by Shana Silver
We reach the dark depths of the abandoned part of the subway station. I expect brown sludge to hang from the arched ceiling like stalactites and years of piled-up trash to conceal the subway tracks, but the place looks pristine. The glistening tiled floor smells Pine-Sol fresh. A shiny wood stain coats the benches propped in the center, each looking newly sanded and refurbished. And the walls. Oh God. The walls. Glorious paintings cover the subway tiles. Cartoon pigs squealing. A photorealistic mural of the city at night that gives me the best view I’ve seen so far on this trip. An intricate sketch of two rats crawling on top of each other.
I spin around, my mouth open in awe of all this gorgeous artwork, on display but hidden from spectators. No one can view it or experience it, defeating the entire purpose of a gallery. I feel a strange sort of camaraderie for an artist who can never take credit for what she’s created, just as my own forgeries hang in galleries, attributed to someone else. The articles indicated that a variety of artists must have found their way down here to leave their mark based on the various art techniques used, but as I scrutinize each mural, I know they’re all my mom’s. She can adjust her technique to mirror anyone’s, and that’s exactly what she’s done to conceal her involvement down here.
My fingers itch at my sides, gripping the tube of my flashlight tighter. I imagine trading the light for the thin reed of a paintbrush, squeezing my mark into the space between the murals.
“What are we searching for exactly?” Natalie shifts from foot to foot, craning her neck at all the art.
When I stand at the far end of the platform, facing straight ahead, I see it.
Two long lines converging to a vanishing point to create what looks like a road in the distance of the image. Four separate lines fanning out, two on either side of the original two, creating the walls. A pattern of horizontal rectangles cascading across their surfaces. At intervals, long poles rise vertically and interrupt the whole image.
The carving my mother did into the tree at Finch Creek. It was this subway station.
She knew, even then, that she was leaving. And worse still, she knew exactly where she was headed.
I stop short, my flashlight pointed at the wall. Before me stands a painting of a young girl with mischievous eyes and colors that shouldn’t exist in nature, yet the painting insists they belong. Phthalo blue and manganese purple highlight the cheekbones. Alizarin crimson plumps the lips with a hint of vermillion. Cadmium yellow and Hooker’s green comprise the unexpected flesh. Despite the intense use of color, the hues in this painting are faded, dustier than all the rest.
“Holy shit,” Colin says, pointing his flashlight at the same painting as mine. “That’s you.”
My heart thumps in my chest. The girl in the painting looks like she’s about to roll her eyes and make a snarky comment. Because I was. My mom snapped this exact pose of me only minutes before she fled my life forever. For a moment, I’m sidelined by both her cruelty and her brilliance. She hid everything in plain sight and armed me with all the information to find her.
Your age when I left, now with the standard term. Paint an inch thick, bugs instead of eyes. You belong on the surface. Or so it seems. It all makes sense, the photo of me the day she left, painted an inch thick on subway tiles where bugs might crawl over my eyes. I’m on the surface—the wall—but only in appearances. Beneath the tiles, there’s more.
“This is it,” I say, my voice echoing off the high ceiling. “If there really is a stash of all the art she stole, it will be here.”
We descend onto the tracks to get closer to the walls, each of us jumping off the platform like no one in their right mind would do in a working subway station.
I wield a crowbar. “Stand back, guys.”
They point their flashlights at the wall. A battle cry rips from my throat as I raise the crowbar and thrash it into the tile like a golf swing. The painting’s eye—my eye—cracks in two. Shards drop onto the floor and mix with the years of decay. I allow myself one moment to mourn, throat constricting, before my weapon smashes into the painting’s mouth.
All the pent-up anger about my mom surges out of my veins and into my swing. My crowbar punctures the tiles again and again, splinters of ceramic flying like confetti. Dust rains down on us. When a gap widens in the wall, I toss down my crowbar and wipe sweat from my brow.
“That was hot,” Colin says.
I stick my hand inside the hole and graze something smooth and long. When I try to lift it, my arms give out. “A little help?”
Colin nudges me aside. A large canvas covered in plastic wrap crinkles as he heaves it out of the hole and rests it on the subway floor. I gasp at the gorgeous Renaissance painting, preserved in perfect condition inside the wrapping. The Concert by Johannes Vermeer.
Colin and I lug another plastic-wrapped painting out of the hole in the wall. Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn.
Natalie bends down to inspect them. “Wait, are these…?”
“The Isabella Stewart Gardner heist.” Tingles dance along my skin. In 1990, thieves liberated thirteen paintings from the museum in Boston worth a total of three hundred million dollars. No, not thieves. I clamp a hand over my mouth. My mother. And her crew: Jeremy, Nikki, Amanda. She was just a teenager then.
The other eleven paintings still at large from the Gardner heist join the first two on the platform.
The real human-skin book, guitar, and skull prop follow.
“Sweet.” Colin lifts a violin over his head, which must be the rare 1727 Stradivarius that was stolen from a renowned violinist’s apartment in New York City back in 1995. Another notch on my mother’s criminal timeline. “You learn guitar, I’ll learn this, and together we’ll create the greatest band that ever played on stolen instruments.”
I snatch the violin case from his hands and peel off the plastic wrap. “Don’t break anything. I don’t know what my mom’s intentions are for these things.”
He squeezes my hand, and the two of us share a smile at all we’ve accomplished together.
“Incoming!” Natalie balances a box of six wobbling Imperial Fabergé eggs. Exquisite jewels and precious metals surround each of the ovals, all neatly preserved in Mom’s careful wrapping.
My heart pounds. In 1918 thieves pillaged the czar’s palace in St. Petersburg and stole fifty-two of the eggs. Most have been recovered, but eight remain at large, believed to have been sold to private investors, and then stolen several times.
We don’t just have a fortune on our hands. We have the most wanted pieces of missing art in history. Selling these would make us the richest people in the world. Why would my mother go to extreme lengths to steal these precious items only to bury them in a wall for years? It makes no sense, not when she could have fenced the art and set up a trust fund legally, if that was her intention.
“Wait.” Natalie bolts upright. “Do you guys hear that?”
We freeze. My heart pounds, but I hear the sound of footsteps growing louder and louder.
“Someone’s coming!” Natalie whisper-shouts. “We have to hide!”
My pulse revs. I scramble after my friends into the hole in the wall, and we cling to one another in the dark space.
“No need to hide,” says a female voice. “I see you got my messages, Fiona.”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
My mother.
CHAPTER 29
My mom. In the flesh. Standing in the same room as me. The stolen art around me becomes worthless compared to the sentimental value of getting my mother back. “Mom?” I ask, voice quivering. I have to make sure I’m not hallucinating. That I haven’t been dreaming this up for so long that my subconscious decided to give in to the fantasy. That she’s really here and won’t ever leave me again.
She pushes her stringy, washed-out-blond hair behind her ears, revealing the hard lines etched around her mouth like an artist’s pencil marks. When she hunches forward defensively, bones protrude from her shoulders at sh
arp points. Her smile shines like a beacon in my memories, but now her thin lips barely fit on her gaunt face. Time was the cruelest thief of all. If this were an art critique, I’d have to describe her the only way that makes sense: cadaverous. She looks one step above a corpse, like she gave all her life and energy into the forgeries and left nothing else for herself.
Mom’s bony wrist points a scrawny finger at me, and little pieces inside my chest meld together, like I’m whole again. I crawl out of the hole and climb onto the platform, my steps echoing like bombs. The features on my face wobble as all the emotions I’ve held back for years break free. A tear cascades down my cheek, but I don’t bother to hide it.
I fold my arms around my mother’s skinny frame and squeeze. The scent of lavender and something else, maybe tequila, engulfs me. My throat gets tight. My mom. My role model. But her body retreats from mine in incremental centimeters. A shiver runs down my spine. This is a one-way hug, me wrapped around her, her arms hanging limply at her sides.
I step out of the hug. Mom stands stiff as a stranger, her eyes narrowed over my shoulder. At Tig. At Natalie. At Colin.
A fierce need to protect my friends overwhelms me. Mom’s wild eyes flick to me, still stuck in the angry squint, and she leans in close to my hair. “We need to take what we can and run.”
So many questions pound against my forehead, but, my voice cracking, I ask the most pressing of all. “Why? Why did you do all this?”
“Because they were about to catch me.” Her eyes dart around the room, squirrel fast, as though she expects FBI agents to spring out of the walls. “I had to go. Before that happened. Before they took me away from you.”
“But—” I suck in a deep breath. “You took yourself away from me.”
Her hands suddenly reach out and grip my shoulders in tight claws. “Don’t you see? I had to. It was the only way for us all to stay safe.”
These are the words I’ve been longing to hear. They should make sense. Finally connect like all the clues she left me.
But the problem is I can’t decipher this new piece of information. Dad and I were safe this whole time. The only reason we got caught is because we were following her trail.
I pry her hands from my shoulders. “Where were you this whole time?”
“Here.” She practically spits the word, as though it should be obvious. “Fake name. Fake identity. Basement apartment. Waiting for you.” Her tongue pushes out one side of her cheek and a wave of utter nostalgia hits me so intense, I nearly collapse right there. This was the face she used to make when she was angry. “I was going to send you the first clue on your eighteenth birthday.” She barks a harsh laugh, the first spark of life I’ve seen in her. For a moment, her eyes light up with an electric blue that sends a wave of longing rocketing through me before her face descends into the chiaroscuro of shadow. “But it seems you beat me to the punch.”
The child long dormant in me fights back tears. I finally have my mom back, and she’s practically spitting her disappointment at me. She’s even mad I one-upped her. My heart cracks into two clean pieces. I followed her clues. I did what she wanted. And I still didn’t make her proud.
Hands land on each of my shoulders. Colin and Natalie. My allies. The ones who had my back this whole time, even with Colin’s betrayal. Tig hangs back, but she’s there for me, too, in her own way.
The straight line of Mom’s lips evolves into a grimace directed at my friends (my allies).
I angrily wipe a hot tear from my cheek. “But why didn’t you take Dad and me with you?”
Mom crosses her arms in a protective stance, as effective as a bulletproof vest. “You would have been a burden. I couldn’t bring you here until the trail ran dry.”
Her words puncture my heart like she stabbed a knife straight into my gut. Me. I would have been a burden, not Dad.
“But I waited for you in order to claim this legacy, didn’t I? I didn’t have to do that.” She blinks at me as if expecting something. A thank-you, maybe. Or for me to get my butt in gear and haul her “legacy” of million-dollar paintings out of here. Will I still be a burden to her once we flee? Will she find a way to ditch me again if she deems the situation too dangerous? She’s resorted to great lengths in order to stay away from me in this warped sense of protection.
There’s still so much I don’t understand.
Suddenly her hand encircles my wrist, as tight as handcuffs. “We can’t stay here. We have to run. Not them.” Her words turn cold. “Me and you. Only us.”
I tug my arm free. “Mom, wait—“
Mom doesn’t blink at my words. “Did you learn nothing from what I taught you? If they’re after you, you run. That means away from people like them.” She glares at my friends. “You can only trust blood.”
But that’s the thing. My dad and I had been after blood for years, and she kept running from us. Yet this whole summer, the other three people in this tunnel had my back. They gave up their lives for me with no promise that we’d make it out of this unscathed. Hell, they didn’t even care about getting a cut if we retrieved the stolen goods. All they cared about was helping me reunite with my mother. And okay, sure, maybe Natalie and Tig were in it for each other as well.
And Colin—although he may have had an ulterior motive initially—he relinquished that immunity offer. He chose me over his own freedom.
I don’t want to be the kind of person who abandons the people she loves in favor of a life in hiding. Or the kind of person who rats out her friends in order to save herself. I’d rather go down with this ship than take a lifeboat and watch it all sink without me.
This whole time I’ve been chasing a memory of my mother that didn’t exist, a treasure I tried to claim as mine.
But it wasn’t. It was stolen.
My mother abandoned me years ago. Now it’s my turn to do the same. The only way to save my friends and myself is to let my mother go for good.
The tears I’ve been holding back stream down my face. Now I have to do the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life—I have to look my mother in the eye as I turn my back on her plan. “Mom, this is my boyfriend,” I say, seemingly out of nowhere. But she needs to know who he is to fully understand everything I’m about to say. I point to Colin, and he straightens. But my mom only spares him a cursory glance before her eyes start to roam along the art again. It confirms everything I suspected. She doesn’t really care about me. In fact, I’m not a real person to her, just an imperfect copy.
“His dad is the head of the Northern California branch of the FBI’s white-collar-crime division.”
She freezes.
“I’m giving you a one-hour head start to get out of the city before I call his dad and give him your location.”
Her eyes widen, scared and rabid. She doesn’t hesitate, she grabs the nearest treasures—a Fabergé egg, a Rembrandt, and several more paintings—whatever she can fit inside her scrawny arms. She runs out of the tunnel with her arms stuffed, without so much as a goodbye.
I collapse onto my knees on the grimy subway floor and three sets of arms engulf me, rubbing my back, running fingers through my hair, and whispering that it will be okay. It has to be. Because they are my family now.
When the hour is up, I clear my throat, desperate to disguise all the emotion swirling behind my lips. “Colin, call your dad.”
He blinks at me. “Wait. You were serious? I thought that was just a threat before.”
I hold his gaze. “I want to strike a deal. We turn in this stolen art and tell him everything we know about my mother. Remind him the only things we stole were replicas, and we’ll turn those in, too.” I swallow hard. “And in exchange, I want immunity for the five of us. My dad included.”
Turns out this entire time I was on a mission to rescue the wrong parent. But I can fix that now. I can fix everything.
Colin gets out his phone and makes the call.
EPILOGUE
“You got this, kiddo.”
Dad�
��s voice buzzes in the earpiece. Some dads indulge in their kid’s pastimes by cheering from the sidelines at games, but my dad is by my side once again and helping me with another con.
I take a deep breath as I round the corner onto Sixteenth Avenue and come face-to-face with an amazing hidden wonder nestled between apartment buildings. Two brick structures conceal an elaborate staircase hidden between them: 163 steps covered in mosaic tiles, each one hand glued by local artists and neighborhood residents to create a swirling ocean that rises through a garden until it reaches the sun at the very top. It takes my breath away.
“Remember. Just act like you belong. As long as you don’t look suspicious, no one’s gonna—”
“Dad!” I whisper-shout as my feet slap the first step. “I think by now I’m the crowning expert in heists and scavenger hunts. You just enjoy the fresh air and the lack of handcuffs and let me do the hard part.”
There’s a groan in my ear. “You do realize we got fresh air in prison, right? Only an hour of it a day, but still!” In my earpiece, I hear him take a deep breath. “This is lovely, though. Have I said thanks yet?”
“Only enough times that I’ve already considered it your new catchphrase.” I smile, savoring his voice in my ear and sucking a big gulp of fresh air myself. After all, neither of us would be tasting this kind of freedom if it wasn’t for me …
And Colin.
Thinking of him sends a new resolve coursing through me. I pull my shoulders back and climb the beautiful secret staircase hidden in this residential neighborhood. A unique but rarely visited tourist attraction in San Francisco, and the perfect place to hide the first clue.
Now that our journey is done, another one begins. Find the sound of the ocean; thankfully, you don’t have to break in.
Sure, I could have created a clue that required a complicated cipher in order to solve it, but I don’t want Colin to have to work too hard to find the treasure at the end of this scavenger hunt. After traveling the country together to steal concealed clues left behind by my mom, it seemed like a creative scavenger hunt was the very best way to get my message across to him. Three clues. Three locations. Three chances. Just like our summer heist-fest. And my dad was happy to help me plant the clues, even if he doesn’t quite approve of the reason for said clues. After all, no dad is ready for their seventeen-year-old to have a steady boyfriend.