Page 51 of Canvas of Lies
“Your father was a fit man in his fifties. He told you he had a bad cold, and then he died the next day. Doesn’t that strike you as suspicious?”
Double shit.I didn’t want to believe it, but given the evidence of my father’s other misdeeds, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
Nico shook his head. “He didn’t kill him, Kitten. There was an autopsy. He had pneumonia and developed sepsis. Your father might be powerful, but that’s not something he could orchestrate. Believe me, it was the first thing I considered when I got that phone call.”
My eyes flew to his face as relief flooded my veins. My father’s hands weren’t clean, but I hated the thought that he’d had something to do with Pierre’s death. “Are you sure?”
“Unless he had the autopsy faked. But I think you’re right—he might’ve taken the painting because my father said something while he was delirious.”
“I was thinking it was about the artist, but what if he said something that made my dad suspect the painting housed whatever evidence he had? It might not have been about Clément at all.”
“That’s possible,” Nico conceded. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“If that’s why he took it, though, he must have realized you weren’t involved. It’s been two years, and he hasn’t come after you yet.”
“True.”
The relief sweeping over me was overwhelming in its intensity. Maybe Nico was safe from my father, after all—at least until we poked even harder at this hornet’s nest.
“Right. So finding proof your family owns that painting is still the only chance we have of knowing whether he uncovered what’s inside or not.”
“And maybe,” he mused, “even if we can’t get our hands on it, we can manipulate things in a way that might get the painting donated to a museum. That would be almost as satisfying as having it in my possession, and it would keep whatever’s in the back safe from him, if he hasn’t found it already.”
He tugged me onto his lap and nuzzled my throat until I was laughing and breathless. “So we have a plan?” I asked.
“We have a plan. You really are a goddess.”
“I am pretty fantastic,” I agreed. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Nico stood, lifting me easily into his arms. “We’ll get working on the details tomorrow. I have plans to celebrate my evil genius girlfriend tonight.”
Chapter Nineteen
Nico
Thingsmovedquicklyafterthat. At Kat’s request, I sent an anonymous email with a link to the interview, along with a few pertinent details, to both her mother and the lawyer she’d run away with following the divorce. After the way the former Mrs. Willoughby’s lawyer had raked her former husband over the coals during that process, there was no doubt the two of them would know exactly what to do with this new information.
If our only choice was to make Willoughby’s life miserable, the man’s ex-wife would serve as the perfect proxy.
Kat arranged for Erin to handle things at Kat’s Keepers while she was away and booked our flight to Avignon for that weekend. I was stupidly proud of her for being willing to takethat time off, even if I felt guilty for pulling her away from her livelihood.
Though I would rather have stayed in a hotel, I contacted one of my cousins about the trip and we were offered a guest room with the family. Jérôme was the cousin closest in age to me and we’d kept in touch over the years, especially after we met up on my sixteenth birthday trip, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember our exact relation. Second cousins? Third? Twice removed?
It didn’t matter. I only knew that our fathers had been some degree of cousins but had grown up as close as brothers. The last time I saw Jérôme and his father, affectionately called Uncle Philippe despite the confusion over how we were actually related, had been at my father’s funeral.
Finishing out the week and getting things ready for her absence barely made a dent in Kat’s excitement. It radiated from her like a palpable aura, shimmering around her in a halo of joy. Despite his riches—and his recently purported love of art—Aidan Willoughby had never been the type of man who wanted to spend his vacations exploring museums instead of schmoozing on a golf course, so this would be Kat’s first trip to Europe. She’d never met any of my extended family, either, and I was looking forward to seeing things through her eyes.
There was nothing like Kat Willoughby’s sense of wonder to make everything more enjoyable.
Of course, I was also nervous. Part of me felt like I was going home to announce my own failure. I’d hoped our nextconversation about the painting would be to inform them it was safely back with the family, not to confess it might be lost to us for good.
Even though I’d always considered myself an American, at least since I started kindergarten here in Spruce Hill, France was my father’s homeland, spoken of with such affection that it developed into a magical place in my mind, a haven of love and laughter and the kind of family ties that didn’t exist for me in the States.
The prospect of admitting defeat hung over my head, threatening to drown me in shame.
Having Kat at my side was the one thing that held me together. She shone like a beacon in the darkness, sparkling in her usual way and keeping me sane through it all.
On Friday night, I picked her up after work, stopped by her place to get her luggage—all of which she’d decorated with glittery rainbow kitten stickers that made me guffaw when I saw them—and brought her back to my apartment for the first time. It was located in a slightly more modern section of town than hers, one of a dozen apartments in a nondescript brick building.
