I tried to think over the music and the sound of my own blood pulsing in my ears. I looked up and saw the Vermeer painting.

Something important to show you, in my great-uncle’s meticulous hand…

The same words Chaudron had used earlier when speaking of the Vermeer painting.

I wrestled the painting off the wall and turned it around. There was a wad of folded pages wedged into the wooden stretcher bars. I got them out, unfolded them… No question they were from Peruggia’s journal, the handwriting, the buff paper, the torn edges.

Everything of my great-uncle’s went to my older sister…this painting…some papers…

I tried to read, but my mind was spinning, impossible. I’d read them later. Now, get out of here!

I stuffed them into my jacket pocket. A moment later, I felt the stirring of air and heard the intake of breath.

“Just what I have been looking for.”

The man came around to face me, gun in his hand. “I will take that.”

A split second to think, a move toward my breast pocket. He slapped my hand away and reached in. He came out with a folded, blood-streaked page. Then he pressed the gun against my temple and cocked the trigger.

59

New York City

The collector replaced the burned-out spotlight, then moved from one artwork to another. He took in the skillful brushwork of a Monet seascape, the brilliant color in a Matisse still life, lingered in front of a piece he’d acquired only a few days ago, a Toulouse-Lautrec gouache on cardboard, a woman pulling up her stockings, simple and sexy. He admired the way the artist had created a figure out of a few quickly sketched lines, the use of white paint on the shoulders and breasts to give them volume and bring them forward, the stark red-orange of her hair. He did not need the piece, nor had he commissioned the theft. He had almost said no, but the opportunity was too good, the artwork first-rate and an excellent addition to his collection.

From Lautrec to Leonardo, the two artists worlds apart, yet both fascinated by feminine beauty, Lautrec’s woman earthy and real, Leonardo’s lady ethereal and bewitching, beyond mortal man. But not beyond him.

It had been twenty years since he had acquired the Leonardo, the fence who’d sold it to him a Frenchman who claimed to represent an upper-class French family whose great-grandmother had owned many well-known artworks of dubious provenance. The family, afraid to have such a famous painting in their possession, were willing to part with it for a mere five million dollars, though he had bargained them down to three, a pittance if indeed it were real, but he still did not have proof.

How many trips had he made to Paris and the Louvre to stand in front of the painting to study it for similarities or differences, none of which he could ever see? He knew about good forgeries, and it was possible that was all he had. He raised his magnifying glass and drew it slowly across the painting’s surface. But what was he looking for? Was there something here that would prove the painting’s authenticity? He had no idea. Not yet. But soon.