any reporter should be comfortable with just so they could sniff out Norton’s informant.

  “I’ve been a team player, dammit. Every step of the way. You guys owe me.”

  Now Celine reminded him of his demands.

  “You’ve got what you wanted. Why not be part of the team? Let the agents do their job.”

  Jonah jutted his chin out, looking belligerent.

  “One more crack out of you,” Blake warned, at the end of his tether, “and I’m letting you out at the first street corner. Capiche?”

  Ka-BLAM!

  The force of the impact was deafening. Whether it was the thud of her skull cracking against the panel separating the cargo area from the cab or the thunderous jolt of a powerful vehicle crashing into theirs, Celine wasn’t sure.

  “Stay back! Back!” Blake yelled as he and his team pushed the doors open, rifles at the ready. The sharp rat-a-tat of gunfire filled the air, blasting through the earplugs Blake had made them wear. Celine pressed herself as far back as she could go, head averted, eyes closed.

  Dear God, keep us safe, she prayed.

  You’d be dead if they wanted to kill you, Sister Mary Catherine whispered. But they don’t. Not just yet.

  Behind her, she could feel Jonah cowering. Bullets whizzed past, pinging loudly against the interior of the van. A rush of air, stirring the strands of her hair, preceded each ping. Male voices yelling and screaming mingled in a discordant harmony with the gunfire.

  Celine squeezed her eyes shut. Keep us safe.

  Then as suddenly as it began, it was over. The silence as deafening as the gunfire had been. The acrid smell of gunpowder, the only sign they’d been in the midst of battle.

  A rough hand tugged at her arm. She opened her eyes.

  It was Blake.

  “We got them,” he announced, cheeks flushed with triumph. “It’s over, Celine. We got them.”

  The mailman? Had they gotten the mailman?

  Before she could ask, Blake went on: “I need to take these bozos in. You guys good to continue on by yourselves?” He threw a contemptuous glance at Jonah. Amid the onslaught, the reporter’s characteristic bravado had completely evaporated.

  “Is it safe?” Celine’s voice quavered, and her eyes despite herself were wide with alarm.

  Blake nodded. “Ted Ridgeway”—that was the agent behind the wheel—“will be with you all the way. It’s fine.”

  “Yes, but—?” Questions swarmed through Celine’s mind, but Blake was already climbing out of the van.

  “You can ride up front now,” he called, throwing them a grin over his shoulder.

  Jonah straightened up and shuddered. “I need a cup of coffee first.”

  He maneuvered himself out from behind the wall of sculptures.

  “Get me one as well,” Celine called, wrenching herself out. Near the van door, she paused. “And, Jonah, get a latte or something for Special Agent Ridgeway, too.”

  He turned to her, lips puckering as though he’d bitten into a lemon.

  “We’ve escaped unscathed, unhurt. And it’s because those agents put their lives on the line for us. A cup of coffee for the guy who’s staying behind to protect us is the least we can do.”

  “Whatever you say,” Jonah grumbled, but offered no other protest.

  By the time Celine climbed into the front of the van with Ted Ridgeway, her head was throbbing violently. The shock of the initial impact had kept the pain at bay. And when the young paramedic had checked her out—his sensitive fingers gently probing her skull before assuring her it wasn’t fractured—she’d only felt the slightest twinge.

  “It’ll get much worse, I’m afraid.” He’d handed her a sleeve of painkillers with instructions on how to take them. “Better take these before the pain starts.”

  Ridgeway turned to her with a wry smile. “How’re you feeling?”

  “I’ve been better,” she confessed, forcing herself not to grimace. “At least it’s not a bullet.” Gingerly, she tipped her chin at his bandaged left arm. “Are you sure you’re good to drive?”

  He grinned. “If it gets too bad, I’ll make the journo do it.” He glanced at his watch. “Wonder when he’ll be back with that coffee.”

  “Depends where the closest coffee shop is. And how fast he can walk.” At least Jonah hadn’t made a fuss about that.

  She glanced at the brick walls that hemmed them in on either side. They were just outside the Storrow Drive Tunnel, a few yards from where a powerful truck had collided into them, forcing the front edge of the van to graze past the tunnel walls.

  The side-view mirror on Ted’s side had borne the brunt of the damage—its surface cracked, the handle holding it up twisted out of shape.

  The entire length of the tunnel was blocked off. Thankfully. There was a mere eighteen-inch access on either side of them. Not enough room for a skinny person, let alone a car.

  It isn’t over. Not just yet. Sister Mary Catherine’s voice tugged
at her mind.

  She turned back to Ridgeway. “I’m worried. There’s obviously a second informant. Campari wasn’t the only one.”

  “No, she wasn’t.” Ridgeway looked at her, gray eyes calm. Why wasn’t he more worried?

  Her head throbbed, tension pricking the back of her neck.

  “Are we any closer to finding out who it is? You think one of those men will talk?” One of the three men had been rushed to the hospital; the other two had sustained minor injuries. “We need to find out who it is.”

  “Could be any one of the folks at the memorial service yesterday. There must have been a thousand people milling around while Ms. Hoskins was blabbing.”

  Struck by the uncanny accuracy of his description, Celine’s gaze jolted up to meet Ridgeway’s.

  It took her a moment to find her voice. “How do you know?”

  Ridgeway shrugged. “I was there. Wanted to see what all the fuss was about.” He glanced at his watch again. “We’ll be late for that appointment if we don’t get a move on. Want to leave your pal here and get going?”

  It isn’t over yet, Celine.

  “No.” Celine shook her head. Her palms, gripping the edge of her seat, felt sweaty. “No, let’s wait.”

  Jonah had been gone—for how long now?—fifteen minutes? Twenty? When would he be back?

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Blake had returned to the FBI headquarters in Chelsea, flushed with triumph. He and his men had narrowly managed to avert a crisis. And other than the nagging pain in his arm where a bullet had grazed it, he was fine.

  He’d reported to Penny, glossing over the events of the morning for her benefit. “Just a mishap,” he said. “It’s all good. The sculptures are safe and on their way to the imaging center.”

  The Massachusetts Imaging Center was on Everett Road, not far from FBI headquarters. That was a blessing. If anything further went down, he and his men would be able to respond immediately.