Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1926

C hristina Moretti greeted Lauren like a long-lost friend when she and Joe arrived, even though Lauren wasn't a friend, and this wasn't a social call. Still, Christina insisted they share hot chocolate and French macarons in her Marie-Antoinette salon. The lonely woman carried the entire conversation herself.

For all her wealth and fashionable address, she clearly missed her former Brooklyn neighborhood and was hungry for the companionship she'd left behind when their social status moved them up and away from her roots. The Fifth Avenue mansion wasn't nearly as isolating as their Long Island estate, but whether here or there, the old-money neighbors persisted in pretending they were superior in every way.

It wasn't right, valuing and devaluing people based on where and when their money came from. That wasn't class; it was arrogance. Lauren was so weary of people who pretended to be superior. Of people pretending to be anything other than who they really were.

Joe had called yesterday and confirmed that upon seeing the photograph, Thomas Sanderson had named Dr. DeVries as the secretive art buyer, Daniel Bradford. But what did that mean for Lauren's father? She had no idea yet. It was good that they hadn't seen each other since Saturday. Since she had to pretend to know nothing, Lauren felt like a fake herself. Surely, Dad would notice.

"Thank you for the refreshments, Mrs. Moretti." Joe laid his napkin over the gold-edged china plate before him. "If you don't mind, we'd like to take a look at the provenance for that papyrus now."

"Of course." Christina stood, her snuffling pug close at her heels. "But first, you must come take a look at the papyrus itself. Dr. Westlake says it's quite magnificent."

Lauren blinked. The papyrus was magnificent. As a forgery. "Do you keep it on display?"

"Oh yes, none of our visitors would ever be able to tell the difference."

She led them into the Egyptian-themed dining room. Joe's eyes widened at the tomb-inspired wall paintings, courtesy of Peter Braun, before he directed his attention to the glass-covered Book of the Dead fragment built into the table.

He bent to inspect it. "If this is a forgery, it's the finest work I've ever seen."

"Then maybe it's not a forgery after all." Ray Moretti entered the room and immediately owned it. He exuded a confidence that fast eluded Lauren.

Her face warmed at his suggestion that she might have been wrong. On the other hand, if this was truly genuine, how could she not be happy?

"It's all right, Dr. Westlake." He flashed a dazzling smile. "We all make mistakes." He glanced at Joe. "Don't we?" He was shorter than Joe by two inches, but there was something about the older man's presence that took up more space in the room.

Joe's shoulders squared. "Nonetheless, we'd like to see the provenance."

Mr. Moretti unbuttoned his blazer and slipped a hand into his trouser pocket. "Have you got a search warrant for it?"

"Ray!"

He turned to his wife. "You should have told me to expect company, dear. I would have been home sooner."

Tension crackled like static electricity between Mr. Moretti and anyone he looked at. Then, that smile again. It was disorienting. "Search warrant," he repeated, chuckling. "I'm only kidding. Of course, Dr. Westlake. For you, anything. You didn't even need to bring the police. Christina, you know where it is." He waved her away.

When she returned, she handed the provenance to Lauren. Joe stood beside her, so he surely saw what they'd both been looking for. The papyrus was purchased from Sayed Mohammed. It was not the man from whom Bradford had acquired the canopic jars, but it was the same dealer from whom the Napoleon Society had acquired the forged horse-and-rider carving.

"You look worried," Christina said. "What is it?"

Lauren passed the provenance to Joe for his closer inspection. "I identified another forgery over the holidays, and it came from the same dealer as this papyrus."

"What are you saying, exactly?" Mr. Moretti cradled his goblet in one hand, swirling the contents.

"I'm saying that the person who sold this in Egypt has sold at least one other forgery. It stands to reason that wasn't the only one." She paused, allowing the Morettis to draw the only logical conclusion for themselves.

"You're saying my Book of the Dead isn't real again."

"It's more than possible, yes."

"But the guy who's responsible is in Egypt. I don't see that anything can be done about it, even if you're right."

"If this is a fake, and I believe Dr. Westlake's assessment that it is," Joe inserted, "we'll need to take it into evidence."

"That won't be necessary." Mr. Moretti sipped his wine, and Christina went to stand beside him. "I'm not concerned about this piece's authenticity. You have looked at it twice, Dr. Westlake, and I've been living with it, studying it for months. It is as real to me as I could hope. You will not seize my property."

If he didn't want to pursue justice and was happy to keep what he had, there was nothing else Lauren or Joe could do.

———

"Well, that was informative." Joe tucked Lauren's hand in his elbow as they walked down Fifth Avenue toward the Met.

Lauren looked over her shoulder. Joe hated that she felt the need to do that, even with him beside her. Even more, he hated that her insecurity had only started after consulting with him on these cases.

"But it doesn't do us any good, does it?" she asked. "Knowing that Sayed Mohammed was the same dealer responsible for passing along—if not forging himself—at least two fakes. If Mr. Moretti doesn't care, then..." She shrugged.

"I can still send word to the authorities in Luxor and let them know what we learned. They'll want to check things out. It may be enough to send them photographs of the horse and rider." After that, the outcome was out of his hands.

When they arrived at the Met's front entrance, Joe expected to simply cut through the building and exit through the rear doors to cross Central Park and reach the Beresford. Naturally, he'd escort her until she was safely home.

"Do you mind if we make a quick detour?" She pulled off her hat as they entered the building, her nose still pink from the cold. "I want to pick up the mail Anita placed in my office this afternoon."

Joe didn't mind.

In the basement, the lights were dim in the corridor that led to Lauren's office. Unlocking her door, she stepped inside and something crunched beneath her shoe.

She punched on the light and gasped.

All over the floor were the shattered remains of some kind of artifact. She sank to her knees in the rubble and groaned.

Adrenaline spiking, Joe darted into the hall, alert for any sign of the intruder. But the door had been locked. Whoever had gotten in either had the key or coerced someone who did.

Lauren's muffled cry drew him back from the empty hall. Kneeling beside her, he read the note in her hand.

Dr. Westlake:

Mind your own business, I said. If you don't start listening, the loss of this one priceless artifact is only the beginning. You have more to lose than statues.

Behind the note were photographs of Lauren. On the train. In Grand Central Terminal. Sitting with Lawrence at the park. Whoever sent this was showing her how close he'd gotten to her, again and again.

Joe trapped an unholy oath in his throat.

"No, no, no," Lauren whispered, spreading her fingers through the dust and shards on the floor. "He must have grabbed something from one of the storerooms. If he had a key to get into my office, it's as likely he grabbed an item from the inventory." She moaned again. "How many thousands of dollars—tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands—have I cost the Met?"

"This wasn't your doing," Joe told her. "We'll find whoever did this and hold him responsible, not you."

"It doesn't matter. This—whatever it was—it was irreplaceable." She covered her eyes. Her chin trembled. "What has been destroyed today? And what will be next? I'll lose my job over this and my entire career."

Not if Joe could help it.

"Lauren." He put his arm around her, holding her to his side. "Didn't you used to have a statue paperweight from the sales desk?"

Her gaze jerked to the desk. Then she sorted through the mess until she found enough slivers to piece together again. She swiped her finger through some dust and rubbed it against her thumb.

The lines in her face relaxed. "It's fake. That statuette of Hatshepsut was nothing more than plaster. Whoever wrote this note must have no idea about Egyptology if he thought this was a priceless antiquity. Even a hobby collector should have known better. Which means whoever wrote this could not have been the forger we're looking for."

"I don't think we can rule that out yet." Joe shut the door behind them, then shifted to sit on the floor with Lauren. "He could have meant to throw us off by calling this reproduction priceless. Either way, it's an escalated warning. The statue is fake, but the threat is real. Let's see that invitation to the Moretti Christmas party one more time."

Shadows dimmed her eyes as she looked at him, then pulled the invitation from a pile on her desk. She withdrew the card and held it beside today's anonymous note.

The handwriting was distinctly different.

Lauren released a breath. "Mr. Moretti knows his Egyptology," she admitted. "Shelves in his personal library are devoted to the subject, including several volumes that I studied for my doctorate degree. If he'd wanted to threaten me, he wouldn't have smashed a fake—or at least, he wouldn't have called it priceless."

"Hang on." Dread lined Joe's gut. He reached inside his jacket pocket and withdrew the photograph he still carried of Wade Martin with a black X over his face.

His heartbeat pounding, Joe flipped the picture over to see Wade Martin written on the back. He looked from it to the note they found today, comparing especially the capital letters from Wade and Westlake , and from Martin and Mind your own business .

The handwriting was a match.

God in heaven.

All breath left his lungs. He looked to Lauren, unnaturally still beside him, eyes wide. Her pulse was visible in the hollow between her collarbones.

She'd seen. She knew what this meant.

Lawrence hadn't been paranoid in Newport. He must have known the cause of his fire had been arson, either a punishment or a warning of greater harm to come. Lauren hadn't been imagining things on the train and at Grand Central. Someone had been taking her photograph, and now they knew why. If she didn't stop consulting, she'd be next.

"Joe," she rasped, looking to him for answers, for help, though he'd been the one to lead her into danger.

He gathered her to himself, lifting her onto his lap as she threw her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Her aunt and uncle had been right about him. They'd been right that she'd be better off cutting all ties and that spending time with Joe would only lead to trouble.

"You're not the one who's threatening to hurt me."

But if she was hurt by anyone, it would be because of him.

Her tears wet his neck and undid him. He longed to keep her safe, whether that meant holding her close or pushing her far away from him and the world of crime he lived in. Would she understand that? Could he survive it? He buried kisses in her hair and held her tighter.

"What do we do?" she asked him.

If only he knew the answer. "Be careful," he began anyway. "Don't tell anyone your schedule who doesn't need to know. Mix up your routine. If there's a place and time you usually have lunch, for instance, change it. Take a taxi to work. No more walking through Central Park."

She agreed.

"I shouldn't be seen with you, either, unless absolutely necessary. But McCormick and I will be watching as much as we can to make sure you're safe."

She leaned back and twisted to face him. "What about my father? I think he's in trouble, too."

"We'll get a patrol on his place, too, but you are my priority." He pushed the words past a growing wedge of anger. "The threats should be for me, not you. You don't deserve this. This wouldn't be happening if it weren't for what I've asked you to do."

Lauren shook her head, and a tendril of hair coiled beside her face. "You didn't force me into anything. Everything I've done has been because I wanted to. I don't regret a single moment I've spent with you."

His throat contracted. "Lauren, if you decide to walk away from me after this, I will understand. Find another man to be happy with, and live a long and peaceful life. I will let you go because I love you."

She smiled through glittering tears. "I will stay by your side, Joe, because I love you, too."

The salt on her lips was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. He kissed her with a hunger he'd long denied, and she matched his passion with her own. He couldn't lose her now.

He wouldn't.