by Shawna Seed
“Your fault?”
“Making her smoke out there. It wasn’t safe.”
Genevieve thought she might be sick. She threw her napkin on the table and pushed out of the booth. Her father stood, calling after her, as she stumbled toward the restroom.
“You OK, baby? You need a glass of water?”
A motherly African-American woman washing her hands at the next sink eyed Genevieve in the mirror as she splashed water on her face.
Genevieve tried to work up a smile. “I’ll be OK. But thank you.”
When she returned to the dining room, her father looked as miserable as Genevieve had ever seen him.
“I let the girl clear your salad,” he said when Genevieve slid into the booth. “I hope that’s OK. They’re holding our dinner. Your steak’s going to be a little past medium rare, I’m afraid.”
“That’s fine. Sorry I bolted like that.”
Jack McKenna shook his head slowly. “I don’t blame you. I guess I always knew you’d react that way, which is why I never wanted...”
“Dad.” Genevieve put her hand on his wrist. “I don’t think it’s your fault. That’s not why I got upset.”
“No?”
“No,” Genevieve said. “Do you know why I always thought we never talked about Mom?”
Her father held up a hand to stop her long enough for the waitress to deliver two skillets holding charbroiled steaks and leathery baked potatoes.
Once the waitress had moved off, he motioned for Genevieve to continue.
“Do you remember these people from church... oh, I can’t remember their name. She taught Sunday School, and they lived in that white house down by the junior high with the wagon wheel in the front yard?”
“The Childresses?”
“One time after Mom died, I was in the bathroom at church,” Genevieve said. “Grandma let me go by myself, which was a big deal, and I was in the stall, and Mrs. Childress and somebody else were in there, and they started talking about Mom.”
It would have been the fall after her mother died, because she and her father were living in town, not at the farm with her grandparents, and the weather was cool enough that she was wearing tights. She was having trouble wrestling them back up, which was why she had been in the stall so long.
“They were talking about what a shame it was about Mom, and then Mrs. Childress said, ‘Well, the real problem is, she never should have had that little girl.’ ”
Her father stared back at her, not comprehending her point.
“I thought we never talked about Mom because it was my fault. I thought having me made her worse.”
Her father shared stories over dinner, ones Genevieve had never heard before. These were the good memories, the Grace McKenna she could barely remember.
They drove home in silence. Genevieve was struggling to absorb a lot of new information: about her mother, her father, herself.
There were practical questions troubling her, too. These episodes she kept having – what were they? What did they mean?
The word Neuschwanstein, at least, she recognized. It was a town in Germany, home of a castle where the Nazis stored artwork they’d looted from conquered countries.
Her father pulled the truck into the garage and shut off the engine.
“We should have had this talk a long time ago,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry for that.”
She patted his arm. “It’s OK, Dad. I’m just glad we had it.”
He took a deep breath. “I hope you won’t think I’m out of line here, Genny. I know you’re grown up, and I need to let you live your life. But there’s one more thing I want to tell you.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned toward her. “Your mother played her cards pretty close to the vest, even with me. I see a lot of that in you.
“Don’t cut yourself off from people who care about you and want to help,” he said. “That’s the one piece of advice I’d give you.”
Genevieve exchanged “goodnights” with her father and returned to her bedroom, thinking about his advice. Who wanted to help her?
She changed into PJs, turned down the covers and put the notebooks on the bedside table. She lifted the pillow from the floor and noticed something white peeking out from under the bed. She bent to retrieve it.
It was a crumpled white handkerchief bearing the monogram DL. Had that been in the cedar chest? Genevieve wasn’t sure.
Twenty-four hours earlier, this discovery would have buckled her knees in terror.
Her world had tilted on its axis, she realized.
Genevieve settled into bed with her mother’s notebooks, eager to read past the sketch of David Lazare that had frightened her so.
This time, she examined the likeness calmly. Was he the man who had whispered “Neuschwanstein?” She closed her eyes, trying to recall.
It was no use. She didn’t get a look at him, only a vague sense of his presence.
Some pages in her mother’s notebooks were filled with nothing but questions, as though she were trying to recall specific details. Others contained statements, but Genevieve couldn’t tell whether these were things her mother knew or whether she was merely guessing.
Gallery records burned Impossible to keep track
That didn’t make sense. The Nazis were sticklers for records.
Genevieve opened the second notebook.
Again last night I brought something back this time
For the first time since she was a little girl sitting on the sofa looking at art books, Genevieve felt a kinship with her mother. She turned the page to find out what her mother had brought back, but there was no indication.
Suddenly the notebook’s tone shifted dramatically. Her mother’s handwriting became messy.
He is betrayed – he must be warned
Then:
Trying and not working
Try harder
Can I save him?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Genevieve had just finished gassing up for the drive back to Dallas when her phone rang.
Jay in LA. Damn. She still hadn’t edited that.
“Good morning,” she said, maneuvering into the rental car.
“Hope I didn’t get you at a bad time,” Julien said.
“Just give me a second to do the hands-free thing,” Genevieve said, switching her phone around. “All set.”
“I wanted to give you an update,” Julien said. “Whoever sent the emails is more sophisticated about covering his tracks than Melvin expected, so it’s taking more time.”
Genevieve fiddled with the cruise control, setting her speed slow enough to avoid a ticket but fast enough to keep her from being run off the road. Cruise control was a necessity; after years on congested LA freeways, the wide-open Texas roads tempted her to drive 90 mph.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” she said.
“I know. Maybe you should extend your trip, give Melvin more time.”
“I’m supposed to fly back day after tomorrow,” Genevieve said. “D always says I can stay as long as I want, but nobody really wants a houseguest for more than a couple days, do they?”
“Seems like you two could pop some popcorn and have a Brad Pitt movie marathon.”
“Oh, stop it,” Genevieve said, but she was laughing. It felt good to laugh.
“I have an update for you, too,” she said. “I read up on French wills. They’re archived by the name of the notary, which is why they’re complicated to research.”
“What kind of crazy system is that?”
“These are your people, not mine,” Genevieve said. “Anyway, we’re going to need the address where they lived. I think you have to search by arrondissement.”
“Listen to you. Your French accent isn’t so bad.”
Genevieve smiled. “Thank you.”
“A little Texan, maybe,” Julien said. “I can get the address – they owned the same building for forever. What else will we need?”
“To get records less than 100 years old, you�
�ll have to prove you’re a direct descendant, so you’ll need your birth certificate, your mother’s birth certificate and probably her death certificate.”
“No problem.”
“Here comes the part that might be a problem,” Genevieve said. “I priced hiring researchers.”
She gave him the range, figures she’d found so shocking she’d spent two hours verifying them.
“Whoa.”
“I know. When I get to D’s, I’ll email you the links. Maybe you can call them and negotiate a better price. I didn’t think I’d get very far with my Texas-accented French.”
“At those prices, we should just fly to Paris and do it ourselves,” Julien said. “Is your passport up to date?”
“I’m sure Henry’s totally going to go for that,” she said, laughing.
“I can be very persuasive,” Julien said.
“Here’s another avenue,” Genevieve said. “After the war, what happened with the gallery? It never reopened?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Was anything ever recovered from the pre-war inventory?”
“No idea,” Julien said. “Where are you going with this?”
“Well, I think I told you that the Nazis had several looting efforts underway, and one outfit was the ERR, which was in charge of confiscating Jewish property. A lot of the stuff it took ended up at Neuschwanstein, in Germany.”
“So you want to tack on a trip to Germany after Paris?”
“Oh yeah, let’s do the Grand Tour,” Genevieve said. “No, seriously, the U.S. set up a bureaucracy to deal with all the cultural artifacts. The ‘Monuments Men,’ they were called during the war. There might be something useful in the records.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Julien said. “But please tell me you aren’t working the whole time you’re there.”
“As if D would let me get away with that.”
Julien laughed. “How did you two end up best friends, anyway?”
Genevieve started telling him the story, he asked a few questions, and before she knew it, 50 miles had flown past.
Two more days in D’s company proved to be just about the right amount. Genevieve persuaded her to go to the sculpture museum, which D pronounced “not as boring as it sounded,” and in return, Genevieve allowed herself to be dragged to the mall for new underwear and, yes, a push-up bra.
When she retrieved her car at LAX, it still retained the faint smell of lavender left behind by the thorough post-dead-fish scrubbing. It was almost as if the whole thing had never happened.
But it had, of course. A couple days of drinking wine and shopping and nodding along at D’s proposed romance stratagems didn’t change the fact that Genevieve had a complicated project to sort out. And the Lazare research was, in many ways, the least of her problems.
A reminder was waiting when she got home, propped up on her bar: a manila envelope from Thomas.
Genevieve left her suitcase in the living room and sat at the bar to open the envelope.
Mona jumped onto the adjacent bar stool and rubbed her head against Genevieve’s elbow, purring.
“Yeah, don’t think you get off so easy,” Genevieve said.
She tipped the envelope upside-down on the bar. Out fell a few sheets of folded paper and a plastic bag containing the gold pendant.
She unfolded the note from Thomas.
Gen:
Hope you had a swell time with D and she didn’t hook you up with any rednecks. Mona was a good kitty and did not try to bolt once.
Here is your pendant with a copy of the long-winded, overly complicated analysis I got from my friend.
Short version: Florentine in origin, mid-1800s. He has a couple theories on the craftsman (read note for details). He thinks it matches the necklace in the photos but doesn’t want to say that 100 percent without more time to study. To answer your question, he doesn’t think it’s a fake, but if it is, he is certain no one could find a replica this good in the short time frame you describe.
You didn’t ask for an appraisal and he didn’t give one, but I get the impression this thing ought to be in a safe-deposit box, not a Ziploc.
Your landlord left a note on your door, said he was working on the lights. Hope that makes sense to you.
Call me when you get home.
xo,
Thomas
Well, if Julien Brooks had dropped a piece of jewelry in her apartment to mess with her head, at least he’d gone with the real thing, not a replica.
Genevieve checked the time. It was only 10:30. She would leave Thomas a message on his cell phone, and maybe he’d call her on his lunch break.
She was surprised when Thomas picked up.
“I was just going to leave you a message to call me back when you can,” Genevieve said. “I know you don’t like to talk at work.”
“I’m not at work,” Thomas said. His voice was small and quiet.
“Are you home sick?”
“I’m home. I’m not sick. Exactly. We’re having a... Oh, Gen, I think Philip’s going to lose his job.”
“Oh no! Thomas! What’s going on?”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Thomas said, his voice cracking. “Someone sent an email to Philip’s boss saying that he’s gay.”
“Wait a minute,” Genevieve interrupted. “His boss didn’t know that?”
“It’s been kind of a don’t-ask, don’t-tell deal. Philip has to go to a meeting with his boss tomorrow. He’s with a lawyer right now to find out about his options.”
“But they can’t actually fire him, can they?”
“I think they can, because the hospital is technically affiliated with a church.”
Genevieve had never heard her friend sound so defeated.
“Thomas, I’m so sorry. Why would anyone send an email like that?”
“I have no idea. Just to be malicious? This is just the worst week ever,” Thomas said. “Bill the security guard is in a coma, did I tell you that? I tried to call for an update this morning, but only Malcolm’s allowed to give out information, and he’s at an offsite meeting all day.”
“How can I help you and Philip? If he’s brushing up his résumé just in case, I could proofread it,” Genevieve said, desperate to do something helpful.
“I’ll tell him, but he’s just like you. He doesn’t like to ask for help. He wouldn’t even let me go to the meeting with the lawyer,” Thomas said. “He’s going to shut everybody out and make us stand around helplessly and watch him suffer.”
Genevieve gulped. “Is that what I do?”
“Oh, Gen, I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “That came out wrong. Don’t listen to me. I’m having a really bad day.”
Genevieve wheeled her suitcase into her bedroom to unpack and start her laundry, but her mind kept returning to what Thomas said. Did she shut people out? Cut herself off, as her father put it? What had D said? That she needed to start playing to win instead of playing not to lose?
When Julien called around 11 – “just checking in,” he said – she surprised herself by inviting him over.
“I need to show you some things I’ve been working on,” she told him.
Genevieve’s regret set in almost as soon as she hung up. What was she going to show him? What part of this could she hope to explain?
She’d start with her mother’s interest in David Lazare, she decided. She had her mother’s notebooks, and she could tell Julien what Christine had said. Documentation and an eyewitness account – if only this were a question of provenance, she’d be on solid ground.
She read over the expert’s pages regarding the pendant. Thomas was right; his friend was a windbag. Still, that was more documentation. She scanned the pages into her computer and printed a copy for Julien.
She straightened up her apartment and gave Mona an extra helping of food as a bribe to behave.
Then she brushed her hair, freshened up her makeup and changed into a knee-length black skirt, white T-shirt and soft gray c
ardigan. Her theory: If she was about to say something that sounded crazy, it was best to look as presentable as possible.
Julien knocked on her door right on time, and when she answered, he offered her a huge smile and a latte.
“You must have caught the first flight this morning,” he said. “Figured you could use some caffeine.”
“Good call,” Genevieve said, taking the cup and ushering him in.
Julien scanned the room. “Where’s the cat from hell?”
“Asleep on my bed in an induced food coma,” Genevieve said. “But she’s not really so awful. You saw her on a bad day.”
Julien raised an eyebrow. “If you say so.”
Genevieve steered him toward the bar, where she’d set up folders with the various things she wanted to show him.
“I talked to Melvin,” Julien said. “He said he thinks the fish might be easier to trace than the emails.”
He settled onto a chair, unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. His shirt had alternating stripes of olive-gray and camel that brought out the warm tones in his skin. He had a great eye for choosing colors that flattered him, she’d noticed, yet he never gave the impression of being a clotheshorse.
Genevieve rounded the bar into the kitchen. “You want water or anything?”
“I’m good,” Julien said. “I’m glad you wanted to get together today, because I have something to tell you, too, and I really wanted to tell you in person.”
She’d never seen Julien this ebullient. It made her nervous.
Julien pushed out the other bar stool with his foot. “Sit.”
Genevieve sat.
“I talked to Henry this morning about how expensive researchers in France are. I had to listen to him go on about the French work ethic and two-hour lunch breaks.” He made a yap-yap-yap gesture with his hand.
“But here’s the important part: I told him, ‘Henry, for that kind of money, you should send Genevieve to Paris, because you know she’s going to work hard.’ And he said, ‘You are right about that.’
“So, there you go. The idea is planted. He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no.” Julien beamed at her. “Now, what did you want to tell me?”