She sifted the internet chatter for leads. She found the police website, and the map of the town.

Her eyes burned. She finished the wine and rolled into a paralyzed sleep. She waited ninety minutes after she woke up, watching the clock in a blank trance, before she set about packing her bag and calling Eddie to plead a case of a family emergency. The fictional family of pain needed her. No one could ask her to deny the drama.

Eddie was sweet and understanding, as Eddie could only be.

She called Samantha as she settled south at highway speed.

“I don’t understand, M, tell me what this video is. Send me a link. Let me check into this.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be careful. I have to try.”

“You really don’t. Just come back. I’ll fly in. We’ll talk it through.”

“Owen thinks I screwed him over. You didn’t see how he acted. He was . . . It wasn’t just the money and going back to the Anningers empty-handed. He was so upset that it was me. He thinks I set him up. I’m the only one who can fix it. It has to be me. If I can bring back the painting, he’ll see—”

“Okay, that’s one hell of an if, and it doesn’t really undo what went wrong that night. Owen has been in the naughty corner with his bosses for four years. Can you imagine how that is for a guy like him? You can’t ever make that go away. I don’t need to have seen him to know what you’re saying. That’s exactly why I’m not convinced the painting can be traded for a clean slate.”

“I want my life back.”

“Um, one small detail—you have to be alive to have a life. You could make a new life if you’d just get out a little bit. I know it’s hard. But you don’t have to be a hermit. It’s making you crazy. This is crazy. Your cover is solid. It’s at least solid enough to try to live a little. Give me some credit.”

“It’s not you. I owe you. I owe you everything. I know that. But it’s not just the painting. What if I could give Jonathan to Owen? Let him see for sure that it wasn’t me?”

“You don’t even know that Jonathan is still in the picture. He might not be anywhere near there. What if he sold it to someone else?”

“Sold the Flinck to some random people who hung it up as a decoration in the suburbs? Come on. It has to be him.”

“I don’t even want to remind you that if you break in and something goes wrong and your fingerprints are on anything—”

“I know.”