Page 12 of The Thief

“Don’t waste your money,” I tell her. “My parents’ stuff is still in storage, so I’ll just get whatever I need from there.” That’s another lie; I have no intention of going anywhere near that storage unit. Why would I stick a knife into my wound just to watch myself bleed?

We’re nearing the island. The boat slows down, and familiar landmarks come into view. I catch a glimpse of the Chiesa della Madonna dell’Orto, and then we’re heading west and turning into the Grand Canal.

And I’m home.

A fourteenth-century poet described Venice as a pearl set in the vast blue of the Adriatic. But as the boat docks, my heart sinks.

Coming back was a mistake.

* * *

Valentina takesme to her apartment over my protests and feeds me until I can’t move, and for a while, I almost forget I’m back in Venice. But eventually, it’s time for me to leave. Angelica has school tomorrow morning, and I can’t stay here all night, no matter what my best friend might say. Dante has already brought my suitcase to my parents’ apartment with an extra key I have, so I don’t even have to wrestle with my luggage.

So at nine, I get to my feet, hug her goodbye, and walk half an hour to the apartment. I’ve made this trip a thousand times growing up, and it doesn’t matter that I haven’t been home in ten years; my feet know the way.

I climb the four flights of stairs and unlock the front door.

And then I’m all alone in the apartment where my mother died of cancer. Where my father looked at the prospect of life without his beloved wife and chose instead to end his life.

The blood is gone, of course, but the images in my head haven’t gone anywhere.

I take a deep, shaky breath, assemble my air mattress, and go to bed. All night long, no matter how high I crank up the heat and no matter how tightly I wrap my blankets around me, I can’t stop shivering.

I lie awake most of the night. Before I know it, the alarm on my phone goes off, and it’s time to get up for the first day of my new job.

I show up at the Palazzo Ducale at nine on the dot. Dottore Garzolo gives me the behind-the-scenes tour, introduces me to my coworkers, and takes me to lunch. After that, he drops me off at my office and leaves me alone to familiarize myself with the work.

All week, I do everything possible to lose myself in the nitty gritty of digitizing the collection. Valentina texts me every day to check on me, but she’s in deadline mode, so she doesn’t have time to hang out.

Staying at my parents’ apartment doesn’t get easier, so I avoid it as much as I can. I get to the museum at seven in the morning, and I don’t leave until it’s time for the security guards to lock up. After work, I go to a bar and nurse a glass of wine until the bartender eyes me askance. I eat out every night even though I can’t really afford it, I go home and fall asleep, and then I wake up the next morning and do it all again.

Then, on Friday, when I’m ready to give up, admit failure, and run the hell away from Venice, I find a fake Titian tucked away in a storage room in a dusty corner of the museum.

7

LUCIA

With shaking hands, I lift the small canvas off the rack.

I can’t take my eyes off it. Most paintings of the Madonna show her in a solemn mood, but not this one. Titian has painted the Virgin Mary in everyday clothes, sitting on a chair with baby Jesus on her lap, laughing and playing with her newborn son.

There’s no record of this painting in our collection, which isimpossible.Tiziano Vecelli, or Titian, was one of the most famous Venetian painters of the sixteenth century. For the museum to lose track of the painting of this caliber—that’s akin to finding theMona Lisain a storage room in the Louvre. It just doesn’t happen.

I take the painting into the light, and I get my second shock of the day. The colors are faded in a very uniform manner, and the cracks in the canvas—a sign of its age—look wrong. Italian paintings from this period should have thin and skinny cracks, but in the Titian I’m holding, they are swirly and randomly distributed.

This is afake.

I feel a familiar prickle in my spine, the first stirrings of anticipation. I was prepared to put my Robin Hood thieving tendencies on hold for the next five months, but my next job has practically fallen into my lap.

I hate it when people steal art, and I hate itmorewhen they steal from museums. It’s greedy and entitled. To take something that’s on public display and lock it behind a closed door so that only you can enjoy it is the height of selfishness, and I won’t let it stand.

Which means there’s really only one thing I can do.

Find out who stole it and steal it back from them.

* * *

For a change,I leave work when it’s still daylight outside. Dottore Garzolo intercepts me at the exit. “Ah, good, good,” he says approvingly. “I was beginning to worry about you, Lucia. A young woman like yourself needs to go out and live life, not spend all her time in a dusty storage room or peering at a screen.”

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