“No one did. I was young and foolish, stubborn, too. A baby was not something Jeffrey pictured in his life. It would strip away his freedom to pursue his ambition. He wanted me to end the pregnancy, but I couldn’t. Instead I dropped out of school, used my college money for the doctor bills and the delivery.” She blinked hard. “The baby was stillborn. I called Jeffrey and told him about it. He said he was sorry and not to call him again.”
Brooke sighed. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Denise.”
She patted Brooke’s shoulder. “I don’t need your pity, honey. After I buried my daughter, I moved on and so did Jeffrey. I just tell you that so you know what kind of man he is. I knew all along. He should have been found guilty of the museum theft, not your father.”
She felt a surge of deep gratitude toward her aunt.
Denise had stepped in and taken up the slack when things in the Ramsey household fell apart after Brooke’s mother left. She felt the surge of anger again at her mother who’d skipped out when she was sixteen, unable to handle a moody husband and a disturbed son.
Your loss, Mom. We’re a good little family, and I’m going to make sure we stay that way.
The urgency to solve the riddle rose ever stronger inside her. She had to get home to her father and Tad, to take responsibility for them again and make everything okay. If she could just find something, any tiny clue that would hint at where Colda had hidden the painting and possibly explain how the stolen sketch wound up with Tad.
They let themselves in using the key Lock provided them.
Denise whistled at the mess. “And I thought your father was untidy.” She examined the reproduction of the Tarkenton closely as Brooke pointed out the misplaced pawns.
“Incredible. I never would have figured that out.”
“I had help.” Her heart squeezed at the thought of Victor. He was undoubtedly gone, ensconced in his office perhaps, researching for the next treasure to find.
She flashed on his face in the tunnel when he could not escape, vulnerable, desperate.
Lord, help him find his way to You,
she prayed in spite of the pain that knifed through her.
Denise was riffling through the file cabinets. “Colda must have left some notes, something about the Tarkenton.”
Brooke left her to her digging and went to the small bedroom. The drawers had already been searched, even under the mattress. Heavy drapes covered the windows but she felt the whisper of cool air, evidence of an open window. She pulled them aside, gazing down into the darkness below.
She saw a flicker on the glass.
It was not coming from outside, but rather it was a reflection of movement behind her.
With a scream she started to whirl around as a figure shoved past her, an arm knocking her to the floor. The window was yanked open further and in a moment the man was gone, shimmying down the gutter pipe.
“Stop,” Brooke yelled, scrambling to her feet. She ran back out of the bedroom, nearly plowing into her aunt, who was in the process of running to help her. “A man,” she gasped as she careened by, through the hall and down the front steps.
She stopped there, panting, listening.
A scuffling in the bushes to her left made her take off running again.
Suddenly someone stepped in front of her and she crashed into a set of sturdy shoulders, bringing them both to the ground. She rolled over and found herself nose to nose with a prostrate Victor. She struggled to her knees and he did the same, helping her to her feet in time to see Stephanie trotting out from the tree line.
“Gone,” she said. “Back into the tunnel, the cover wasn’t quite pulled closed.”
Victor brushed the grass from his shirtfront. “Steph and I were walking and we heard a scream. Was that you?”
She nodded, trying to catch her breath.
Denise ran up. “I messaged the police. There was a man in Colda’s place. What did he look like?”
Brooke tried to collect her thoughts. “I don’t know. It was dark and he was moving fast.”
“Stryker? Colda?” Victor demanded.
“Tuney?” Stephanie put in.
Brooke sighed. “I’m not sure. It happened too fast. I think he was hiding under the bed when I came in. I didn’t get a good look.”
“What would someone want in the professor’s house?” Stephanie said. “Nothing there worth anything.”
“Except maybe to the professor,” Victor said.
“Actually, I think there might be something of interest,” Denise said slowly. “Come with me.”
The silence was broken only by the chirping of a cricket somewhere in the grass as they filed back into the professor’s apartment. She still felt Victor’s arms encircling her after she fell, strong and warm.
Denise gestured them to the table and pulled out a torn piece of paper. “It was in one of the files.”
Brooke saw only some nearly illegible scribbles. “Can you tell what that says?”
“Only because I’ve been hanging around with your father for too long,” she said. “‘No gr. shine. Fx indic.’”
“Does that mean something to you?” Stephanie asked.
“Let me expand on it and see if you recognize any of the terms. I think he’s saying, ‘No graphite shine, foxing indicated.’ Ring any bells?”
Victor nodded slowly. “I heard chapter and verse on this when we were searching for the Vermeer.” Excitement shone in his eyes. “
Graphite shine
refers to the pencil work. If the shine hasn’t oxidized then the work is modern and potentially a fake.
Foxing
is the brown mildew spots that occur on older work.”
“So these are authentication notes,” Stephanie said.
“The Tarkenton,” Brooke breathed, her skin prickling.
“Maybe,” Victor said. “But it doesn’t indicate that painting specifically.”
Denise put a small object on the table, no bigger than a paper clip. “This was taped to the back. It’s an unusual wood, silvery in color with green undertones. I’ve seen it before.”
Brooke watched a slow smile form on her aunt’s face. “I have, too. It’s a piece of the Tarkenton frame, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Denise said. “He no doubt removed a piece to send it out for infrared spectroscopy.”
“To prove the age of the painting,” Victor said.
Stephanie laughed. “Pretty high-tech. How did we miss that in our search?”
“You might have seen it and not even realized what it was,” Denise said.
Victor grunted. “I don’t like missing things.”
Denise ignored the comment. She looked away, eyes darting back and forth in thought. “Colda would have started out by doing a provenance analysis, like Donald and I did. Is the piece recorded in reference books? Researching the original owners, searching for letters of authentication. Donald found only a few oblique references to the work, and the people running the estate sale where he bought it had no idea how it even got there. There were only a few vague hints in some archived letters from Tarkenton that the work even existed. Colda would have to go the forensic route. He probably started with a signature analysis.”
“We’ve got some proof now.” Brooke couldn’t contain her excitement. She sprang from the table. “It really is a Tarkenton. Dad is right.”
Denise held up a hand. “It leads us in that direction, but this is still not concrete.”
Brooke walked to the reproduction of
The Contemplative Lady.
“If he knew or strongly suspected it was the real thing, he should have let my father know.”
“Unless he intended to take it for himself. Sell it, maybe.”
Victor frowned. “It would be incredibly hard to sell a painting like that. You’d have to go black market, and find a collector.”
“Which would take some time,” Stephanie added.
Brooke’s eyes roved the familiar picture. “So you’d need to find a good hiding place in the meanwhile.”
Denise nodded. “Someplace no one would ever think to look.”
Soon they were all four gazing at the picture, the little black pawns advancing across the chessboard. “Maybe even fake your own death,” Victor murmured.
Brooke looked at Victor, who stared steadfastly at the painting. “The dean asked us to leave by morning. He and my aunt are not on good terms.”
Stephanie cocked her head and gave her brother a sidelong glance. “The investigation is over for us, too.”
“But now with this,” Denise said, “you could get Jeffrey to rethink things.”
Victor continued to stare but Brooke saw a glimmer in his eye. “In light of this new information, I think our plans have changed.”
* * *
The dean’s face was suffused with anger, the lines harsh on his face in the office light. They had caught him on his way out, surprised to find him still working at nearly seven o’clock. It was just Victor and Brooke, and Victor had the overwhelming feeling of déjà vu as he sat there. Brooke was trying to go for calm, but he could feel the energy radiating off her. She’d never win a poker game, he thought, hiding a smile. It wouldn’t change things even if they did find the Tarkenton, now that her father was concretely linked to the museum robbery, but for whatever reason, he was glad, at that moment, to be sitting there next to her.
“There’s been a modification in the schedule,” the dean growled. “The demolition starts Monday.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “That’s fast. What caused the change?”
Lock waved a hand. “Who knows? I’m not in charge of construction details.”
Victor glanced around the office, pristine from the polished wood desk to the upright antique piano. “But you aren’t packing up?”
“Our offices were renovated last year, they won’t be touched.”
“Fine, then. We’ll be out by Sunday night. That gives us two more days.”
“To find the Tarkenton? By then they may have found Colda. Or his body.” The dean, Victor noticed, did not appear overly concerned about the prospect.
Brooke tensed. Was she still holding out hope that Colda could be found and somehow explain how he’d hidden the sketch at Tad’s himself, absolving her father of guilt? Not likely. Not remotely likely. “Dean Lock, there’s the chance that Colda is hiding in the tunnels.”
Lock started visibly. “Ms. Ramsey implied something like that, but it’s preposterous.”
Victor relayed the details of the intruder at the Professor House and the pawn found on Brooke’s pillow.
Lock’s eyes popped. “This is insane, some sort of crazy story you’re cooking up to continue this ridiculous farce. There’s no treasure, and Colda is dead or long gone. The only good to come of it is that now the truth is out. He cooked up the museum robbery with Donald. I had nothing to do with it, not that I will ever get another shot at a curatorship again.” His face creased into a bitter mask. “Once there’s a whiff of impropriety, no matter how undeserved, that’s the end.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Brooke’s voice was sad. “If Colda is dead then my father might never get a chance to clear his name either.”
Victor stepped in before Lock could give voice to the anger kindling in his eyes.
“We’ll be out by Sunday night.”
“If you aren’t, I’m calling the police.”
Victor held the door for Brooke on the way out. He spotted a small wooden chessboard on display, all the pieces lined up in perfect order. No pawns missing, he noticed idly. He gestured to the board. “Do you play, Dean Lock?”
Lock paused for a moment. “Yes.”
“Did you ever play with Colda?”
“Occasionally.”
“With his chess set?”
He nodded. “We stopped a few months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I have more important things to do and Colda was annoying and feebleminded.”
Victor saw the truth behind the words.
And because you hate to lose.
He joined Brooke and they headed outside where they met an arriving police officer. It was another hour before they finished and Victor walked Brooke back to the dorm.
He felt suddenly awkward, unsure about what to say to her.
Stick to business, Victor.
“We’ll go in tomorrow at sunrise. I’ll text Tuney.”
She didn’t answer. As they walked into a patch of moonlight, she turned her face to his. “Thank you. I know you’re only doing this because there’s the possibility of finding a Tarkenton, but I want you to know I appreciate it.”
The moonlight gilded her hair and lit the smooth contours of her face, her full lips and delicate brows. The urge rose inside him, strong and unexpected, the desire to pull her to him and press those lips to his.
She’s right,
he told himself.
You’re here for the treasure and for the truth.
But the feeling in his gut would not go away as he walked her to her dorm, a strange mixture of worry and longing, a desperate need to hold on to Brooke Ramsay.
He wondered if it would disappear when and if he held
The Contemplative Lady
in his hands.
SIXTEEN
B
rooke found Stephanie and Denise whispering when she woke before sunup.
“Sorry, honey. Thought we’d let you sleep a few more minutes. You tossed and turned last night.”
Brooke sighed. Dreams had kept her sleep fitful at best, dreams of her father and Tad. She held them both by the hand, pulling them along in desperate flight through long and twisting corridors. She woke in a sweat-soaked panic, only to fall asleep again, this time to odd flickers of Victor climbing a rusted ladder and growing ever farther away.
Victor is here to find the Tarkenton and destroy your father,
she chastised herself.
He’s not your friend.
Nonetheless, as she closed her eyes and whispered her prayers, she found Victor again front and center in her thoughts.
“We found some info on Stryker,” Stephanie said. “His name really is Stryker, last name Leeds. He’s been a taxi driver in California for a while.”
Brooke heard in Stephanie’s tone that there was something else. “Where in California?”
“San Francisco.”
Her heart thumped. “This is getting to be like a bad movie.”
“He drove the neighborhood of your father’s museum.”
Brooke shook her head. “And now he just happens to show up here?”