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“No. I was so focused on everything that happened after that first day. I didn’t think about those initial artifacts very much.”
“Is there any way to prove the artifacts are the ones you examined? That they’re looted goods?”
“No. I mean, I could describe them in detail, but in the end, it would just be my word against the auction house.”
“And your word isn’t in the highest esteem right now. Is that Gardner’s motive to get the US to extradite you? To discredit you?”
“Discredit me. Silence me. I did the math tonight, and the Signature Line is worth big bucks to the family. One thousand replicas of twenty artifacts. If they all sold for the minimum five grand, that’s a hundred million dollars. And that’s only the first run. Every few years, they’ll do a limited run of the most popular items, but the second and third time around, they up the price and reduce the run size. Seven thousand dollars for five hundred replicas. A single artifact could gross an additional three and a half million. And that’s the base pricing.”
“We need to get someone to look into the provenance, then. Isn’t that something Morgan and Freya can do?”
“That’s exactly what they do do. They have specialists on retainer who check provenance. Look for cracks in the supply chain.”
“Gardner won’t like that.”
“Fortunately, Gardner has no say. These kinds of deals go through an auction house like Gillibrand for a reason. Gillibrand will have to allow examination of the provenance. If they don’t, US Customs and Border Protection can come at them with a warrant.”
“Is Gillibrand crooked?”
“I have no idea. In general, places like Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Gillibrand do their best to stay on the right side of the law, and the law says auction houses are supposed to vet provenance before they move forward with a sale.”
“Okay, then. This is a solid line of questions to follow.” He stroked her hair. “I bet both Gardners shit a brick when you mentioned those artifacts on Friday.”
She yawned and snuggled closer, running her hand over his chest. He wished he wasn’t wearing the smelly T-shirt and she was touching bare skin. “I’m so angry that this is all just money for them, but at the same time, I’m a bit gleeful that we finally have a solid connection. Even if we can’t prove it.”
“We will prove it. They’ve made mistakes. Like the press release going out before they knew you could identify the artifacts. They’re scared. Of you.”
“I like that idea, even if I don’t believe it.”
“Babe, I’m pretty sure you terrify them. Now go to sleep, Valkyrie.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Diana woke up alone in the bed. The sound of the shower told her where Chris was, and she pulled his pillow close and breathed in his scent, perfume and all.
Damn, she had it bad for him. In a good way.
But she couldn’t spend the day pining for the man in the shower. Today, they could take action. She would finally talk to Freya. No more moving through an intermediary. She’d be able to tell her about the artifacts and Gillibrand.
Everything about the situation was confusing, but now they had a thread. Diana pulled out the tablet and read the press release again, this time making notes of questions to pass on to Freya. By the time she got on the phone with the former spy, she had written down everything she could remember about that first day including a full description of the artifacts and the phrases she used to describe them.
She’d bet anything her descriptions would be verbatim in the provenance.
Kira Hanson was slightly terrified of Freya Lange. She knew the woman had been some kind of special ops in the CIA and had a gaze that could cut glass. She’d never directed that gaze at Kira, but that made her no less intimidating.
As a specialist in art history, Kira was an introverted nerd who preferred books and art over people. When engrossed in her studies, she didn’t find herself mired in interpersonal conflict. The people in conflict had been dead for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, which really was a bonus.
She should have considered that going into the appraisal business would be rife with conflict. And people would insist on talking to her. Face-to-face. On the phone. Zoom.
No, thank you. She’d be happy to send an email with her report.
But no. People insisted on looking her in the eye when she gave the results of her research, and Freya was the absolute worst in that regard.
The woman could read her like a comic book. See all the thought bubbles and the little explosions that happened inside her head.
She never should have accepted the regular consulting gig with Friday Morning Valkyries, but she believed in the cause, and FMV paid on time.
Plus, the work itself was always interesting. Whether it was consulting with a museum or auction house on verifying provenance or researching collection records from a hundred years ago, she often got access to new sources of information, or got paid to spend days in an archive, going painstakingly through a collection.
