“So you did Paris together,” I say when my eyes fall onto a circle with ‘Paris’ in it.
“We did,” she says hesitantly. “I needed her as a distraction, something loud.”
“What’s this?” I ask, pointing at an X she drew somewhere between ‘Paris’ and ‘FBI heist’.
“Doesn’t matter to you,” she says in a very dismissive tone.
“Everything matters,” I say.
“What matters is this,” she says and points at a list of objects and artifacts she has assembled, numbered, and classified.
133 in total.
I read through the list.
“You can strike out most of them, because we found them in her brownstone.”
“Strike them out,” she says and hands me a red pen.
It feels wild writing on a wall. Doing the one thing parents always forbid as a kid.
It takes me a moment to strike out everything we cataloged in the raid.
“Interesting,” she says.
“Why?”
“The only thing you didn’t find were the most valuable paintings. Gallilee, Mona Lisa, The Card Players, The Scream, Spring,” she says, walks over to the center, and draws a circle. “And the hat,” she says while writing Lincoln’s hat into the circle.
“Do you have any idea why?”
“Yes,” she says. “Because she can be easily shipped and moved. Every object is scanned at some point. Canvases can be rolled and declared absolutely unworthy, like an architect's plan. With the right cover, no one will look into you.”
“So you think she is out of the country?”
“Not necessarily,” she says. “She might want us to believe that. The best hiding place is right under one’s nose?—“
Her voice trails off.
Her gaze becomes unfocused.
“I’ll be damned,” she whispers.
“What?” I ask urgently, but I am not getting an answer. Instead, she mumbles something to herself.
“She was on board so easily because of it?—“
“Avery,” I say, and grab her to get her attention. “Tell me what you know.”
“I—“ she looks at me in horror. There is fear. The same fear I saw for one second the day I caught her.
Her eyes flicker wildly.
“That bitch,” she says suddenly, removing herself from my touch to walk around back and forth in front of me.
“Avery!” I finally shout. “You tell me right now.”
She stops in her tracks.