“All I know is that artists who produce sweetmetals don’t always make sweetmetals,” he said. “They can make two in a row, maybe, and then none for the rest of time. Now, most of them are in private hands … but you know there are a few in the city, right? Open to the public?”

“El Jaleo,” Declan said.

“Yes,” Mikkel said. “Sargent was good at them, but I suppose he was very prolific, too, wasn’t he? Have you ever seen his Madame X?”

Of course she had. Of course. Madame X was Sargent’s self-proclaimed masterpiece, with all its checkered history. It was one of the first Sargents Jordan had ever tried to copy. She and Hennessy had taken turns at it, sometimes even working on the same copy as they did it over and over again. There was a full-length copy of it back in the McLean mansion with a bunch of bullet holes in its head, just like the poor girls who might still be there, too.

Mikkel saw from their expressions they had. “It’s a sweetmetal, too. Off the charts. Whatever those two have in common, that’s what makes a sweetmetal.”

His teen son jogged up to give Mikkel his house keys; he’d locked away the portrait of Declan’s mother safely inside the house.

“Thank you for making the time before your trip,” Declan said.

“Thank you for facilitating,” Mikkel replied. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch again. That text number is good for you, right?”

Handshakes were exchanged again, more murmured pleasantries, and then, finally, Declan, Jordan, and Matthew were left standing on the pier. The wind whipped at them. The masts behind them were skeletons. The pretty evening was turning into something even more feral.

“It’s kind of weird that water shows you your own face,” Matthew said, but in an absent way.

Jordan said, “That was the painting of your mother.”

“Yes,” Declan said. “It still is. I just don’t have it anymore.”

“You traded it for this information.”

“Yes.”

They studied each other. He looked less ordinary as the sun disappeared and deepened the shadows beneath his eyebrows, obscuring the shape of his eyes, his expression.

“This was a good time, Pozzi,” she told him.

Declan turned his face into the wind so that the darkness would hide his smile from her. He said, “I expect great things from my portrait.”

Chapter 22

Hennessy knew that everyone had secrets.

Secrets were what made you who you were. Once, Hennessy had read a book on drawing that said the key to getting a good likeness was getting the shadows right. It wasn’t by the positive forms that one was recognized. We know people’s faces by their shadows.