Chapter 37 #3
I study her, trying to decide if she actually cares about saving the company or about saving her own ass.
Stella’s sly smile suggests Caroline’s offer is exactly what she’s been waiting for, the moment she’s steered her granddaughter toward all along. Stella has been pulling strings from the start, manipulating every one of us into playing the roles she scripted.
“And what will happen to your father?” Stella presses, her tone almost playful. “He’ll put up a fight.”
Caroline doesn’t flinch. “Then we have to make sure we have enough ammunition to win.”
The certainty in her voice is more frightening than any threat.
“You’ll destroy him? You’d do that?” Stella asks, a hint of satisfaction behind the question. “He’ll lose everything. And everyone.”
Caroline’s lip curls in a sneer that makes her look suddenly older, harder. “If you want to stop the devil, you don’t lock him in a cage. You cut out his heart.”
She means it. Every word. I squeeze Lucie’s and Colette’s hands tighter.
Stella nods in pleased agreement, as though their pact is sealed. Caroline’s involvement in what we are doing here will give the whole thing a different kind of legitimacy.
And yet, why go through all this? If Stella truly needed Caroline, why not reach out to her directly from the beginning?
Nothing fits cleanly. Every answer sparks another question, and I can’t tell who’s lying, who’s telling the truth, who is continuing to play whom.
As if she can sense my suspicion, Stella finally comes to the three of us, kneels before me, and winces as her brittle knees creak.
“Forgive me.” She looks me directly in the eyes.
“I had my reasons for not sharing everything with the three of you. I wanted Caroline to make the choice here. I believed it was the only way we could truly trust her. And, Emma, I was afraid if I mentioned how Pascal was involved I would scare you. But I was selfish. I should have trusted all of you more.”
Her words are sincere, but it’s not enough. I stand and pull both Lucie and Colette up with me.
“We should leave.”
“No.” Lucie pulls us back down. “We’ve come this far. They owe us.” She squeezes my hand, clamps her palm on my thigh to keep me sitting with her. “I want what you promised us, Stella.”
Caroline cuts her off.
“When will the experts be here?” Her voice is all business again.
Stella turns her wrist and checks her watch. “An hour.”
Caroline doesn’t move, just glances over at Lucie.
“We don’t have much time right now, but you will be well compensated…Whatever she promised you.” She turns back to Stella before Lucie can say anything else.
“And who have you enlisted to look at these paintings?”
“Mare Lindquist, Eliza Sachs”—Stella ticks them off on her fingers—“and a woman from America who I’m not sure you know.”
Caroline tilts her head in consideration, lips pursed. “Not Henrik Blau?”
“Too cocky,” Stella snorts, folding her arms. “He’d turn himself into the star of all this.”
“Same as Pascal would have,” Caroline muses with a disdainful laugh. “We don’t have much time. Should I be here when the experts arrive or will that alarm them?” she asks her grandmother.
“I’ll leave that up to you. At this point I think they’re ready for anything.”
“I’ll stay,” Caroline decides after a moment. “Will they take the paintings with them?”
“I’m not certain. They have some equipment they will bring here, and we’ll see what they can determine with that.
It could be quite obvious to them. As you know, none of the museums ever do a thorough examination of anything donated by the Swansons.
The company doesn’t allow it in the contracts.
And these are incredibly accurate and excellent reproductions of paintings that the family certified.
But I do think mistakes have been made and once an expert eye is looking for them, they will become obvious.
The problem is that no one has been looking. ”
“Right,” Caroline says, raking her ruby-red nails through her short hair.
“I didn’t know about any of it. I only dug into the records after Pascal came to me, and it wasn’t easy.
My father covers his tracks well. But I believe there are hundreds of them.
Hundreds of fakes that are hanging in museums all over the world that have been sold again to the worst humans on the planet.
He keeps me in the dark about this part of the business.
He may intend to tell me now that he’s put me in charge, or he may plan on keeping the money he’s made off the books for himself and that new wife of his. She’s pregnant, you know.”
Stella shakes her head. “I didn’t.”
“It’s a boy. And when Father has been irritated with me lately he’s already threatened to leave everything to a fetus.”
“Sounds exactly like Louis.”
“That’s why we must bury him,” Caroline says.
“It is the only way I can ever succeed as CEO and salvage the company. Because someone else will expose this someday, and once I properly take over I’ll be implicated.
I believe he only copies the greats, only the ones he knows can fetch a high price in a private off-market sale.
These rich bastards love a Van Gogh, a Monet, a recognizable Rembrandt.
They hate anything by a woman, so O’Keeffe would be off the table.
” She looks at me with the same sadness I saw in her eyes when we were belowground, the same pity she had for the paintings that had been locked away.
“We still store at least half of them while they grow more and more value for their owners, the sheikhs and the oligarchs. He’s a genius. You have to give him credit.”
“I do,” Stella says. “But I also know you are much smarter than he is.”
I’m starting to believe that this whole thing isn’t about Stella at all, or even about us, but about Caroline, about Stella giving her granddaughter the legacy Stella could never have.
And maybe it’s also about Stella wanting a family during her final days.
Stella pulls a delicate envelope from the pocket of her beaded caftan. She hands it to us.
“Read this. It’s a letter Jo wrote to my grandmother Claire recounting part of their last meeting. Colette and I discovered it, and a few others, hidden behind the lining of the Sunflowers canvas.”
Caroline’s calculating eyes go wide at this hint of new information. No one has told her about the Sunflowers yet, but she lets Stella keep on with her apology.
“In the end Jo forgave her. I know that I have made many, many mistakes with you, but I am hoping you can forgive me.”
I unfold the delicate parchment. Lucie and Colette peer over my shoulders. I’m familiar with this handwriting by now. Jo and Claire feel almost like friends. And I had assumed it ended terribly between them. When I finish the page, I understand what Stella wanted me to see.
Lucie and Colette have their eyes fixed on me.
I can tell that they want this to work, despite everything, and I can’t blame them.
Our entire lives are at stake, and we’ve already come so far.
Because I would do anything for these women, I’ll stay and see this through.
I fold my arms over my chest. “Let’s see what the experts have to say. ”
The moment is interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. They’re early.
Colette moves to answer it. My stomach tightens as two women enter carrying sleek black cases filled with what I assume are their tools. One of them stops short when she sees Caroline.
“Ms. Swanson,” she says, her voice carefully neutral.
“Madame Lindquist.”
“I was not expecting you to be part of this.”
“I imagine a lot of things will surprise you today,” Caroline replies smoothly. “But how about we all just go with the flow.”
The second woman, Eliza Sachs, I assume, sets her case down carefully on the table. “Should we be concerned about your presence here?” she asks bluntly.
“Quite the opposite,” Caroline says. “I’m the one who will be taking this information public.”