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Emma looked up to see Owen, her boss, standing in front of her desk. She felt a momentary flash of worry that he knew her real motive for being here, but she quickly reminded herself that he was asking about the meeting she’d just had.
“Yes, it was fine. He wanted to discuss my report in more detail.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Owen tapped her desk. “Keep up the good work, Emma.”
“Thank you.” Emma flashed him another smile, though her heart felt heavy again. If only she could slide into some parallel universe where she really was just another employee of LWC Capital.
“Anytime.” Owen nodded at her and returned to his desk. He sat in the room with the rest of the art acquisition department, as he made it a point to be an involved manager and point of contact to all his employees. Or, at least, that was what he had told her on her first day, and Emma had seen only evidence to support that.
With a small sigh, Emma unlocked her laptop and tried to focus on the gallery website she’d been perusing. She was still distracted by thoughts of Patrick, though. She’d secured one meeting with him, which was good, but she still didn’t have a way to get to Aurora. And she felt worse and worse about stealing the painting at all.
Emma took a deep breath and directed her thoughts back to work. Surely, now that she’d had one meeting with Patrick, it would be more likely that she’d run into him again. And it couldn’t hurt to let a little time pass, safely pretending that she was nothing but an art appraiser.
Except that it wasn’t. That night, when Emma slipped into her apartment past nine, she flopped back onto her couch and reached for a magazine. She wanted to distract herself from all thoughts of Patrick and Aurora and even her job. She’d barely opened the magazine, though, when her phone started to ring. The tone sounded unfamiliar.
She felt for her phone, which was sitting next to her on the coffee table. Her eyes widened when she saw it wasn’t ringing at all. This was the other phone. Aleksander Ariti’s phone.
Emma practically leapt off the couch and hurried to her purse, where she fished for and quickly located Aleksander’s phone. Sure enough, it was lit up with an incoming call. Emma swiped to answer, her heart beating hard.
“Emma.” It was the cold, almost mocking voice of Aleksander Ariti himself.
“Yes?” Emma tried to keep her tone just as cold, though she detected a slight waver on the word.
“It’s been more than a week since I gave you your mission. It’s time you give me a progress update.”
Emma steadied herself on the wall. “I still have almost three weeks.”
“Yes, yes, but by now you should have made some progress.”
Emma knew instinctively that she needed to lie — or at least embellish the truth a little. If she told Aleksander that she was barely any closer to getting into Patrick’s house than she had been a week ago, Aleksander might decide to turn her in now and save himself some trouble.
Willing her tone to be steady, Emma spoke. “I’ve made good progress.” She was pleased with the firm sound of her voice. “I managed to get a job at Patrick’s company and have already secured several personal meetings with him. I can sense that he’s starting to trust me, and I would estimate that I’ll get an invitation to see the painting very soon.”
“And have you decided how you’ll proceed once you’ve seen the painting?”
“I’ll create a passable forgery of the Aurora and sneak the original out in a case. I’ve already begun work on the forgery,” Emma said.
This was true enough. She had planned to create a replica of Aurora and switch the two paintings. It made the most sense to paint it herself; it would be expensive and troublesome to get anyone else to do it — not to mention potentially incriminating. Emma was worried, though, since she hadn’t painted in a long time. Technically she had begun to work on the forgery, although so far she’d only ordered a canvas and paints from a local art store that she thought would be a close match.
“Perhaps you don’t need a full two weeks,” Aleksander mused. There was a hint of teasing in his voice as though he knew the sentiment would make her squirm.
“You promised me a month,” Emma said. “I’ve developed my strategy based on that. And I still have three weeks left, not two.”
“All right, all right. Update me soon.”
Without a goodbye, the line went dead. Emma returned to the living room, her legs shaky, and sank onto the couch. Any interest she’d had in reading a magazine and relaxing was gone. She’d been delusional in imagining that she could rest. She needed to work harder and faster on the task Aleksander had given her.
Emma sank her head into her hands. This felt hopeless and overwhelming yet again. Just when she’d begun to hope she had a handle on things, Aleksander called to put more pressure on her.
She needed a way to get more face time with Patrick, fast. Waiting for him to call her in for another meeting or for her to find a piece of art to recommend wouldn’t work. Either option would take too long.
She would need to “run into” Patrick again. She’d managed to time her elevator ride to match his last night, so maybe she could do so again. It would be a bit of work, but not too much. And hopefully, next time he would actually talk to her.
And in the meantime, Emma could start working on the painting. She could have started her work a week ago when she’d first decided that switching the original with a forgery was the only way she could possibly accomplish what she needed to do, but she’d put it off. She had been telling the truth when she told Patrick she’d hardly painted in years. She couldn’t help worrying that her work wouldn’t be good enough to pass as Aurora, even for a few moments or from a distance. After all, I’m no master artist. I never was, even when I was at my best.
But there was no use putting it off. Emma pushed herself to her feet and went to the cardboard box from the art store. It had been delivered over the weekend, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to open it. Not yet.
Well, there was no time like the present. She found a box cutter in a kitchen drawer and carefully opened the box. There they were: the items she needed to complete her forgery. First was the canvas, just the right size and made of the right kind of material, even though any expert would be able to tell quickly that it wasn’t the right age. Next came the paints in era-appropriate colors and types, painstakingly matched to the color and consistency of the Aurora pictures Emma had found online and the artistic analyses she’d read. To apply the paint were the brushes, all made of the same material as the original artist’s had been. And some drop cloths and a pallet.
