Page 65 of Canvas of Lies
He blew out a breath. “I don’t imagine he’d try to lure me in just to kill me. The car accident proved it’s easy enough to get to me without getting his hands dirty. I planned on heading home this weekend sometime, but I’d like to know what he’s up to before we leave here. Tomorrow is Friday anyway, so let’s see what happens between now and then.”
I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
We didn’t have to wait long. An email from my father came through to Nico the next morning, one filled with plenty of legalese and the very clear implication that if Nico accepted this course of action, he was also agreeing not to sue my father in a court of law. We decided to eat breakfast before making any attempt to reply, and in that brief interlude, a sudden series of pinging chimes alerted him to one of his monitoring programs.
I finished my cereal while he grabbed the laptop. I’d gotten used to those alerts throughout the week, most of which seemed to be nothing of interest. This time, though, he cursed under his breath as soon as he pulled up the screen.
“What is it?” I asked.
Nico shook his head in disbelief. “The son of a bitch is selling the painting. Deep underground. This is some seriously shady shit.”
“How can he sell it? He just made a very public move to hand it over to you. I know he’s a dick, but it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since he announced it on television. How can he go back on that without facing even more ridicule than before?”
“He can’t. Not unless there are two of them.” Nico absently rubbed his jaw as he tipped his head in thought. “Have you ever seen that other painting from the interview, the one he said he mistook for mine?”
I frowned. “No. It looked pretty damn similar, though. Almost too similar.”
“So maybe,” he began, tapping his fingers as he considered the possibilities, “maybe he had it made, something enough like the original that his little colorblind speech would fool the general public. And if he has a connection to someone who can create a piece like that, who’s to say he couldn’t create an actual forgery of the original?”
“He’s going to sell a forgery?”
Nico smiled gently and said, “No, Kitten, I’m guessing he intends to sell the real thing and foist the forgery off on me.”
I flushed with embarrassment. “Right. I knew that.”
“It’d be pretty dangerous for him to try to sell a forgery, especially if the buyer becomes aware there are two copies out there. Whoever buys it is going to verify that it’s legit before they pay him.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for him to sell it after making a public announcement that he’s giving it to you?”
“Your dad knows a lot of criminals. I’d bet it will be invitation only, so maybe he’ll limit it to people he has dirt on, people who won’t worry about whether he’s screwing me over in the process.” He tipped his head back in thought. “But maybe . . .”
I gave him a second to finish the thought, then another, before finally prompting, “Maybe what, Nico?”
“Maybe we can pull a little shady shit of our own,” he said, a slow grin tilting the corners of his mouth. “Let me see what I can manage.”
“You’re much more than just tech support, aren’t you?” I asked.
With my chin propped on one hand, I studied him in the same way I might consider a broken toy—like a puzzle to be solved, like I could see the inner workings of his mind, if only I looked hard enough.
Sadly, Nico’s insides were far more complicated than the mechanics I usually repaired.
His grin widened. “I think that’s an accurate statement, yes. I mostly work in network security, which does occasionally require me to know how to getaroundthat kind of security. Fortunately, I won’t be working from scratch, either—from the minute I first realized there was chatter happening behind closed doors, so to speak, about the painting coming up for sale, I started brainstorming ways to manipulate things in my direction if that happened.”
Of course, that original burst of chatter had been what revealed his ransom ploy to me in the first place. I frown athim and he clearly understood what I wasn’t saying, because he leaned over and pressed a conciliatory kiss to my lips.
“Well, then,” I said, accepting the silent apology. “Do you need to work your magic from home, or would you rather work it from here?”
He rose, took my hands, and pulled me to my feet. “I love you,” he said solemnly, before kissing me again, more thoroughly this time. “I think it would be best for us to go home for this part, but we’re going to have to play it cool. We need to act like we trust that he’s going to be true to his word, especially if he hasn’t found what’s inside the backing. Can you do that?”
I cocked an indignant brow. “Can I treat my father with casual disdain and not let on you’re a genius hacker trying to screw him over in return? Of course I can. I’m surprised you had to ask.”
Nico laughed and said, “Hopefully, we won’t even need to see him face to face, but I have faith in you.”
“Ditto, for what it’s worth. He’s the one I have no faith in. I mean . . . why the sudden about-face? He’s got his minions forcing us off the road one minute, and then a few days later, he’s playing nice? Or, at least, pretending to play nice. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe the accident was just a show of power, maybe it was a delay tactic while he had the forgery finished? If he wanted to scare us away from making any demands before he was ready to act, it obviously worked.”
“Do you think he knowsabout the SD card?”
