Fifty-seven
A throng of guests surrounded Cam to congratulate her, and when she finally broke loose, Peter was gone. She followed the happy crowd down the hall, trying to spot him, but no matter how she strained her head, she couldn’t see him.
She felt a tug at her sleeve. “Peter,” she said and turned.
“Not Peter.”
It was Anastasia. She looked like she’d been crying. Cam put a hand on her instinctively. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Anastasia shook her head. “Nothing. Listen, do you have a minute?”
Cam nodded and led her to a quiet hall next to the freight elevator. “What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you about the Peter Lely painting. I know it’s not real.”
Cam felt her stomach tighten. The game was over. If Anastasia, the museum’s European art curator, was going to challenge it, the painting wouldn’t stand.
“I know it’s not real,” she said, “but I’m not going to say anything.”
Cam didn’t know what to say. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “But…?”
“I know all about it. I know how you got it, and I know who did it.”
She couldn’t mean she knew about Peter and the Afterlife. “What are you saying?”
“I mean, I know Peter or Rusty or whatever your friend’s name is painted it.”
Cam breathed a sigh of relief. “Then why are you going to keep quiet?”
“I know you don’t think I have the best interests of this museum in mind most days, but I’d like to think that I’m a little better than that. If Ball wants to give the painting, and Packard wants to accept it, that’s good for the museum. You heard the people out there. They love it.”
Cam blinked. What had come over her sister?
“And they should love it,” she went on. “It’s a damned fine painting. Exceptional, really. Any museum in the world would accept it as a Lely. Hell, any museum in the world would accept it even though it’s not a Lely. The only trouble is, I know the sitter’s you.”
“Me?” The freight elevator dinged and both women moved a step farther away.
“It’s pretty obvious, Cam. Jacket saw it.
I did too. And that’s the real reason I’m going to keep quiet.
You just don’t get that sort of feeling from an artist with any sitter.
He loves you, Cam. You have a way with men I’ll never have.
Even Jacket loves you, and you just dumped him.
That painting’s a good, pure thing, and Peter’s love is a good, pure thing.
I won’t be a part of ruining either one. ”
“Thank you, Stacy.”
Anastasia threw her arms around her. “Which isn’t to say I’m not going to get the directorship, you know.”
Cam laughed and hugged tighter. “I know. Game on.”
Anastasia pulled away. “There. It doesn’t matter that the paint looks too new. It doesn’t matter that the canvas has been stretched too carefully, or that the style is not quite right. No one will ever know the painting is a fake.”
Cam froze. Mrs. Fitcher, the old biddy from the board, gazed at them, mouth agape, from the elevator.