Page 48 of Forging Caine

Elliot said, “New business?”

“Sì, he’s launching a fine art investigations company as a side business. There’s enough going on around my family, given my Zio Giovanni and something that happened with my Zio Andrea, that he’s decided he wants to make a difference in the world.”

“Don’t tell me you Ferraros are going to steal Sam from me.” Elliot shifted to look at me again. “After I almost had you convinced to leave the insurance industry?”

I never said I was going to leave the insurance industry. Might have thought about it every single day, especially now that I had a desk job, but I didn’t tell him that. “Anyway, here’s what we found. Fiori’s painting is a forgery.”

“How certain are you?”

Antonio handed his first sheet to Elliot, which was covered in his notes. “I started paint tests, checking for chemicals which wouldn’t be appropriate to the age of this painting, such as synthetic pigments. Once I got past the recent conservation work, everything appeared as it should. Paint like this will normally stay not quite wet but… I don’t how to explain it, but wet.”

“Until the polymers become cross-linked?”

Antonio and I looked at each other, surprised by Elliot.

Elliot chuckled. “You don’t spend a decade with the Art Crime Team and learn nothing.”

“Of course. But these paints were dry. And with the correct pigments, my next option was texture. It had the crackles I expected, the aged coloring inside each valley. Everything on the surface looked right.”

Elliot nodded. “No doubt they said the same about Han van Meegeren’s forgeries.”

A Dutch art dealer and forger of the early twentieth century, Van Meegeren was practically the grandfather of modern forgery techniques. Thanks to a high-profile trial in the 1940s, the legitimate art world learned a great deal about the process.

“I have a friend who works at the Getty, and she sent me photos of the original. Even the frame and the canvas are right, including stains on the stretcher and the gallery tags.”

“You’re telling me we’re dealing with a master forger?”

“Not quite.” Antonio handed the other sheet to Elliot. “When I looked at it under infrared, I discovered this.”

Elliot held the sheet up, pulled it in close, straightened his arm, absorbing every detail.

I clasped my hands behind my back so Elliot couldn’t see how much they were fidgeting. He was taking too long. He had to see it. Otherwise, it could have just been Antonio and me hoping to see what we saw.

“There’s not much detail to it. The composition of the three characters reminds me of…” Elliot placed the sheet on the table and pulled out his phone. He typed and scrolled until he finally put the phone down next to the painting. It showed a photo of exactly what Antonio and I had seen.

I cracked before Antonio did, unable to sustain the silence. “Exactly! It’s a rough sketch of the composition ofThe Concert!”

Elliot folded one arm and stroked his short goatee. “A mistake on the forger’s part?”

“Fiori handed this painting off to me, asking that I repair a poor conservation job. He didn’t ask for detailed analysis like this or for authentication.”

“How much would he know about the time you two spent in Rome in January with Giovanni?”

One of my sneaky hands landed on my face. If Antonio had been standing next to me, he would’ve grabbed it before I could put up the shield. As wonderful as our time in Naples had been in January, the week that preceded it had been a chaotic mix of heaven and hell. “I’m sure Vincenzo didn’t figure out I’d been in the FBI, so he wouldn’t have passed that information on to Fiori. But he could have told him about my wanting to join. For all I know, Fiori has the resources to find out the truth.”

Antonio stepped around Elliot and took my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine. His soft smile was likely meant to convey support, maybe even aYou don’t have to hide your past with Vincenzo from me or protect me from it. So long as it wasn’t followed up withWe should let Elliot deal with this, I was all good.

Except this wasn’t the time for handholding.

I withdrew my hand from Antonio’s and shoved it into my pocket. “Part of me wants to hop on a plane and never look back, but the bigger part of me wants to—”

“Jump in headfirst and figure out the details later?” chuckled Elliot.

Antonio gave a halfhearted laugh, his normally unflappable self not inspiring any confidence. “You know her too well.”

Better than I’d thought he did. He’d worked with my father, who I wouldn’t recognize if he walked straight up to me and introduced himself.Push it aside, Sam, this is work. “What do you think we should do?”

Elliot scratched the goatee. “As a senior agent with the Art Crime Team, I want the pair of you as assets. I want you to set up another meeting with Fiori and see if we can get information out of him.”

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