Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I drink long, and a pleasant bloom fills my belly. “Here’s to the man keeping me in life.”
He laughs at that as if it’s a joke.
After we’re finished and Marina’s doing the dishes, I follow him up to the studio.
“I hate to say it, but we’d better pick out the next painting.”
“What happened to never making me do another?”
His expression darkens. “Not an option. You had a couple days off, but you only have a month for this one.”
“Right.” I take a deep breath and blow it. “A month should be okay, right?”
“You tell me.”
“I think it’s fine. Two would be better. But one is fine.” I linger near the windows. It’s dark in the desert. I can’t see any lights—which means civilization is a long way off. My prison is all open space.
“I’m thinking since you started with the Vermeer, you could do this one next.” He pulls the art reference book down and flips through it. “Sticking to my idea about the Gardner museum, this one was stolen in that heist, and it’s similar to the painting you just did.”
I shiver slightly and look over his shoulder. He lands on a portrait of two people—a man wearing black with a white ruffle at his neck, standing to the left, and a woman seated on the right, also with a white ruffle, wearing a dark-colored dress.
“Simple,” I say, tilting my head side to side. “This one’s by Rembrandt, right? You do realize it’s pretty intimidating trying to forge these old masters. Vermeer nearly killed me. I think Rembrandt might finish me off.”
“It’s no different. You can handle this, and besides, you have more time.”
“You don’t think it’s suspect, doing another painting like this? I mean, a Vermeer resurfaces, and now suddenly a Rembrandt too?”
“Maybe, maybe not. These were stolen in the same heist, so it would make sense if they were sold around the same time.”
I tap my lower lip, staring at the composition, my mind already reaching down to that flow state, grasping at it like a plant craning for sunlight. “There’s not a whole lot going on.” I squint, trying to look into the dark shadows behind the seated woman. “Tough to see the details. It looks unfinished.”
“Could be. You’re the expert.” He gazes at me. “What do you think?”
I pace away, pretending to consider, but there’s no real choice. I could push him to let me do a different work, but that won’t matter—no matter what, he’ll make me forge one of the great masters, which means I’ll have to push myself to the limits. Anything else wouldn’t be worth the effort.
I stop and face him.
“I think this sucks.”
“Fair,” he says, not smiling, giving me that neutral stare.
“But I can do it.”
“I knew you could.”
“You have so much faith in me, but I don’t really know why.”
“You proved yourself already. Twice, actually.”
“What if I got lucky?” I tug at my hair, straightening it. “What if this one isn’t as good?”
“You’ll make it good. You’ll make it better now that you have more practice.”
I glare at him and turn away. “What happens if someone figures out that these are fake? It gets traced back to me, doesn’t it?”
“No,” he says. “It gets traced back to me and Frost. Well, back to me, since I’m sure Frost will throw me under the bus the first chance he gets.”
“And what will you do?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Sorry, you do realize this is fraud? I’m pretty sure forgery is a crime.”
“Yes, you’re true, but nobody will prosecute me. My family has too much power, and besides, nobody will care that I fleeced a bunch of rich assholes.”
“That seems like a big assumption.”
“If you’re worried that I’ll give you up, I promise you, I won’t.”
I suck in a breath through my nose and blow it out. I stare into the darkness, out at the desert, and imagine I can see the outcroppings, the mesas and the striated patterns in their rock faces.
“You remember when we started this and I refused because I didn’t want to be like my father?”
He grunts in reply. “I recall something like that.”
“Dad was always trying to get me in on his schemes.” I close my eyes and smile at another one of his lessons. Make them trust you. “He taught me a lot, you know.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“But I saw what it made him. Bitter, angry, so smart and talented but always using his talents in the worst ways. He wasted himself because he couldn’t fit in anywhere, and I’ve always felt that in myself.”
“Is that why you turned to art?” he asks, and I’m surprised by the question. It’s smart, already a step ahead of me, and I feel like he’s seeing something he shouldn’t.
“Maybe,” I admit. “It was a way to express myself at first. Sort of therapy too. Dad’s always been a mess, and when I was young, it really bothered me, so Grandma would buy me paints and paper and encourage me to make stuff. I’d spend hours drawing, painting, whatever, just to forget that my dad was locked up, or my dad was wanted by some nasty people, or my dad had gambled all his money in the casinos again. I hated him so much, and I loved him just as much, and I promised myself I wouldn’t become like him.”