Chapter 22
COLE
“This is the last one,” I say to Nilsson, passing him the gilded frame.
“Sir,” he says by way of acknowledgement, leaning the Van Gogh against the wall. “Do be careful, sir.”
He watches with all the expressiveness of a stone banister as I climb down the stairs from the attic.
I’m tempted to slip down the last two, just to see if I can provoke a reaction.
I suspect Nilsson could simultaneously administer CPR, pack a sucking chest wound, and splint a broken femur, all without showing a glimmer of emotion.
When I have both feet on the hand-knotted Persian wool runner, I survey the gallery of paintings we’ve just recovered from upstairs. The collection could form the basis for a world-class museum.
Van Gogh irises stand next to a Degas—four girls in a ballet class, their delicate white dresses reflected in a long, rectangular mirror as two black-clad men look on. There’s a three-quarter life-size Polynesian nude in Gauguin’s trademark blues and yellows and oranges.
On the opposite wall, a guitar player from Picasso’s Blue Period stands between a lush, pattern-filled interior by Matisse.
There’s a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo, her eyebrows heavy as she looks down at a monkey.
Cezanne’s red-and-yellow apples spill across a table beside a shiny green bottle of wine.
There are three Rothkos, one in shades of red, one in blue and yellow, and one in muddy greens and brown.
I kick my foot through the last one, gaining some visceral satisfaction as the canvas rips away from its stretchers. The green and brown rectangles slump to the floor like a mudslide.
Nilsson’s cheek twitches, the closest I’ve ever seen to surprise on his face. “Would you like that placed in a different frame?” he asks. It takes him a moment to add his usual deferential sir.
I shake my head. “It’s a mess. Clearly inferior to the other two. I don’t know what she was thinking.”
She is my sister, Megan.
These paintings are all that remain of a con she pulled a few years back.
I was at a business conference in Zurich, learning the ins and outs of Swiss bank regulation in the era of artificial intelligence.
The convention took place during Nilsson and Anna’s annual summer vacation.
As usual, I put the security company on notice that I’d be gone.
Megan learned to lie the same place I did—at Shannon’s knee.
She didn’t try to sneak past the alarm system.
Instead, she dragged a neighbor’s trashcan over to the eight-foot fence, scraping the hell out of her palms as she scaled the brick wall.
The electronic locks on the front door gave her a bit of trouble, but she pried a brick out of the driveway and used it to smash a window.
By the time the security company arrived, she had planted all the evidence she needed—family photos, a calendar in my office with her name in capital letters, a two-page note supposedly from me, telling her to make herself at home.
She had the good sense to wear Armani, with a haircut and makeup to match.
Her cover story was a masterpiece—she left her purse on the flight from Abu Dhabi, and Air Emirates was sending it by overnight courier.
She had a paper boarding pass—God knows how long it took her to find one outside the international baggage claim at Dulles.
In retrospect, none of it made sense. But my con-artist sister knew just how hard to push the guards who showed up—when to cry and when to be a bully.
She was a damsel in distress and a superhero in a three-thousand-dollar suit.
After an hour, the guards checked the premises to assure her she’d be safe before they drove off into the night.
Megan had free rein over the house for a week.
And during that time, she turned the dining room into an art gallery.
She replaced my legitimate masterpieces—Van Gogh, Kahlo, and the rest—with forged copies she’d been accumulating for years.
She had mocked-up papers for each of them; they were supposedly being deaccessioned from a sheikh’s private collection in the United Arab Emirates.
She did her homework. Her documents guy knew his stuff. The forger who made the paintings was the best I’ve ever seen; paints, canvas, and frames were all appropriate for each masterpiece’s time period, and the technique was flawless.
The only problem was, I left the AI conference early.
I knew more about large language models than any of the presenters at the lectern.
Everyone had solid facts, but there wasn’t a glimmer of imagination among the lot of them.
After four days of shaking hands and exchanging business contacts, I was ready to come home.
I flew commercial and had a driver pick me up at Dulles.
I walked in three hours before Megan was scheduled to welcome her first buyer.
I fired the security company. Had the fence rebuilt to twenty feet. I added biometrics on the gate. Every window in the house was replaced with bulletproof glass. And that was the last time I allowed my sister to set foot inside my home.
I recovered my originals from the basement and stored her copies in the attic because I didn’t know what else to do with them. I kept the provenance documents in the safe in my office, right next to my own legitimate papers.
I’d never admit that I saved the forgeries so I could one day work Megan’s con on my own. But I could admire a job very well done. Shannon taught me never to squander an opportunity.
“Get these crated up,” I say to Nilsson. “I need them delivered after five on Friday. Arrange with Diamond Freeport to have them placed inside my secure gallery. The courier who takes them to Delaware can bring the documentation too.” I’m certain there will be surcharges involved. There always are.
“Sir,” Nilsson says, reaching for his slim phone so he can do my bidding. He’s making his first call as I head downstairs to my office.