by Shawna Seed
Her pulse quickened.
She looked at the other side of her arm. There was a fifth bruise there.
The day everything had blown up with Pete, he’d grabbed her arm, hard, and not let go. The next day, the imprint of his fingers had been on her arm.
But there was something more. The pendant was familiar from somewhere else.
She grabbed her computer and set it up on the coffee table.
She called up Julien’s email and opened the file he’d sent her, the one with photos of generations of Lazare brides.
And there, around the necks of three of them, was an open-work, heart-shaped pendant of gold.
Which had been familiar to her, somehow, before she saw these photos.
Genevieve rocked back on her heels and considered the possibilities, none encouraging.
Could the pendant have belonged to a previous tenant and gone undiscovered in her apartment for six years? She was a bad housekeeper, but not that bad. And what were the odds that it would look exactly like the pendant worn by Lazare brides and that she would find it just days after dreaming about it and seeing photographs of it?
Genevieve leaned her head back against the sofa and caught sight of the cheap watercolor Julien had admired the night before.
Julien. In her apartment. For no good reason, really. He could have dropped off her wallet at the door and left. He didn’t have to hang around for dinner. And he’d stood right by the sofa, looking at the painting.
OK. Another theory. Julien Brooks had come into her apartment and dropped the pendant behind her sofa when she wasn’t looking because... Genevieve was at a loss. Because she’d noticed it in the photo? It didn’t make any sense. And he couldn’t possibly know she’d dreamed about it.
And that was another thing. Genevieve had been calling this thing a dream, but it didn’t exactly feel like a dream. She’d felt the same way about the... whatever it was in Las Vegas, when she was staring at a bare wood floor, holding a pose. Both times, she sensed that she was in the same place. The light seemed the same, so bright, flooding in.
D had mocked her, asked had she heard an angel choir, but she’d had the same fleeting experience in the casino.
Genevieve carefully put the pendant on the coffee table and rubbed both palms over her face. There was one obvious answer, of course.
She’d done her homework – how could she not? She knew the warning signs of the major mental illnesses. Paranoid delusions, hearing voices, grandiosity... she scrolled through the checklist in her head. Schizophrenia usually manifested in the teens and 20s; once she hit 30, she’d thought she was safe.
Had some faulty bit of wiring deep in her brain, inherited from her mother, begun to spark?
Other kids in Wichita Falls grew up scared of tornadoes or Jason from Halloween or the Rapture. For Genevieve, mental illness had always been her bogeyman.
Maybe she’d skip signing her severance paperwork, cancel her lunch with Thomas, too. She’d spend the day in her dark apartment... doing what, exactly? Obsessively reading websites about mental illness?
If she weren’t already crazy, that just might do the trick.
Genevieve presented herself at the museum at 11:27 and gave her name to the guard. Malcolm’s secretary arrived a few minutes later carrying a thick folder. “Hello, Genevieve,” Carol said. “You’re looking well.”
She ushered Genevieve toward a door marked “employees only” and swiped a plastic security card in front of an electronic eye. “There’s an empty conference room on the second floor we can use,” she said.
“How have you been?” she asked over her shoulder as they climbed the stairs.
“Fine,” Genevieve said, ready with the answer she’d rehearsed on the drive over. “I’m doing some consulting.”
“I heard that,” Carol said. “I knew you’d land on your feet.”
Genevieve silently cursed Thomas. She’d asked him not to tell anyone about her work for Henry Lazare.
The conference room was tiny and dim. Genevieve was struck, not for the first time, by the contrast between the museum’s public spaces and the employee areas. The galleries were all white walls and beautiful, filtered light. The worker areas had worn industrial-grade carpet, scuffed beige walls and flat fluorescent light that flattered no one.
Carol urged Genevieve to sit and handed her the folder. “You need to sign all the places there’s an X. It’s long and kind of complicated, so I’ll give you a few minutes. I have to go take care of something for Malcolm.”
She left, shutting the door behind her.
Genevieve started reading the severance agreement and immediately felt overwhelmed. A part of her just wanted to look for the X's, sign, and leave as quickly as possible.
The last page spelled out conditions she must not violate, and she felt a rising panic as she read each clause. She must not discuss the terms of the agreement. She’d already told Thomas, and D, and her father. Surely she couldn’t get in trouble for that?
She must not divulge any proprietary information she’d learned in the course of performing her duties. Did she have any information about Théodore Lazare’s drawing that was proprietary?
The consequences were spelled out in capital letters at the end of each clause. She’d forfeit her severance. And the museum could sue her for damages.
Genevieve wished she had done more homework and had known what to expect.
Carol poked her head back in the door.
“Any questions?”
Genevieve swallowed hard, trying to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “There’s a lot of legal stuff here. I didn’t realize it would be so complicated.”
Carol pursed her lips. “Do you want more time?”
“I think it might be a good idea for me to have someone take a look at this before I sign it,” Genevieve said.
“Unfortunately, I can’t allow you to take the paperwork out of the building. Malcolm was very clear on that,” Carol said. She looked over her shoulder. “Although that seems like a pointless rule now that everyone has a phone with a camera.”
And then she shut the door again.
It took Genevieve less than five minutes to photograph the clauses that concerned her. When Carol returned, she was ready.
“I think I need a little more time to think on this,” Genevieve said.
“Of course,” Carol said. “When you’re ready to sign, just let me know.”
She and Thomas had agreed to meet in front of the museum at 12:15. She’d jokingly asked him if he preferred to meet at the restaurant, to avoid the taint of being seen with someone who had been fired, and he’d jokingly reminded her that no employees used the front entrance anyway.
It was only 11:50, so Genevieve took a seat on the low wall that flanked the museum’s entrance and called D.
“He blew off his date to have dinner with you? Tell me everything!”
Genevieve had almost forgotten the excited email she’d sent D the night before. “I think I’m kind of over that crush, honestly.”
“Really?” D sounded incredulous. “What happened? Did he chew with his mouth open?”
“No.”
“Burp and not say ‘excuse me?’ Fart?”
“D!”
“Because it wasn’t even two weeks ago you heard the angels singing when he touched your hand.”
“D, please stop,” Genevieve said. That particular experience was not one Genevieve wanted to recall. “I need legal advice.”
“Are you in jail?”
“What? Of course not.”
“Dang. I was hoping you’d committed a crime of passion,” D said.
“D, be serious. Do you think your sister-in-law could look at something for me?”
Genevieve explained that her Hilliard paperwork had a series of clauses that concerned her, in particular, the one about nondisclosure.
“I can get Marta to take a look,” D said.
“I never did anything on the Lazare drawing wh
en I worked for the museum,” Genevieve said, “and I’m not using any knowledge that’s not available to the public. But I really don’t want them to cancel my health insurance.”
Especially not if my brain’s going on the fritz, she thought.
“Do you have a copy? That would be the easiest thing, rather than me trying to explain it all to her,” D said.
“They wouldn’t let me take it out of the museum, but I shot the key parts with my cell phone. Can I just email the photos to you and you’ll forward them to her?”
“Look at you, breaking the rules,” D said. “Sure, send it.”
“Thanks, D, you’re the best.”
“Now, what’s the deal with Julien? What did he do to cool you off so fast?”
Genevieve weighed her options and decided she didn’t want to go down that path with D. It was simply too complicated.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized it made sense to keep it professional,” Genevieve said.
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. Where do you think everybody hooks up these days, Gen? At work! The main thing is, you just have to...”
“D? I’m meeting Thomas for lunch, and he’s here now, so I have to go. Tell Marta thanks for me, and I’ll call you later.”
Genevieve ended the call and tossed her phone back in her bag. As she did, she noticed a man standing a few feet away, apparently engrossed in the screen of his phone.
It was Malcolm Stewart, her old boss.
How much had he just heard? Remembering the way Julien Brooks had breezed right past the front desk at the Getty Library by acting as though he belonged there, Genevieve cleared her throat.
“Hello, Malcolm,” she said.
Malcolm looked up from his phone, startled. “Genevieve, this is a surprise. What brings you here?”
“I came by hoping to sign my severance paperwork, but I ran out of time,” she said. “There was more to it than I anticipated.”
Malcolm nodded thoughtfully. “And how have you been?”
“Fine,” Genevieve said. “I’m doing some consulting.”
“I heard that,” Malcolm said.
Genevieve had always known Thomas was a gossip, and she’d benefited from his access to the inside scoop on more than one occasion. But she never really imagined he would gossip about her.
A black Mercedes glided to the curb in front of the museum. “I’m off to a meeting,” Malcolm said. “Nice seeing you. Best of luck to you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Thomas bounded down the museum steps right on time a few minutes later, and Genevieve fumed as he made small talk for a few blocks. She would not make the mistake of discussing the Lazare case near the Hilliard again.
Once they were seated at the restaurant, though, she could no longer control her temper.
“How many people have you told I’m working for the Lazare family?” she demanded as Thomas unfurled his napkin.
He froze, the napkin held aloft, and stared at her. “No one. What are you talking about?”
“I told Carol I was doing some consulting, and she said she’d heard that,” Genevieve sputtered. “Then I ran into Malcolm on the front steps, and he said the same thing.”
“On the front steps? How weird.” Thomas settled his napkin in his lap. “I haven’t said anything about the Lazares, I swear. Carol was waiting at my desk to drop off some papers when I was on the phone with Philip, and I might have said something about your consulting gig, but I’m sure I didn’t mention your client. Anyway, you’re not doing anything wrong, so what’s the problem?”
“There’s all this stuff in my severance agreement about not divulging any proprietary information,” Genevieve said. “But I don’t think I even know anything proprietary about the drawing.”
“So it’s fine,” Thomas said. “Don’t be so paranoid.”
Was she just being paranoid? Genevieve lapsed into silence, but Thomas hardly seemed to notice. He had his own agenda for lunch, his latest real-estate adventure. He and Philip had sold their house with the expectation of moving into something bigger, but then the market collapsed and mortgage lenders became very picky. They had spent months crammed into a one-bedroom condo downtown; most of their things were in storage or with relatives. But they’d finally found a house they wanted at the right price, and the deal was just days away from being locked down.
Genevieve picked at her salad and nodded along sympathetically. Thomas had strong opinions about who was at fault in the real-estate mess. His father was a professor; Thomas sometimes indulged a tendency to pontificate.
Finally, though, he ran out of steam, and Genevieve saw her opportunity.
“Thomas, I need to ask you for a couple favors, some help on this Lazare case.”
“I can’t disclose any proprietary information, either. You know that, right?”
Genevieve gasped. “I wouldn’t ask you to!”
“What do you need, then?”
Genevieve decided to start with the easiest thing.
“At a gallery opening once, you introduced me to a Times critic, remember?”
Thomas nodded at her to go on.
“Can you call and ask him about Julien Brooks? Or Jay Brooks; I guess that’s what he goes by, actually.”
“You mean like, ‘is he single, is he seeing anyone?’ – that sort of thing?” Thomas grinned at her. “Of course I’ll do it, Gen, but that’s a little junior high.”
“No,” Genevieve said, and Thomas blanched. It came out more emphatic than she intended. “He runs a graphic design business, so maybe you could act like you were checking for someone thinking of hiring him? You know, is he trustworthy?”
A frown creased his forehead. “What’s going on?”
“I need to be sure what I’m dealing with,” Genevieve said. “Can you do that?”
“Sure.”
Genevieve reached into her bag. The next part might be tricky to navigate.
She put a plastic bag holding the heart pendant on the table.
“Do you know anyone with expertise in jewelry?”
Thomas held the bag up to the light. Then he arched an eyebrow at Genevieve.
“What is this, Antiques Roadshow?”
Genevieve sighed. “Do you know anyone?”
“I know a guy at LACMA,” Thomas said.
“I need to know the style, the age, the origin,” she said.
“Got it,” he said, pocketing the bag. “And you’re not going to tell me why?”
“Let’s just say I found it and I need to know where it came from,” Genevieve said.
“Would this have anything to do with your rekindled distrust of Julien Brooks?”
“Something like that,” Genevieve said. She waved down the waiter for the bill. “Let me get this, since I’m asking you all these favors.”
“It’s only two, that’s not so many,” Thomas said. “It’ll give me an excuse to talk to some people I haven’t talked to lately. Got to keep the network humming. Who knows? I could be out there job hunting next.”
Genevieve paused in the middle of counting ones to cover the tip. “Is the Hilliard making more cuts?”
“Something is definitely up,” Thomas said.
“They’d never let you go. The place couldn’t function without you,” Genevieve said. “You know everything and everybody.”
“Well, that’s true,” he said, rising. “And I really should be getting back.”
Genevieve put her hand on his wrist to restrain him. “I just need to ask you one more favor, and it’s a big one.”
Thomas sat back down, palms flat on the table. “If it’s money, just name the amount and it’s yours.” He took a deep breath. “Within reason, obviously. But Philip and I have talked about this.”
“I don’t need money.”
“Oh.” Thomas visibly relaxed. “OK. What is it, then?”
“Thomas, what would you do if you thought I seemed like...” she’d rehearsed this in the car, but n
ow she faltered. “What if you thought I was showing signs of mental illness? What would you do?”
He cocked his head to one side. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Gen, is everything OK? Because if it’s not, I don’t have to go back to work.”
“Everything is fine.” Genevieve had never been a very effective liar, but she hoped she was pulling it off.
“Then why are you asking me this?”
“It’s always in the back of my mind, because of my mom,” Genevieve said. “And we’re all supposed to have personal disaster plans, right? Like our earthquake kits so we can shelter in place?”
Genevieve did not have an earthquake kit, but she knew Thomas and Philip did; Philip was practical that way.
Thomas was nodding along. This was an encouraging sign.
“OK,” he said. “That almost makes sense.”
“That’s it,” Genevieve said. “That’s all I wanted to ask. If I seemed like something was really wrong with me, what would you do? Have a Genevieve’s-lost-her-mind disaster plan.”
After she did her banking, Genevieve hit the grocery store for Diet Dr Pepper and a stack of off-brand low-calorie frozen entrees.
Once she’d put away her groceries, she popped in a workout DVD and flogged herself through 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of resistance-band work. She hated working out; always had. She generally relied on lack of appetite and nervous energy to keep her clothes from getting too tight. But exercise was supposed to be good for mental health, and she was willing to explore any avenue that might keep her sane.
She’d just finished 300 calories of tasteless chicken and pasta when D called with the update from her sister-in-law.
“Marta says you’re fine,” D said. “She says people put legally unenforceable crap in those severance deals and you shouldn’t worry about it.”
“Good to know,” Genevieve said. “What do I owe her?”
“She gave you the friends and family discount of 100 percent off,” D said. “So, you blew me off before lunch, but really, what’s the deal with Julien?”
Genevieve dumped the remnants of her dinner in the trash and washed her fork. “We’re working together, that’s all.”