Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

J oe burst into the room, Oscar behind him, weapons drawn. Fred Klein clutched Lauren to himself, a pistol pressed to her temple.

"NYPD! Put the gun on the floor and your hands in the air!" Joe shouted.

Oscar circled around, keeping his firearm trained on Klein from a different angle.

Klein only squeezed Lauren harder. Joe couldn't look at her. He couldn't face the terror in her eyes, nor the fact that he was to blame for pulling her into this hunt in the first place. He channeled every ounce of concentration onto the gunman.

"I can't go back," Klein shouted. "I won't!" The accent brought to mind every conversation he'd had with Peter Braun. Klein was desperate not to be deported to Germany. Desperate men did desperate things.

"Put the gun down, and we'll talk about it," Joe said, his senses razor sharp. "This looks bad for you, Fred, but if you cooperate, I'll see that you have an easier time. Drop the gun."

"I can't do that."

"Then start talking if you want me to hear your side of the story before I shoot you."

"You wouldn't," Fred scoffed, maneuvering so that Lauren's body more fully shielded his.

"You willing to bet your life on it?" Joe's hand was steady and so was his voice. But there was no way he'd take a shot that might hurt the woman he loved. Unless hurting her would save her life. Please, God, don't let it come to that.

"Is this about money?"

Joe didn't look, but he recognized Theodore Clarke's voice.

"Name a figure, young man, and I'll pay it," the millionaire offered. "In cash, if you prefer it. Just let her go, nice and easy."

"Cash," repeated Fred. "Now, there's a smart idea."

"But don't you have enough of Mr. Clarke's money already?" Lauren dared to ask. "He already wired the funds for this coffin you forged. Even if you split that sum three ways, or four or five, you'd still have—"

"A lot of money?" Fred laughed darkly. "One would think so. But I haven't been paid what I've been promised in months. I certainly haven't gotten a fair cut for the work I've done."

Joe had checked Lawrence Westlake's bank accounts recently, as well as the account connected to the Napoleon Society. Neither had taken in the large sums he would have expected for a forgery ring.

"Where has the money gone?" Joe asked.

———

Lauren struggled to breathe, even though Fred's grip had loosened some. His frenetic moving behind her dislodged some pins from her hair, which tumbled to her shoulder. While the barrel of one gun bruised her temple, two other revolvers pointed at her. Well, pointed at Fred, but there was no separation between them. Joe kept him talking, and she prayed the microphone she wore caught every word.

Lawrence hadn't said a thing. Not a single word in his own defense. Nor did he warn or plead with Fred to leave his daughter alone. While Joe and Fred talked, Lawrence was slipping away. Mr. Clarke remained, though she wished he would flee to safety, and call more police. But he stood frozen, unwilling or unable to leave. Oscar kept his gun pointed at Fred so intently she detected a tremor in his arm.

No one saw Lawrence but Lauren.

He was behind Joe now. He looked right at Lauren, and the look in his eyes was not that of a father gazing on a daughter in danger. It was one of cold calculation. He wanted to know if Lauren would keep quiet. That was all.

He was running again. He was running away from her. He would leave not knowing whether the next moments would hold life or death for the only child he had left. He would disappear from Manhattan, from her life, for good. If it weren't for all the people he'd hurt, the crimes he'd committed, she would let him. How could she ever again be in the presence of a man like this? All her life, he'd presented himself as one kind of man, like a painted and gilded funerary mask. That mask had cracked open to reveal the rotten soul within.

Tears traced her cheeks and wet her lips. They tasted of a sorrow, fury, and grief deeper and darker than she'd ever known. She didn't want to care. But her heart was still beating, and so she did.

Lawrence turned.

"He's running!" Lauren cried, and Oscar gave chase while Fred swore at Lawrence for abandoning him.

Joe stayed. "Fred, if you fire your weapon, I will shoot to kill. If you let her go and submit to arrest, I won't shoot you. It's that simple."

But maybe that was what Fred wanted, Lauren realized. Not to run but to escape. He might shoot himself, or he might shoot her, counting on Joe to end his life for him.

Fred's hand shook. He grew more unpredictable by the minute. "Your father told me it would all be fine! I was the one taking the risks. Lawrence told me the names of Clarke's team in the field, and I forged telegrams and letters about Hatsudora, making it look like they had come from his people in Egypt. I crafted the coffin, took the photographs, sent them to Clarke as if I was someone he trusted. The only thing I couldn't fake was a mummy, but Lawrence said that would not be a problem, as long as I faked one last letter."

His words blurred in Lauren's mind as he rattled on about the grand scheme to deceive Mr. Clarke. Even the fragments that filtered through didn't make sense to her—something about Lawrence, while in Newport, paying someone to pose as a telegram carrier to intercept the messages Clarke thought he sent to Egypt.

"And now Lawrence has left me here to face this alone!" Mr. Klein yelled into her ear.

She fought the rising panic and wondered vaguely if the microphone was picking up her racing heartbeat.

The microphone. If Fred saw no way out of this room, he had no reason to keep secrets anymore.

"He left us both," Lauren told him. "What did he do to you? Where did the money go?"

"We were blackmailed. Someone found out about what we were doing and threatened to tell the police if we didn't cut him in on the profits."

"Who?"

"Ray Moretti."

Lauren closed her eyes. How many times had Joe tried to warn her that something was off with Ray? She hadn't wanted to believe it. She saw what she wanted to see and turned a blind eye to what she didn't.

"And the percentage he demanded kept growing. We sold him that papyrus for as much as a year of my salary. That coffin over there? Took me months to complete, but I thought it would be worth it. It's five times the value of the papyrus. We could have all been rich, but no."

"We?" Joe prodded.

"Daniel DeVries, Lawrence, and myself. The other two board members of the Napoleon Society had no idea what we were doing. They wouldn't have liked it. A house divided, no? Ray and his brother, though, those two stuck together."

Lauren's eyes popped open. "What do you mean?"

"Ray got nervous about you and the detective hunting for forgeries. But Lawrence couldn't be the one to tell you to quit, could he? So Tony tried to scare you into stopping. Photos, a note, a smashed statue—sound familiar? That was me who let him into your office, by the way. Otherwise he would have broken down the door, and I figured I'd spare you the headache."

"He smashed a reproduction, a paperweight."

Fred's chuckle was breathy, sticking to her ear. "Tony has no concept of art."

"But why did you even start?" Mr. Clarke asked. "How did it all begin?"

"Enough talking!" Fred spat. "Just let me leave, and I won't shoot her. I'll let her go once I'm far enough away."

"Not a chance." Sweat rolled into Joe's eyes, and he blinked it back. "This is the end of the line for you."

Mr. Clarke stayed quiet, but she knew he was there, a silent witness keeping vigil. His lips moved in what she could only hope was prayer, because there was no way Joe had a clear shot. When she moved, so did Fred, pressing himself closer to her back. His body odor was overpowering.

Footsteps pounded down the corridor, but instead of hearing the distinctive shout of the NYPD, she heard German. Red-faced, Peter Braun rushed in through a side door.

In that split second of distraction, Fred angled toward it, exposing to Joe the hand that held the gun.

A shot exploded and blood sprayed Lauren's face. Fred's gun hit the floor. Lauren broke free from Fred, lunged forward, and kicked the gun to Mr. Clarke while Joe and Peter rushed Fred and tackled him.

At last, Fred Klein was under arrest. By the looks of his mangled hand, he'd not be forging with it again. As for Lawrence Westlake, he'd gotten away without confessing to anything.

Joe had blood on his hands. Thank God it wasn't Lauren's.

He gripped Fred's upper arm, and Peter held him fast from the other side. They'd wrapped Fred's injury with strips torn from muslin sheeting, but the wound soaked through.

"Go ahead," Peter said, glancing toward Lauren. "See to her before you go."

Mr. Clarke passed Joe a couple of handkerchiefs and took his place, keeping the criminal secure.

After cleaning his own hands, Joe hurried to where Lauren sat near the coffin bearing Hatsudora's name. Half of her hair remained loosely pinned while the other half curtained one side of her face. Kneeling, he brushed it behind her shoulder and wiped Fred's blood from her cheek. Her eyes were vacant, as though she'd shuttered the world from view.

He took her cold, shaking fingers in his and pressed a quick kiss to them. "You are so brave. And I'm so sorry you had to be," he whispered. She deserved more words than that, but there was no time for that now. "I've got to go. I need you to come to headquarters, you and Mr. Clarke and Peter, too, to give your statements about what happened here this morning."

She nodded.

"Oscar and I will take Fred and Lawrence in the police car."

"You found him?"

"Oscar caught up with him. Mr. Clarke has a car here and will take you and Peter to headquarters after we take the prisoners in. You can wait about ten minutes or so after we leave. Wish I could give you more time to recover first, but it's best to get statements while the event is fresh in your mind."

Another nod.

"I'll see you soon."

Returning to his prisoner, Joe told Peter and Mr. Clarke where to go when they reached headquarters, then hauled Fred Klein into the corridor.

Jefferson, one of the Met security guards, stood guarding a handcuffed Lawrence Westlake. "McCormick went to pull the police car up to the door," he said. "Told him I'd handle this one."

Joe thanked him for his part in helping Oscar catch him.

"Just doing my job," said Jefferson. "He hasn't said a word, Sergeant."

"He will." As soon as Lawrence heard everything Fred confessed to, Joe was sure he'd crack and confess, as well. For the time being, both prisoners were silent, aside from Fred's moaning about his injury.

"Our NYPD surgeon will tend it as soon as we get to the station," Joe told him.

A few minutes later, he and Jefferson marched their prisoners to one of the more obscure exits facing Central Park and out into the glaring light of a January morning. The bracing cold cut through Joe's wool uniform and chilled the sweat on his skin.

Oscar opened a back door to the car and watched, his hand hovering near the gun in his holster, in case either prisoner tried anything. Joe doubted they would, but vigilance was always a good idea.

The sidewalk from the rear museum exit to the narrow avenue had never seemed so long. But it was far preferable to parading them through the museum and out the main Fifth Avenue doors. This wasn't the kind of publicity the Met wanted.

Keeping his grip on Fred's arm tight, Joe surveyed the surroundings as they walked. There were half a dozen vehicles parked in the secluded lot to the right, service vehicles for the museum or the grounds keepers of Central Park. Around the lot, maple trees stretched their bare arms to the sky.

Joe looked again at the lot, sensing that something wasn't right. Fire danced over his nerves. Then he realized what had struck him as odd. Sunshine bounced off all the windows of the vehicles—except for one.

The first body dropped at the same time Joe heard the shot.

Lauren couldn't understand what Mr. Clarke was saying to her. She told him to try again. She fumbled to repin her hair. If she could steady her hands, if she could only repair what this morning had done...

Then Anita was there. She took the pins from Lauren and fixed her hair.

Peter stood at the doorway of the room, talking to two security guards, or maybe they were policemen, but she didn't know what they were saying.

"Lauren!" Mr. Clarke gripped her shoulders, and his voice broke through at last. "Your father and Mr. Klein have been shot. An ambulance has been called, but it will be too late. Lawrence is asking to see you."

The words reached her by degrees, as though coming from a great distance. A sickening awareness rolled over her. She stood from where she'd been sitting near the coffin, realizing that the man who'd forged it and the man who'd arranged it all each had need of one now.

Black spots dotted her vision. Lawrence had already been dying to her in pieces small and large. This new death, the physical one, could not be more painful than when he had abandoned her to a gunman this morning. It would only be more final. "Take me to him."

Anita offered to run for her coat, but Mr. Clarke said there wasn't time. Lauren couldn't feel anything anyway, not even the wind she supposed was cold.

Mr. Clarke held her up and walked with her outside. Maybe Anita went with them, maybe she didn't. Lauren's vision narrowed to one thing. Two bodies lay on the sidewalk. One was covered with a blanket over his face, but his blond hair showed. The other was Lawrence, covered up to his neck.

"There's no hope of saving him," Mr. Clarke said of her father.

"I know," she whispered. "I know."

And then she was alone, on her knees beside him. The blanket that hid his body didn't cover the thick, metallic smell of blood.

Eyelids fluttering, he looked at her. "I have ... to tell you," he struggled to say. Something gurgled in his chest.

Pushing down the bile that threatened, Lauren leaned closer to hear.

"Tony Moretti did this," he said. "I kept records and proof of everything." He whispered where to find it. "It's all there."

Lauren watched his life fade. Time stretched between his breaths. "What else?" she asked. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?" This was his last chance, and they both knew it. Which words would he choose to give her, knowing she'd carry them forever, as she had carried Mother's?

Lawrence coughed, and blood dribbled from his mouth. "It's not ... my fault." On that rattling exhale, he died.