Lara looked down at her bucket. It was full. She walked over next to her mother, this mysterious creature who had always seemed so much larger than life, so put together, and began to help her mother carry buckets toward the tractor. She would drive back to the house and help her mother cook jam today. She’d pour it into little Mason jars, seal them tightly, then label and date them. Lara climbed into the driver’s seat of the tractor. Everyone had their secrets and reasons for keeping them.

Forgive her, Lara. The secret inside of her was right.

When they got back to the house, Lara checked her email. There was one from Edward Binghampton Barrow with the subject line: URGENT! Third painting found!

Gaston et Lara:

The painting Sylvie on the Steed was featured in Le Figaro this weekend along with an article on Émile Giroux and the three paintings. We have found the third painting—the one of Esmé! With all the publicity around the paintings, we received a call from the woman at Giroux’s old apartment building. She claimed to have a painting in her attic that matches the description of the missing third painting of Esmé the Lion Tamer. Micheau and I immediately went to see it today. I’m so excited to tell you that it is authentic. I’ve attached a photo!

Lara clicked on the attachment and felt her blood drain.

Chapter 32

When he got back to the office, Ben found he’d missed three calls from Doyle, but there were no written messages. He hated when Doyle did that. He also had two emails from Kim Landau. He hovered over them but couldn’t bring himself to open them.

There was a stack of mail that he started to work his way through, mostly junk mail; police stations got a ton of flyers. As he was tossing sale flyers into the garbage, he stared up at the board. He’d asked Doyle to take it back down to the basement, but his deputy never followed an order. Lara had said that Todd, Peter, and Dez were all dead and there was no point in looking for them anymore. He went to pull out the thumbtacks that held all the notes and photos, but he found he couldn’t dismantle the board yet.

Then something caught his eye. It was the photo of Peter Beaumont that had hung up on the board for nearly a year, but today he noticed something about it. He’d been so busy thinking about the subject of the photo that he’d never thought about the photo itself. Pulling it free from its pin, he turned it over, running his finger on the edge.

He dialed Doyle’s cell phone.

“Hey, boss.” Ben could hear the sounds of a video game in the background. Doyle must have been home.