Page 104 of Burning Caine

He checked his watch. “Sì, it should be done now. Let me get it from the imaging room.”

He stepped in and then quickly came back out of the first room at the right, behind Sofia’s desk, holding a life-size printout of the x-ray image. He took it back to his table, where he lay it next to the painting. The debris from the fire, which still covered most of it, was evident throughout the image, but a few things stood out. It clearly showed the outline of the burned areas and the ghost-like outline of the table and violin at the bottom, which were still covered in soot.

Antonio pointed to the middle of the x-ray, to the strip where the original flower should have been. “No extra flower.”

I logged into the mobile version of the Foster claims system and opened the x-ray image from 2015. I frowned.

“Computer?” he suggested.

“Yeah, this image is too small.”

The three of us headed into his office. He went in first, unlocked the computer, and held the chair for me. I pulled up the 2015 x-ray.

“Can you print it?” asked Lucy.

He leaned over me and pressed a few buttons. “Imaging room.” He headed out to retrieve it, while Lucy and I walked back to his desk. With the image of the original x-ray next to the new one, it was clear.This was not the original painting.

Lucy was the first to speak. “This is a fake. Even I can tell that.”

“Sì.” Antonio yawned again.

“What’s this?” I got in close to the new x-ray. There was a darker area in the middle of the canvas, not from the painting or the soot. We’d been so focused on the flower we almost missed it. It looked like an intentional shape, maybe a portion of text.As it dawned on me, I turned slowly to Antonio, who nodded. “Copyist.”

Lucy asked, “What’s a copyist?”

“A person who makes copies of famous works. They typically add a mark on the canvas to show it’s not an original,” I said.

“So, it’s a forgery?”

“Not necessarily. Any auction house or museum would do tests like this to prove authenticity, so a copyist adds a mark or signature, to ensure others aren’t fooled.”

Antonio continued. “Artists have been copying the masters to learn the trade for centuries. But no honest copyist would make an exact duplicate of an artist’s work until the copyright has expired, which it has not for Chagall. I’ve done many myself.”

“Have you?” My attention shifted to him.

“Sì, the best hang together at my parents’ house.”

“Okay, so back to our painting for a minute.” Lucy returned us to the issue at hand. “What does this mean for us?”

“We know it’s not the original,” I said. “There’s no debate anymore. I’d like to talk to the copyist if we can trace that mark.”

“I’ll do some research this weekend.” Antonio put a hand on the x-ray and looked at it again. “Come by on Monday afternoon. I’ll have a full report for you by then, including the images we have done. If I’m lucky with my search, I may have the copyist’s name and contact for you by then.”

“That’s excellent,” said Lucy.

I smiled at him, a mixture of relief over the progress on this claim and pride in his work.

He yawned again. “I need to get home and get some sleep.”

“Okay, I’ll see you…”

He’d said he was hoping to be busy this weekend. He meant with me, right? The words stuck in my throat as my mind played through how to finish the question, and I felt stupid for having started.

“Can we talk for a moment?” He added over my shoulder, to Lucy, “In private.”

Lucy headed to the reception area as Antonio ushered me into his office. When I turned around, he was standing with his hands on the doorknob.

His eyes narrowed and a sly grin spread across his delicious lips as he locked the door. “Have you had enough time to think, bella?”

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