PART 2
CHAPTER 3: THE GETAWAY
The elevator descent was agonizingly slow. The hum of the machinery felt like a countdown.
Maya stood in the corner, arms crossed, hugging her hoodie tight around herself. She was shaking now. The adrenaline was wearing off, replaced by the reality of what she had just done.
“You really think they’ll arrest me?” she asked, her voice small.
“You just cost a room full of billionaires twelve million dollars and humiliated one of the most powerful auction houses in the world,” I said, loosening my tie. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “They’d shoot you if they could get away with it. Arrest is the best-case scenario.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” she defended herself. “I told the truth.”
“In New York, costing rich people money is worse than stealing.”
The doors dinged. B2. The parking garage.
“My car is over there,” I said, pointing to my vintage Porsche 911. It was the one thing I owned outright. A relic of my first big commission.
“Nice car,” she muttered sarcastically. “Does it run on fraud?”
“Get in,” I snapped.
We jumped in. I fired up the engine just as the stairwell door burst open. Two security guards spilled out.
“Hey! Stop!”
I slammed the car into reverse, tires screeching on the concrete, then threw it into first. I gunned it toward the exit ramp. The gate was down.
“The gate!” Maya yelled, gripping the dashboard.
I didn’t brake. I flashed my headlights. The parking attendant, a kid named Jose I tipped generously every Christmas, saw me coming. He saw the panic in my eyes.
He hit the button.
The arm rose just as I flew under it, the antenna clipping the metal. We shot out onto 49th Street, merging aggressively into the yellow stream of taxis.
I drove like a maniac for ten blocks until I was sure we weren’t being followed. Then, I pulled over into a dark alley in Hell’s Kitchen.
I killed the engine. The silence was heavy.
I turned to her. “Okay. Talk. Who is your father? And how the hell did he forge a Julian Vane so perfectly that he fooled me?”
Maya looked out the window. “My dad was Arthur Pendelton.”
The name rang a faint bell. “The restorer? The guy who got blacklisted in the 90s?”
“Yeah,” she said bitterly. “The guy you people blacklisted because he refused to certify a fake Rembrandt for a museum donor.”
I knew the story. Or the rumor. Arthur Pendelton was a genius technician, but he was labeled “difficult.” He disappeared from the scene twenty years ago.
“So he became a forger?” I asked.
“No,” she spat back. “He was a painter. A real one. But nobody would buy his work because his name was mud. So he started… studying. He became obsessed with Vane. He said Vane’s technique was the only one that understood chaos.”
“And ‘The Eclipse’?”
“He didn’t paint it to sell it,” Maya said, tears forming in her eyes. “He painted it to prove he could. It was his masterpiece. He spent three years on it. He sourced the canvas from a 1960s furniture store. He made his own pigments. Except for that one red.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why use modern acrylic?”
“He ran out,” she said. “He was sick. The chemo… it was expensive. We couldn’t afford the real cadmium anymore. He just wanted to finish it before he died. He used a tube of Liquitex I had for school.”
I rubbed my temples. A $12 million fraud caused by a tube of high school art supply.
“How did the auction house get it?” I asked. This was the key. “If he didn’t sell it, how did we end up with it?”
“A man came to the house,” she said. “Two weeks ago. Dad was in hospice. I was at school. The man said he was a friend. He said he wanted to exhibit Dad’s work. He took it.”
“Who?” I demanded. “What did he look like?”
“Tall. Bald. distinct scar on his eyebrow.”
My blood ran cold.
I knew him.
That was Victor Kroll. My boss’s private “fixer.” The guy who handled the logistics for the “sensitive” acquisitions.
“He stole it?” I asked.
“He left an envelope with five thousand dollars on the table,” she said. “And a contract Dad was too weak to read. Then I saw it in the catalog online. Listed for $12 million. Dad died the next day.”
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel. “They knew.”
“What?”
“My boss. The Director. They knew it was a fake,” I whispered, the realization horrifying me. “They knew it was from your dad. They set me up to authenticate it because they knew I was eager for the commission. If it sold, they’d be rich. If it was caught… I’d be the fall guy.”
I looked at my phone. Five missed calls from “The Director.” A text message: Don’t say a word. We can fix this. Come back.
“I’m not just fired,” I said to Maya. “I’m the patsy.”
“So what do we do?” she asked.
I looked at this sixteen-year-old girl in a hoodie. She had more guts than anyone in that auction room.
“We need proof,” I said. “Not just that the painting is fake. We proved that. We need proof that they stole it and knew it was a fake. Does your dad have notes? Sketches?”
“He has journals,” she said. “Stacks of them. He documented every brushstroke.”
“Where are they?”
“In the garage,” she said. “In Queens.”
I started the car. “Then we’re going to Queens.”
CHAPTER 4: THE QUEENS STUDIO
The drive to Queens was tense. I kept checking the rearview mirror, expecting police lights or black SUVs.
We pulled up to a small, dilapidated house in Astoria. The garage was detached, a crumbling brick structure covered in ivy.
“It’s in here,” Maya said, unlocking the padlock.
She flipped a switch. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered on with a hum.
I stepped inside and gasped.
It was like walking into the mind of a madman. The walls were covered in sketches, color charts, and chemical formulas. Canvases were stacked ten deep against the walls. And they weren’t just Vanes. I saw Rothkos. Pollocks. de Koonings.
They were all fake. And they were all magnificent.
“He practiced,” Maya said, walking over to a workbench. “He wanted to understand how they thought.”
“Your father was the greatest genius I’ve never heard of,” I muttered, running my hand over a fake Modigliani. It was drying.
“Here,” she said, handing me a leather-bound notebook.
I opened it. It was dated three months ago.
Entry 45: The layering is complete. The underpainting matches Vane’s ’58 period. But the sickness is getting worse. I need money for Maya. Kroll was here again. He offered to buy “The Eclipse.” I told him it’s not ready. I told him about the red. He smiled. He said it didn’t matter.
I froze.
“Read that again,” I said aloud.
He said it didn’t matter.
“Kroll knew about the acrylic,” I said. “He knew about the flaw.”
“Why would he buy it if he knew it was flawed?” Maya asked.
“Because of me,” I realized. “They needed a scapegoat. If the buyer ever found out, they could blame the authenticator—me—for missing it. They could sue me for negligence, claim insurance on the ‘fraud,’ and keep the money.”
It was a perfect crime. And I was the insurance policy.
Suddenly, the sound of tires crunching on gravel outside made us both jump.
“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked, killing the lights immediately.
“No,” Maya whispered.
I moved to the dirty window and peered out through a crack.
A black SUV was idling in the driveway. The headlights were off.
Two men got out. One was tall, bald, with a scar on his eyebrow.
Victor Kroll.
And he was holding a crowbar.
“They found us,” I whispered. “How did they find us?”
“My phone!” Maya gasped, pulling it out of her pocket. “I posted on Instagram before I came to the auction. I tagged the location.”
“Turn it off!”
Too late.
Kroll smashed the lock on the garage door with one swing of the crowbar.
“Marcus!” Kroll’s voice was calm, terrifying. “I know you’re in there. And I know you have the girl. Open up. We just want to talk.”
“Is there a back way?” I asked Maya.
“There’s a window behind the canvases,” she said. “But it’s small.”
“Go,” I said. “Take the journal.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to buy you time.”
I grabbed a jar of turpentine and a lighter from the workbench.
“Go!” I shoved her toward the back.
The garage door began to roll up. Kroll stood there, silhouetted by the streetlights.
“Marcus, Marcus, Marcus,” Kroll sighed, stepping inside. “You really are making this difficult. Give me the book, and you can walk away. We’ll even give you a severance package.”
“I don’t want your money, Victor,” I said, holding the lighter near the open jar of turpentine. “I want the truth.”
“The truth is whatever we say it is,” Kroll smiled. “That’s how the art world works. You know that better than anyone.”
He took a step forward.
“Back off!” I shouted. “I’ll burn this whole place down!”
“And destroy all these masterpieces?” Kroll laughed. “You don’t have the guts. You love art too much.”
He was right. I hesitated.
That was my mistake.
The second man lunged from the shadows. I hadn’t seen him enter. He tackled me to the concrete. The jar flew out of my hand, shattering. The lighter skittered away.
I took a fist to the jaw. Stars exploded in my vision.
Kroll walked over and picked up the lighter. He looked down at me, blood pooling in my mouth.
“Where is the girl, Marcus?”
I spat blood at his shoe.
“Find her,” Kroll told the other man.
As the man moved toward the back of the garage, I prayed Maya was fast. Because if they caught her, we were both dead.
