Читать книгу The Game - Vanessa Fewings - Страница 7

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This way through The Wilder Museum promised to lead to one of the most significant paintings of French Impressionism, a masterpiece renowned for igniting a sensation in the late nineteenth century for its stunning realism. A work also famed for altering your experience of art irrevocably.

My stilettos carried me across the white marble floor of one of Los Angeles’s most distinguished museums, and my heart beat faster as I made my way toward the room showcasing Jean-Jacques Henner’s 1879 Madame Paul Duchesne-Fournet.

More than this, these sprawling hallways would lead me back to him.

Tobias William Wilder, the owner of this grand palace of art, and the reason I’d traveled all the way from London.

I’d flown in to LAX just this morning, arriving on this balmy Monday with my heart heavy with what lay ahead. By the time I’d checked into my hotel in Beverly Hills, I’d rallied my courage to see him again.

Amongst Wilder’s many talents, which included running a billion-dollar tech empire and taking the world by storm with his inventions, he was also Icon—history’s most notorious art thief. It was this secret that was destroying me.

All I believed about us is a lie.

I hurried onward refocusing on the reason I was here.

I’d worn a deep blue laced dress, the color calming, and the detail of the scalloped lace hemline pretty and nonthreatening. The style made me feel feminine but strong; with the strappy high heels, my height would at least be closer to his. Tucking my Dooney and Bourke pouchette purse behind me, I took a moment to center myself, prepare for what lay ahead.

Taking in a deep, steadying breath, I raised my gaze skyward to the architectural wonder of the multicolored glass ceiling showering shards of radiant light upon me. A vivid display bridging the old world with the new, the complex prisms were quite simply beautiful and provided a rare glimpse into Tobias’s nature.

The first curator to greet me had advised that the route I was now taking was the best way to approach the gallery’s most treasured piece, generously on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The one portrait everyone came to pay homage to.

Along with the imminent visceral experience from viewing such a masterpiece, this moment was filled with a ribbon of emotions unfolding with the complexity they deserved, from seeing the man who I’d thought of as my one true love to the strain of having to persuade Tobias to surrender to Interpol. Or, if it was easier, he could come with me to the police. I’d do everything in my power to make his arrest a little kinder on him.

Tobias had single-handedly shaken the art community to its core by stealing some of its most precious portraits, and all this without leaving a trace.

Right up until that raven had dive-bombed his heist back in France, leaving a few feathers to mark its uninvited descent into a priceless rotunda in Amboise. Such a chaotic misadventure proved nothing fazed him. Tobias had gotten away with a self-portrait by Titian, no less.

In his own indomitable style he had also incapacitated my world when he’d swept me up into a rapturous love affair that had left me questioning my integrity. I had to know if I’d been merely a means to an end because as a forensic art investigator, I’d seemingly been a pawn to move and manipulate and provide him with insider glimpses into his case. If it were not for me, our private investigation would have otherwise remained secured away on Huntly Pierre’s database—the company I worked for and the firm that had tasked me with tracking him down.

I wallowed in guilt that so far I’d done nothing.

Until today.

I’d needed time to analyze the evidence to prove Wilder was our man. Such an accusation could devastate a reputation. There was no room for error or even doubt. It was impossible to deny the raw truth I’d personally witnessed at his home in Oxfordshire, having stood right there in that cold vault and viewed those stolen paintings. My uncanny ability to spot a fake had proven a curse as I’d known I was viewing an authentic Rembrandt, and a Monet. Along with the others I’d viewed, it had added up to irrefutable evidence.

I’d left his home with nothing to corroborate my story. Accusing one of Huntly Pierre’s most exclusive clients would see my thin thread of credibility gone, along with my dream job. My future hinged on doing the right thing.

And doing it well.

Yes, Tobias had stolen those paintings to return them to their rightful owners. Having tracked their provenance, I knew these privately owned collections had been robbed before by some faceless thieves for personal profit.

Still, sooner than later Tobias was going to get caught. This beautiful, brilliant man who had shown me how to love deserved so much more than the consequences of his heroic misadventures.

During our last agonizing phone call, a few weeks ago while I was still in London, I’d begged him to give up this life and in typical Tobias fashion he’d teased me with how to find him, giving a clue that only an art lover like me could decipher.

He’d described how alike I was to Madame Duchesne-Fournet, though he’d not spoken her name then. He’d merely mentioned that upon unveiling the painting in the late eighteenth century, she’d brought Paris to a standstill. He’d compared what Madame Duchesne-Fournet had done to France to what I’d done to him.

Brought Tobias to his knees.

How much I wanted to believe he loved me. I needed to know what we’d had was real.

There was no place for weakness.

No time for delusion.

In any other circumstance I would have refused to rush along, simply couldn’t imagine not paying any attention to the other paintings like the last frame, La Promenade, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Glimpsing back at the painting, I felt a wave of melancholy at that 1870 oil on canvas conveying a dashing gentleman with his hand held out to assist his lover up the grassy bank, the flirtatious turn of her head hinting this was a new and thrilling love.

I wanted to go back in time and warn her away from him.

Hurrying onward, I flew around the corner and arrived in the vast showroom displaying a series of masterpieces.

My heels echoed on white marble as they carried me to the center of the large space where I would find her, realizing that part of her allure was Tobias’s teasing description of her influence.

Turning, I faced the long stretch of opulent tile stretching beyond and raised my gaze to look at her—the acclaimed Madame Paul Duchesne-Fournet.

Gasping in awe when I saw her...

Madame Duchesne-Fournet was more wondrous than I’d ever imagined, her extraordinary presence emanating out of the frame and leaving me spellbound.

The way her long golden frame hung low on the wall made her appear to be standing right at the end of the gallery.

Waiting for me.

Taking in her natural beauty, those elegant angles of her face, a striking porcelain complexion and pronounced jawline, her refined nose. Most stunning of all was her chestnut gaze that revealed a sharp intelligence and sparked a sense of consciousness. The grandness of her full black gown and plush jacket reflected her status as the wife of a prominent French politician.

As I closed the gap between us, it took all my will not to trace my fingertips along the exquisite canvas—the austere background enhancing her outline and creating realism, her appearance accentuated by the remarkable contrast expertly melding her profile. This was the unmistakable technique of “sfumato,” one of the four canonical painting modes often used in Renaissance art. Painting in this mode was a rare skill mastered by Henner and proved his talent at layering colors and tones and shading them into one another to provide boldness and, when needed, a subtlety of form.

A sigh of respect left my lips.

What message had Tobias been trying to tell me by inviting me here to see her? Perhaps he’d wanted me to know he truly understood me and that this painting would somehow endear me to him more because of our mutual admiration for art. Perhaps he wanted me to know our connection was as deep as I believed it to be.

A living, breathing masterpiece.

Reluctantly, I drew my gaze away and glanced at my watch.

I was right on time for my appointment with Mr. Wilder. Three days ago I’d reached out to Maria Perez, his senior curator, and informed her I’d be paying their gallery a visit.

I’d texted Tobias and warned him he better meet me here or there would be consequences. As expected, he’d ghosted me, refusing to reply. Considering this was the phone he’d gifted me and it now served as a tracking device to my whereabouts, I was sure he’d gotten the message.

He was wise enough to turn up.

Back in the lobby, I made polite conversation with the receptionist to prove my credentials and confirm my meeting.

The tall, young steward left her station behind the round desk and guided me briskly along, escorting me back through the foyer and a long hallway to the sprawling office space of the gallery.

We continued all the way down until we paused before a door with his name and title carved into the opaque glass.

She gestured for me to go ahead and with a nod of gratitude I turned the handle and stepped inside—

He wasn’t here yet.

Shame swept over me that I’d allowed my life to come to this, become so enamored that merely standing here I questioned my moral code. This office, this gallery, represented Tobias, and I hated him because I loved everything about it.

How elegant and modern with that expensive central desk upon which sat the thin computer screen and a sleek keyboard beside it. The shelving behind was stacked neatly with books on art and others on travel; the one on American history had tipped on its side.

His presence lingered like a dark dream that had once owned my soul.

A rush of panic—

No.

Please, no.

There, adorning the far left wall was a familiar painting; a ghost from my past.

All air was gone from the room until nothing remained as I struggled to draw back on my dread, wrapping my arms around myself to hold off this stark chill soaking into my bones.

Lips trembling, I neared the portrait of St. Joan of Arc.

My Joan.

I reached up, grasping either side of her wooden frame and lifted her off the wire.

I’d grown up with Walter William Ouless’s St. Joan and couldn’t remember a time when her portrait hadn’t been part of my father’s collection. It broke my heart when I remembered his devastation when he thought she’d been destroyed in that house fire, along with most of the others.

This very portrait had turned up at Christie’s auction house weeks ago in London, alighting a family scandal because she wasn’t meant to exist anymore.

More recently, St. Joan’s disappearance from Christie’s had seen her included in the list of art crimes tracked by the police across Europe. And yet here she was placed to taunt me.

Her message clear—

My future in the art world was in his hands.

I hugged St. Joan, clutching her tight to my chest, sucking in deep breaths of despair that she was no longer mine.

Unless...

To think of rescuing her and walking right through that foyer and out the front door was ridiculous. I’d never get away with it.

No.

Madness.

My life was carved into two parts, before Wilder and after him, with each careful step leading me toward this complex, enigmatic man with the lines of right and wrong blurring. If I truly wanted to succeed, truly wanted to save him after risking so much, I’d have no choice but to push myself beyond anything I’d done before.

Ironically, it was Tobias who’d shown me how to challenge myself and learn how to resist fear.

He’s shown me the way.