by Jamie Mason
She felt ill. Elated. Amazed, but not unbelieving. For everything he was that wasn’t good, Owen wasn’t a liar.
“They have the Vermeer?”
Owen nodded.
“The Rembrandt?”
“Uh-huh. A couple of the Degas drawings were destroyed over the years as far as I can tell. I tried to see if Jonathan knew any more about it. But this is it. They even have the vase and the flag topper. This piece of shit is the last important one.”
“Owen, they can’t keep it. Not the whole thing. This is terrible.”
Owen flexed his jaw and sped up.
“It has to go back. This stuff is priceless.”
“No. Not true. The price is at the end of a transfer code. Four and three-quarter million. Take the money, Marcelline. Help Carly through school or something. Have a life. Get back to your old one if you want. I’m sure Samantha can help you figure out a way to make amnesia sound believable. Or some damned thing.”
“What about the story of the murder? That music producer. Some people said there was evidence on it. Blood. I think maybe I saw it. There might have been.”
“Would it help you to know that he liked to drug fifteen-year-old girls?”
She stared at him.
He shrugged. “Okay, that’s not true. By all reports, he was a lovely guy. His estate still drills wells in Africa with his royalties. But this painting won’t bring him back to life, and this has sucked four years out of mine. Leave it alone.”
“How do they think somebody won’t tip them off to the FBI?”
Owen sighed. “Don’t even think about it. You and Samantha are the only ones who know they have the whole collection. An anonymous tip won’t be anonymous. And I will not be forgiving. This you owe me. You could take your chances, but I don’t recommend it.”
“Yeah, but we’re not the only ones who know,” she said. “You know. You could let them enjoy it for a little while. But they get bored and your specialty is switching out their boredom for a new thing to get bored of. It’s the way you get your kicks.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing to see how they weave and dodge out of that one? And they would get away with it. You know they would. So would you. They’d love the disaster of it all. And you could give it to them.”
The scene passed through his imagination and drew a smile in its wake.
“Leave it alone . . . Emma.”
But he was still smiling.
• • •
The pain in her bruised face had gone tenfold as the exhaustion sapped the last reserve of her strength. She called up to the room for Carly to meet her at the side of the hotel. She couldn’t bear the thought of trying to brave it through the lobby.
Owen pulled his car into the lot, the strange heaviness of the day, these years, this parting, dragging the time down to a crawl. Owen let the car drift to a stop before the last turn at the side of the building.
“Did you ever think we . . . ?” He stared straight ahead.
It wasn’t flattering to be the flaw in granite. The only one who could hurt him. It made her chest ache. She didn’t look at him, but heard him swallow.
“I would have disappointed you, Owen. You lead with that. Everyone knows it. You scare people. You scare me. Possibilities don’t follow something like that.”
“If I scared you, you hid it well.”
“I know. That’s the thing I lead with.”
Owen nodded and took the turn around the hotel. Carly opened the side door of the building and peered out.
“Let’s not cross paths again,” he said.
Marcelline measured his expression for threat. There was none. Just an ending. And even the barest hint of a smile under the surface.
“Yes. Let’s not.” She pushed the door open, but leaned in, one foot already on the pavement, and kissed his cheek.
She pulled herself out into the late-afternoon sun. The door thunked home behind her.
There was no way to keep the bargain. They crossed paths often, if only in memory, and, for Marcelline, always in the sound of the receding purr of a big engine.
EPILOGUE
* * *
At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on a chilly Boston spring day, a young woman moves from the hall surveillance into the frame of the first camera in the Dutch Room, DR Int 1. She crosses the screen from left to right with a long, sure stride that pulls the security chief’s practiced eye from his divided attention to his grandchildren’s vacation photos on Facebook.
He feels old now, but the job feels new these days with an amiable crush of tourists excited by the saga of the restored collection. It’s been all over the news and cable TV specials. An anonymous tip, and then somehow a bunch of rich people made a crime into an act of charity. But at least the artwork was back where it belonged.
Now, hundreds of people a day file across the screens he monitors from the camera room, as he has for years. But this girl is someone you notice. She stands out. Someone you can’t not see.
He watches her. She seems familiar, but he can’t place it.
She doesn’t have an audio-guide handset. She doesn’t turn for the Rembrandt or the Vermeer. Everyone goes to the Rembrandt or the Vermeer first. But this one goes straight for the Flinck, back in its gilded frame after all those years, faced out to the far corner of the room as it was before the robbery.
There’s a giddiness as she gets close, an electric bounce in her step that makes her seem, for just a few beats, much younger than she clearly is. She’s at least college-aged, but for a second she’s coltish, not yet grown.
The idea that he’s seen her before tickles again at the back of his mind, a déjà vu feeling that hints at security-camera footage rather than the recollection of an actual encounter. She’s probably been here before. Maybe that’s it.
She pushes aside the plaid flannel shirt tied around her waist to pull a phone from her back pocket to photograph the Flinck. He wonders why. It’s not much to look at and it’s not one of the famous works. She checks her pictures, her hair a long curtain of blue-sheened chestnut that falls from a strong side part as her head bows over her screen under the camera mounted in the crown molding.
She puts the phone back in her pocket.
She leans in over the cordon, peering closely at the left side of the painting. It had been damaged in its years away from the museum and restored so that the break is all but invisible. She doesn’t read the new plaque, but it’s as if she knows what to look for.
The young woman steeples her fingers over her lips and stares at it, back bowed in contemplation. When she pulls her hands away, he’s almost sure she’ll reach out and touch the painting. He can practically feel her yearning to through the lens. She leans in again, plucking at the hem of her T-shirt, shedding nervous energy in the unconscious habit. His hand hovers for the radio to tell the room guard to keep an eye on her. But the look on her face is complicated, reverent. He’s reluctant to disturb her.
She straightens and her shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. She snaps her arms straight to drop her sleeves back into place on her wrists. Something catches her eye and she goes to her knee to tie the lace on her combat boot. She pushes up from the floor, and in the swift arc of her turn for the exit, he almost knows where he’s seen her before. He feels the shadow of a worry in that faint brush of memory, as if she’s in danger. Run! he thinks.
But no. She’s fine. She’s obviously fine.
She crosses the screen, right to left this time. A blur of motion, the math of grace and life. He doesn’t know why this young woman makes him smile. She’s at the edge of the frame, and then she’s gone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
Writing a novel is hard. Once it’s done, though, writing the acknowledgments for that novel is pure joy.
I would unquestionably write stories if I lived alone. I would plot to myself with abandon, out loud and pacing. I would compose dialogue with passionate stage presence for an audience of knickknacks and
dust mites. I would crow and mutter my inspirations and frustrations to the empty rooms. I would stay up too late. Then sleep too late.
I mean, I’d still act sane in public. But it wouldn’t be as good. It wouldn’t be as true.
My husband, Art, and my daughters, Julia and Rianne, make life out of what I’d do alone. Their love, brilliance, and enthusiasm make the world better and bigger for everyone, but especially for me. Art has always been my first reader and advisor and he only gets better at it as the years spool out. And I thought it would be weird when my children were old enough to offer insight and input as I write. It’s not weird. It’s terrific.
My civilian friends who read for me and encourage me in my work, then entertain and move me with their own stories and confidences, they fill out my heart in a way I can only hope I do for them. Thank you Mary Rollins, Samantha Kappalman, Diane Lopez, Jessica Coffey, Katie Delgado, Kelly Coffey Colvin, Lisa Fitchett, Kristi McCullough, and Jenny and Dave Eccleston. Jeanne Miller-Mason, my mother, is unfailingly wonderful at keeping my writerly spirits up, as are my sisters, Carmen Mason and Natalie Sherwood, too.
On the business side, I am indebted to Karen Kosztolnyik for picking up the book for Gallery, Jen Bergstrom for letting me play in the sandbox again, and my editor, Jackie Cantor, for everything. Sara Quaranta is the Queen of Polishing Touches, and my copyeditor, Steve Boldt, is my conscience at each of our path crossings. So many thanks to every professional who added their expertise to this project. My admiration for what you do to bring stories to the shelves is boundless.
My agent, Amy Moore-Benson, makes business a pleasure. I learn from her, rely on her, collaborate with her, and adore her. My luck in this partnership is a big, shiny talisman against ever feeling too overwhelmed. Always and ever, thank you.
But every time I get to the point in the acknowledgments to where the job meets the soul, to the time for thinking toward my writer-friends, I get a lump in my throat. I am very lucky to know so many wonderful writers.
This book, like any and all of them, had some shepherding from my tribe, and some of that literally, if we capitalize it. I have to especially thank Jay Shepherd for a tireless ear, precision insights on structure and plotting, an inexhaustible well of what-if-this-es, and the not insignificant achievement of finding the perfect title (and epigraph) for this book. Thank you, thank you. My debt is heavy.
Josh Stallings and Nancy Matuszak have earned hazardous duty pay for reading multiple drafts of The Hidden Things, and since I pay in affection and admiration, they should prepare to be snowed under with love.
And I am lost without the advice and understanding of these brilliant writers: Lou Berney, Tana French, Elizabeth Little, Nadine Nettmann, Graeme Cameron, Brad Parks, Coleen Valentino, and Mark Pryor. Thank you, all the way thank you.
Finally, the other group of people who make me glow with gratitude—readers. Thank you for wanting stories. It’s not a small thing. It makes us better. I believe that. And I am one of you, too.
More from the Author
Monday's Lie
Three Graves Full
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
JAMIE MASON was born in Oklahoma City and grew up in Washington, DC. She’s most often reading and writing, but in the life left over, she enjoys films, Formula 1 racing, football, traveling, and, conversely, staying at home. Jamie lives with her husband and two daughters in the mountains of western North Carolina. She is also the author of Three Graves Full and Monday’s Lie.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Jamie-Mason
SimonandSchuster.com
Facebook.com/GalleryBooks
@GalleryBooks
ALSO BY JAMIE MASON
Three Graves Full
Monday’s Lie
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Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Jamie Mason
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Interior design by Jaime Putorti
Jacket design by John Vairo Jr.
Author photograph by Kathy Beaver Photography
Jacket photograph © iStock/Getty Images
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Names: Mason, Jamie, author.
Title: The hidden things / by Jamie Mason.
Description: First Gallery Books hardcover edition. | New York : Gallery Books, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018047379 (print) | LCCN 2018050258 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501177330 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501177316 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501177323 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3613.A81723 (ebook) | LCC PS3613.A81723 H53 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047379
ISBN 978-1-5011-7731-69821-2999-6
ISBN 978-1-5011-7733-0 (ebook)