THE EXILED PRINCE SON-IN-LAW STRIKES BACK

Chapter 6: A Note on Her Desk

The note was only six words long, in plain capital letters.

CHECK THE BACK. UNDER PURPLE LIGHT.

I printed the three photos on the old machine in the auction house's back office at five in the morning, before anyone else arrived, and folded them inside the note. Then I let myself into Victoria's office with the cleaner's key and laid the envelope in the middle of her desk, on top of the Spring Auction catalog with Anton's painting on the cover.

Her office smelled like old paper and coffee. Books about painters filled every wall. On her desk sat a small framed photo of her as a little girl, standing in front of a huge painting in this very building, holding her grandfather's hand.

I left and locked the door behind me. My heart was beating faster than it had in a fight. Strange, how a small piece of paper could be harder to carry than a painting.

At eight o'clock, Victoria arrived, as she always did, before everyone else. I was in the hallway outside her office, on a ladder, changing a light bulb that didn't need changing.

She unlocked her door, went in and closed it.

I counted. Ten seconds. Twenty.

Then nothing. No sound at all.

At eight fifteen, her door opened, and she walked out with the envelope in her hand. Her face was pale. She looked up and down the empty hallway, then up at me on the ladder.

"Leon. Did you see anyone go into my office this morning?"

"No," I said. "I just got here."

She studied me for a long moment. Then she walked quickly down the hall toward the storage room, where Anton's painting still lay face down on the padded table.

All that day, she was distant and quiet. She cancelled two of her meetings. When Rupert came by to ask about the catalog, she told him she was busy and closed her door in his face. Rupert complained loudly to everyone in the building that his cousin had become a witch overnight.

At lunch, I carried a tray of coffee to the board room, where Beatrice was choosing flowers for the auction with two florists. She didn't look at me when I set the cups down.

"Has Victoria said anything to you?" she asked suddenly.

I paused. "About what?"

"About anything. She's being strange." Beatrice frowned at a bunch of white roses. "Never mind. Why would she talk to you?"

That evening, Beatrice called the house to say the whole family would have dinner at Anton's penthouse to celebrate the engagement, and that Victoria must come. Victoria told her mother she had too much work and hung up before Beatrice could argue.

At ten o'clock, the building emptied. The other staff went home. I stayed, as I often did, because the night porter carries things and locks doors and nobody notices him.

Victoria stayed too.

At eleven, I walked past the storage room with a mop and bucket. The door was half open. Inside, the big lights were off. Only one lamp burned, and in its circle, Victoria stood over Anton's painting with a purple flashlight in one hand and her gold magnifying glass in the other.

I stopped in the dark hallway, out of sight, and watched.

She moved slowly across the back of the canvas, inch by inch, her face close to the threads. She took a small knife and, very carefully, lifted a corner of the old-looking paper tape on the back of the frame. Underneath it, the wood was clean and pale. Then she held her magnifying glass close to the corner of the canvas where the threads were cut, and she didn't move for a long time.

"Five years," she whispered to the empty room. "Maybe less."

She set down the glass. Her hands were shaking.

She knew what it meant as well as I did. She had grown up in this building. She had learned to tell real gold leaf from fake before she could ride a bicycle. In three days, she would stand on the stage of her family's auction house and sell a fake painting for ten million dollars, to a buyer who was really the seller. Her signature would be on every page. And when the truth came out, it would be her name in the newspapers.

She sat down on a stool beside the table and put her face in her hands.

I almost went in. I almost walked into that room, sat down beside my wife and told her everything: the painting, the money, Anton, my uncle, my name.

I stayed in the hallway.

After a few minutes, she lifted her head. She picked up the note again and read it, frowning at the capital letters.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

Then she took out her phone, and her face hardened. She typed something quickly. I couldn't see what. She put the phone away, picked up her flashlight and began to go over the back of the canvas again, slowly, carefully, taking her own photographs this time, one after another.

I walked away down the dark hall before she could see me.

Every part of me wanted to help her. I knew things she didn't: that the forger was a man in the south who worked for Rask Energy, that the buyer in the third row would be Anton's own company. One sentence from me, and her whole fight would be easier.

But one sentence from me was all it would take for her to start asking who I really was.

Downstairs, in the loading bay, I called Sasha. The phone rang twice before she answered; she never slept before three.

"She found it," I said. "She knows it's a fake."

"Thank God. What's she going to do?"

"I don't know." I leaned against the cold brick wall. "She took her own photos. She's not telling her mother. She's not telling anyone."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"It's dangerous," I said. "If she tells her mother, her mother tells Anton. If Anton knows she's found it, he'll change his plan, and she'll never see the next trap coming."

"It means she's thinking. Victoria doesn't do anything until she's sure." I closed my eyes. "How's Raven Holdings?"

"Ready. I spoke to the creditors' lawyers this afternoon, through three layers of people. They're happy to sell the debt. They don't even want to know who's buying. On the night of the auction, the moment you give the word, the papers go through."

"Good."

"Leon." Her voice softened. "What if she doesn't stop the sale? What if she's too afraid of her mother, or of Anton? Then she sells the fake, and the debt is paid, and you've wasted thirty million dollars saving a family that's about to go to prison."

I didn't answer right away. Upstairs, through the ceiling, I could hear faint footsteps moving back and forth in the storage room. Back and forth. Back and forth.

"She'll stop it," I said.

"How do you know?"

"Because she loves that building more than she's afraid of anyone."

I hung up. When I looked up, the footsteps had stopped.

Then the lift at the end of the loading bay hummed, and the doors slid open.

Victoria stood inside, holding her flashlight. Her eyes went straight to me, leaning against the wall in the dark, with my phone still in my hand.

"Leon," she said slowly. "Who were you just talking to?"