Page 153 of Under the Lies

Anger that only grows as Noah walks over to his bar and pours a generous amount of scotch into a glass. Then pours another.

He walks back to me, handing me a glass.

I don’t take it. I sink into the couch with my arms crossed, instead.

Without saying a word, he sits on his coffee table next to the chess set. I stare at the pieces. It’s my move, has been for days, and I haven’t figured out which one would be best. Noah’s currently winning, collecting more of my pieces than me his. He already has all of my pawns.

He’s always several steps ahead of me.

“Tell me,” I whisper.

He takes his time sipping his scotch before talking. “You know we would always hang out at his place with Harlow.”

Slowly, I nod.

“Well, over time, your grandfather started to become a mentor to me. To all of us.”

A mentor? “My grandfather never did anything with real estate or property investments. He was an art consultant.”

The look Noah gives me makes me feel small, naïve.

“Have you ever wondered about the Baron? About his identity?”

“Of course,” I answer. Everyone has. “I wrote a paper about him for one of my classes in undergrad.” The more I talk, the more heavy my lungs feel.

“Sayer.” Noah reaches for my hands, anchoring me to him. “Your grandfather was the Baron.”

“No,” I whisper. Unable to wrap my head around what he’s saying.

“Think about it, Sayer.”

“No,” I repeat, louder this time. “My granddad wasn’t a thief. He was a good man.”

“He was a great man,” Noah agrees. “But he was a thief.”

I don’t want to believe this is true. That my sweet and caring and loving granddad was a hardened criminal but the more I turn the words over, the more I see the signs. The lessons he would always give me and my sister, to observe every room we entered, to find blind spots in cameras and how to pick locks.

Growing up, I thought they were little games. Things I didn’t realize other kids weren’t playing with their grandparents.

How hard my parents molded me into a society accepting girl, of how hard they tried to fit in with other members of the city’s elite. How they didn’t like me spending time with him.

I think back to all the traveling my granddad did, all the places he’d seen. All the paintings he had in his collection, of all the art he’d bring back from his travels.

The constant rotation of art moving through his home.

My home.

Oh God.

I chalked it up to his job. But even as I’m majoring in art conservation and want to be an art consultant, the things I’ve researched haven’t always lined up with what he did.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. The more signs are there. My granddad was an art thief. He was the Baron. “I feel so stupid.”

“No,” Noah argues. “He didn’t want you to know, Sayer.”

“Then why did you?” I ask. “Did Harlow know? Did my parents?”

It takes him several seconds before he nods.

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