Forty-four
Cam moved the little name cards around the diagram of tables distractedly.
Today had been a Calamity Deathmatch. What was going to bring Cam to her knees first—Helga: The Swimsuit Issue or Anastasia Zhivago, Russian tormentor from hell?
Cam had a vision of herself as Catwoman, sliding perilously down the side of the crevasse, nails dug like knives into the edge to keep from falling, with Anastasia, standing over her in a far better Catwoman suit, tapping the toe of her boot on Cam’s fingers, and shouting for Cam to throw her the keys to the director’s office in order to save herself.
And somehow Jacket is dangling below Cam, clutching her foot, trying to save her or pull her down with him, Cam can’t tell which.
“Cam?”
She jumped. “What?” Jeanne had arrived unnoticed with an armload of mail.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted you to know I was here.”
“Got it.” She returned to the seating chart.
Micki Catterman regularly got drunk enough to spill full glasses of wine into her purse or fall into her dinner companion’s lap.
A little self-control, Cam lectured silently as she tapped the sticky note that held Catterman’s name.
We’re talking a museum gala here, not a fraternity rave, okay?
It was probably not a good idea to seat her next to Sister Rose McNair.
Cam picked up Catterman and let her hover over the empty seat next to Dick Bolton, the insufferable bore who was making her friend Seph’s life miserable over at Pilgrim Pharmaceuticals, Poetic justice?
A little more of that in this world would certainly be appreciated.
Where was the handsome, artistic Batman to rescue her?
“Who are you moving?” Jeanne dumped the mail on the corner of her desk.
In her mind, Cam flung the keys and caught Batman’s gloved hand, all in one graceful movement. “Oh, Catwoman.”
“Catwoman?”
Cam frowned, the spell of her daydream broken. “Catwoman? Why did you say that?”
“Because you said it.”
“I did not.”
Jeanne made a deep sigh and rolled her eyes. “Could you please sleep with one of them again? I think your brain is turning into mashed potatoes.”
“Is that the sort of thing you’re learning in that online biology class of yours?”
“Yes, the teacher has asked us all to come to the next webcast dressed as naughty little lab assistants. Do you think that’s a problem?”
“I think you’re going to have more fun than I am tonight.
” Cam pressed the Catterman square next to Bolton, then picked up Ball and put him and his wife on either side of Sister Rose.
Sister Rose was the city’s biggest Pitt Panther fan.
She and Ball could talk college football to their hearts’ content.
Cam rubbed her eyes and reached for the mail.
A large manila envelope slipped off the top of the stack.
Probably another book. She grabbed a corner and tore.
It was an ancient copy of The Burlington Magazine, a much-revered British fine arts monthly.
This was the issue from 1932 that had the image of Peter and the four Ursulas.
She prayed the picture would be clearer than the tiny blurred scan she’d received.
The painting, long held by a wealthy private collector, had not been seen in public for several generations.
Cam herself had never seen it, even in print.
This would provide her first real look at one of the most revealing of Peter’s paintings.
She pushed the table diagrams to one side and slipped a finger under the cover carefully.
The yellowed paper crackled. The cover had no picture, only the words “The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Illustrated & Published Monthly” in a turn-of-the-century font and, below that, a table of contents, which she scanned for a reference to Peter.
The author of the article was a viscount, likely the man her research said had owned the painting in the thirties, and the title nearly made Cam fall off her chair: “Lely’s Love Story.”
Cam flipped to the first page of the article, leaned back in her chair, and began to read. By the time she reached the end, everything she thought she knew had changed, and the one thing she did know was that she had to find Peter.