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CHAPTER 1
EMMA
Emma took a deep, slow breath, but her hands were still shaking slightly. After almost two weeks as a night maid at Ariti Industries, the time had come to do what she was here for. Just the thought of it sent another rush of nerves through her.
Emma pushed her cart down the hallway of offices. As she went, she glanced once more through the glass doors of each office she passed to confirm that she was alone on the floor. Since it was after two in the morning, this shouldn’t have been unusual, but during the last few weeks there had always been one or two employees pulling all-nighters and stopping her from accomplishing her task — even once she’d identified where the provenance records were kept.
Tonight, though, she was really alone. She’d checked twice.
Emma caught sight of herself in the reflective glass of one of the office doors and sighed. In her work as a corporate spy, she often posed in entry-level administration positions or as a temporary assistant. It wasn’t often that she posed as a maid, though it wasn’t unheard of either. Still, the unflattering blue uniform and tight bun wasn’t her favorite disguise. Plus, the employees at Ariti Industries hadn’t exactly been friendly. Aleksander Ariti, the head of the company and Emma’s main target, had practically yelled at her when the sound of her vacuum disrupted a conference call.
Emma didn’t mind stealing secrets from him.
She was very principled in her work despite her position as a spy. She would never take jobs that would hurt regular people. She only accepted work that targeted big, often shady organizations that could handle a few trade secrets being stolen or some malpractice being uncovered. This job fit the brief perfectly. A rival company, CPK, had hired her to document the provenance of a painting Ariti Industries had recently acquired and was now planning to sell. According to Ariti Industries, the painting was from the seventeenth century and had been owned by a string of influential figures, including, for a brief period in the 1900s, a sitting US president.
Although the painting wasn’t particularly unique or special (Emma had looked it up and found the lighting to be underwhelming, the colors uninspiring), the painting’s storied history meant that it was already estimated at well over ten million dollars in an upcoming auction. CPK was sure that Ariti was lying about the provenance to drive up the prices and had hired Emma to prove it.
Tonight, she was finally going to be able to. Emma parked the cleaning cart beside Aleksander’s office and used her badge to unlock the door. Just as she’d confirmed a dozen times already that night, the office was deserted. Emma wheeled the cart inside and closed the door behind her. As an extra precaution, she tugged the blinds down to cover what she was doing from any passing stragglers — even though she was sure the floor was empty.
She crossed to the towering file cabinet in one corner. Aleksander’s office was immaculately decorated with modern glass and metal furniture, from his sweeping desk to his impersonal white walls to his view over the nighttime lights of Chicago out a large window. Only the filing cabinet stood out as a hulking piece of archaic furniture. During her second week here, Emma had spotted Aleksander looking through the cabinet and had noticed that it was filled with documents. Based on her research, she knew that Aleksander trusted almost no one. She was sure that he would have kept the provenance records in the only place he could be sure was safe — in his own office, in a locked filing cabinet. A few carefully timed visits to the office later, Emma had confirmed that most of the company’s secure files were locked in the cabinet.
She took a bottle of window cleaner out of her pocket. In preparation for tonight, she’d emptied and washed the bottle before filling it with her lock-pick tools. She put on a pair of blue plastic cleaning gloves to conceal any fingerprints and poured the tools into her hand. Then she turned to the filing cabinet. Here we go.
Gently, she slid the first small metal tube into the lock and swept it around in a clockwise direction until she heard that distinctive click. Then she inserted the next tube and repeated the process. A few minutes later, the lock clicked more loudly and she slid the drawer open. Inside was a series of folders. Emma flicked through and quickly determined that these were contracts, not provenance records. Her heart constricted slightly. If she were wrong about where the records were kept, it would set her back weeks. What if Aleksander had a second filing cabinet in a more secluded location?
Emma closed the drawer and relocked it. She checked the second drawer, the third, then the fourth. They were filled with contracts and documents but nothing about provenance. Finally, her heart in her throat, she knelt on the floor and picked the lock of the final drawer. This was taking too long, but she had no other choice unless she wanted to abandon the mission and wait for another night with no employees on the floor.
After a small eternity, the lock clicked and Emma pulled the drawer open. Immediately, she felt herself relax. These were provenance records. Jackpot.
She flipped through them for a few minutes before coming across the record for the Lady in White, the painting in question. She lifted out the leather case and placed it on Aleksander’s desk. There, she removed the records and smoothed them onto the glass surface of the desk. It was just as CPK suspected. This painting had never belonged to a US president. In fact, the most influential owner had been the mayor of a small town in Utah — and that had been shortly after the painting was completed in 1972.
Emma tipped the window cleaner again and a small camera fell into her hand. Carefully, being sure not to miss a single square inch of the records, she began photographing the provenance certificate. It was a little dim in the office, but the pictures were turning out clearly.
And then it happened.
As she was taking a picture of the last few lines of text, which confirmed that the painting had been owned by a small-time country singer before he went bankrupt a few years ago, Emma heard something in the hallway. She froze, and her heart started to pound. She had no idea who could be out there; all the offices had been empty when she’d checked. Who would come to work at almost three in the morning?
It didn’t matter. She swept the records back into the case, her hands shaking, and knelt to put them back in the drawer. With any luck, the sound she’d heard in the hallway was a fluke — a heating unit coming on, maybe, or something falling off a desk.
“Well, what do we have here?”
Emma’s heart sank down all fifty-eight floors of the building and into the parking garage far below. The sound hadn’t been a coincidence.
She spun slowly and straightened up. The incriminating records were still in her hands — and the drawer was still open.
“Mr. Ariti,” Emma said, giving him her best airhead smile. “I’m so glad you’re here. This drawer was open and I was trying to tidy up, but I just have no idea where anything goes.” She shrugged and held out the folder.
“Hmm. I doubt that.” Aleksander closed the door behind him and approached her to take the folder out of her hands. “See, I happen to know that drawer was locked when I left a few hours ago.”
“Really?” Emma made her eyes wide. “It was open when I came in to clean.”
“Have a seat.” Aleksander gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk, and Emma, her heart still pounding, sat. Aleksander sat across from her and set the folder in front of him. Slowly, he opened the front cover and scanned the contents. “The Lady in White,” he said. “Fascinating.”
Emma stayed silent. There was no use lying anymore. Aleksander clearly knew that she’d taken the file and didn’t believe her cover story. All that was left to do was wait and see what he’d do now that he’d found her out. A new kind of nerves filled her, more dread than the nervous excitement she’d felt before breaking into the filing cabinet.
“I know Michael Corner at CPK has been sniffing around this painting.” Aleksander closed the file. “My guess is that he sent you over here.”
Emma stayed silent, her hands folded in her lap and her face schooled into what she hoped was a neutral expression.
