Chapter 32
We get into the car, and William pulls away. We’re all silent as he navigates traffic.
I’m so happy we’ve found Playing Around 1:30, but I can’t express it because we still haven’t found the Kimimoto.
Where could it be? It wasn’t in Edmund’s apartment, and it wasn’t here. He could have given it to an art gang, but that wasn’t the intel that Officer Johnson received. His intel was that it had been stolen and was now for sale. But it was too hot right now for anyone to buy it. The police had done a good job of publicizing the theft and making it hot. But Officer Johnson and I both agreed that the end game was that he planned to make forgeries and sell those to buyers willing to deal in the undercover market. Then he could sell “it” more than once and keep the original for himself with its actual value.
We cross the Brooklyn Bridge. The Manhattan skyline rises up, like hope soaring. We’re close. We’ve found Playing Around 1:30, and we’ll find the Kimimoto. If he was going to destroy a painting, it would have been Playing Around 1:30, not the Kimimoto. It has value.
How could Edmund hate me this much? To steal these paintings, to sabotage my art exhibit and my relationship with my uncles.
I stare out the window at the passing traffic. It started with the tree house. He was jealous that I had a father who’d built that for me. At first, he’d pretended he had no interest in it, but then he succumbed. We played there for years. It had this pulley rope with a basket, and my dad even made a secret door that led to an interior ladder up to the roof. Annabelle, Edmund, and I had loved that hidden door. My dad framed one of my paintings and hung it on the wall.
But then Annabelle and Edmund created a secret pocket behind my painting as a way to pass notes. Only I discovered it. I was hurt that they used my painting as a means of sending notes. I worried my painting would be damaged by the frequent handling, and I was upset because the tree house was really mine and they were using it to cut me out. I banned Edmund from the tree house, but I got over it—and pretty quickly for a twelve-year-old. He was banned for only two weeks. But he’d been really angry.
“Do you think Edmund would have put it in the tree house?” I ask. “We played there a lot when we were kids.”
“What tree house?” William asks.
“My dad built me this amazing tree house in our backyard. It’s still there.”
“A tree house would be risky,” Takashi says. “The painting could get destroyed there with one big thunderstorm, and he can’t guarantee that he’ll always have access.”
Still, I would bet it has something to do with our childhood in the tree house.
“It definitely wasn’t behind the paintings in Edmund’s apartment, right?” I ask. “I think maybe he hid it behind a painting. He and Annabelle used to pass notes by hiding them in a pocket he created behind one of my paintings in the tree house.”
“I definitely checked the four of them that were the right size,” Takashi says.
“Could he have hidden it behind Playing Around 1:30?” I ask. “Should we go back and check?”
“Let’s just text Officer Johnson,” William says. “I don’t think you should be near him when he gets arrested.”
I tilt my head, thinking.
As I say “the tree house photo,” William says “the photo he framed for Annabelle.”
A chill passes through me. That’s it. That’s where it is.
But the police checked it out that day.
“But he gave them to her at the party,” Uncle Tony says.
Takashi asks, “How would he have had time to remove the Kimimoto from its frame and put it in the back of her newly framed photo?”
“Plus, he needed it to make forgeries,” Uncle Tony says.
“He must have put it there after,” I say. “He’s been there a lot since David moved out.”
We turn onto the FDR Drive. The East River is choppy today. One sailboat tacks against the wind. I text Annabelle.
I feel terrible saying that it’s not out of concern for her well-being.
I’d forgotten he was arriving today. At least I’ve got my painting back. I’m not meeting him at the utter nadir of my career.
My phone rings. It’s Officer Johnson.
“We’ve arrested Edmund and Matt,” he says. “But … Edmund says he destroyed the Kimimoto.”
I gasp. “But why?”
“To hurt you.”
I look at William. How can I tell my uncles this?
He glances over, and his face falls.
“He destroyed it,” William says flatly.
“Yes,” I choke out.
The deflation in the car feels tangible. It’s like we were a buoyant balloon and all the air just escaped.