If he didn’t know any better, he would venture Gregory enjoyed an audience now that Ryan had made the position clear. Coming from his engineering tendencies, Ryan had expected an exacting, paint-by-numbers approach. However, Gregory worked with more abandon, only occasionally consulting the color plate of Expectation of Time. The plate had been torn out of the definitive work on the Surrealist period in “glorious reproduction of glossy color” as the backflap of the extremely expensive edition proclaimed. Art history eye candy was what Ryan gathered.

  “The colors are very good,” she murmured.

  Ryan couldn’t help but grunt. “They should be. We spent enough at Sennelier.”

  “The yellow here—” Elle pointed at a small mass in the left-hand foreground. As Ryan had learned from her showing him Coefficient of Y at the Pompidou, it could have been a formation of mountain rock or a cave for an eel at the bottom of the ocean. It exasperated him that there wasn’t one right answer. He didn’t like the ambiguity. Now he realized from her that was the point—to make him uncomfortable. If that was the case, it had hit its mark.

  Gregory’s demeanor froze, offended.

  “Come on, man. Listen to what she’s saying,” Ryan said. “She knows the man’s work inside and out.”

  “Yes, but she is not an artist.” Gregory’s voice was stiff.

  “Neither are you, man. You’re a forger.”

  Gregory glared at Ryan. Turning away with a last dirty glance of disgust, Gregory rummaged in the tubes of oils. “He used this particular color of dark ochre.” Gregory picked up a tube of paint, newly used. “The lighter yellow is too bright. The ochre will make people think it not only looks more natural, it also gives it an older appearance. The shade isn’t in fashion right now.”

  “Marc Luc did use a lot of dark ochre, but a brighter yellow, maybe here.” She pointed at the foreground. “Just a dot. And that will give it the quality of light.” She cocked her head then studied the plate, nodding to indicate she stood by this position.

  Ryan said in a sharp tone, “You got it, Gregory?”

  He gave a curt nod.

  “Okay, so a week. That’s the final deadline, right?”

  Gregory gave a bitter smile. “You want me to do everything she says and finish it in a week?”

  Ryan ruffled his hair back in frustration. “Come on, Gregory. You complain about not feeling safe, but the best way to manage that is to put the effort in and finish. Why drag it out?”

  Ryan glanced over at Elle. He couldn’t do it with her standing there, but if he were alone, he might have used a little physical intimidation to get the point across. Some men like this couldn’t be persuaded by argument, only primal forces. That’s probably why Gregory would only be an imitator, never an artist in his own right.

  “Oh, before I forget.” Ryan turned in surprise at Gregory’s voice, which sounded much nicer now. “I heard from Babette again. She wondered when you two were going to meet up. She said she was expecting a call.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw Elle steal a glance at him then look away. Yes, she’d agreed to come with him to the studio, but she was still wary. He couldn’t blame her. He had lied about who he was. And she seemed super embarrassed about her family situation. It obviously wasn’t something she shared. But he thought she should feel proud of how far she’d come, nearing the completion of her PhD.

  Gregory was enough of a con he was able to suss out the relationships involved. He knew he could poke a stick at both of them by mentioning Babette.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Composition Surréaliste, Alice Rahon (1955-1957)

  Outside, the sun struggled to seep through the clouds. Ryan shook his head, still seeming annoyed at Gregory. Elle wondered if this was when they were going to say goodbye and go their separate ways for the day. She found she didn’t want to leave.

  Ryan glanced at his watch. “Hey, do you want to get something to eat? I can’t get enough of the steak frites.”

  Elle had enjoyed her usual French bread and cheese for breakfast but wanted to extend her time with Ryan. “Sure,” she said, straining for casual.

  “Should we head toward the station?” Ryan hitched a thumb in the direction from which they’d walked. “Looked like some restaurants over there.”

  “Have you walked the Rue Foyatier yet?” she asked.

  He frowned. “Rue is street, right?”

  She laughed. “I hate to confuse you, but Rue Foyatier is actually a series of steps, like two hundred and fifty. One of the big tourist attractions. The steps lead up to the Sacré-Coeur Basilica and then you can go down from there the other way to the station.”

  “The basilica—looks like it belongs on the top of a cake?” She nodded. “Sure, I’m up for it.” He gave a cute sideways smile. “Are you?”

  “Hey, I walk and bike everywhere in Ann Arbor. I don’t even own a car.” She pointed the direction as they started to walk.

  “Even in all that snow?” His eyes were an intense blue in the midday light.

  Whoa. “I save money that way, and the buses aren’t bad.” She continued to strain for casual. “Most of what I do is around campus.”

  At the bottom of Rue Foyatier, tourists wearing backpacks dotted the steps above them, a few clutching the iron balustrade as if to pull themselves up like a rope on a bunny slope. Others were resting on the various landings studying their phones.

  As they started their ascent, Elle worked her way to a question that had been on her mind. “So Babette’s been introducing you around?”

  “That’s the general idea,” Ryan answered, keeping his head down.

  “So when you arrived at”—she avoided saying that hideous man’s name—“that night. Did you go to her gallery that night beforehand?”

  He glanced over at her as if to gauge her reaction. Was she still mad he had dumped Elle for Babette that night? No, because she’d learned since then it was only work for him. She realized Ryan would just as easily use her, like for her knowledge of art history.

  “Yeah, we met at her gallery,” he said. “I told her my clients were interested in Luc, and she showed me your sketches.”

  She smiled back at his attempt to be amusing. “Funny how I didn’t even get to see my sketches that night. Babette threw me out before I had a chance.”

  His eyebrows raised. “Threw you out? Isn’t that a little dramatic?”

  She grinned at his teasing tone. “Okay, made it clear I wasn’t welcome. Rich, considering I’d done all that work for her.”

  “I thought you were working for Dr. Roche?” he said.

  “Yes, but they were both getting something out of it. Dr. Roche was getting a major publication.”

  “Publish or perish. Isn’t that the university motto?” When she’d shrugged her agreement, he said, “You know how much the gallery is charging for each of those sketches?”

  When he told her, she said, “Wow, I didn’t know it was that high. A couple of them were already officially ‘sold’ before we were even finished with the cataloguing. I had no idea.” Diane would have thought it most uncouth of her to ask. And it was not like they had carried a price tag.

  “What a scam. I could basically do a scribble, frame it, and charge the same amount.”

  “You know everyone says that, right?” She caught her breath, pleased to see she’d elicited a chuckle from him.

  “Do they also say you could park cars between the pictures on display as if each one had to practically have a wall of its own?”

  She realized she was smiling, even as she climbed all these stairs. Her heart pounded. Of course it was the exertion, nothing to do with being beside him, headed to a lunch date.

  It was not a date! She reminded herself. This was work for him, so she continued her side of the conversation. “There were originally eleven, but a couple of them already sold while we were still cataloguing. How many were left?”

  “Maybe seven?” He trotted up the last flight of stairs.

  “Show-off,” she said, before sucking in more air.

  They faced each other at the top. She was aware that her chest was heaving with the exertion. She was a bit breathless when she said, “Hey, we’re all the way up here.” She pointed at the basilica. “I know you’re working, but we might as well go up and have a look. It’s a really famous view of Paris.”

  …

  “You weren’t kidding,” said Ryan when they stood at the view from the grassy slope fronting the Sacré-Coeur where tourists swarmed, some lounging on the grass as if it were a warm day. The sun, elusive all morning, finally shone, making the moment even more perfect. She curled her fingers into fists in her coat, feeling like if she didn’t do that, she wouldn’t be able to help herself from encircling him with her arms, inviting another kiss.

  She had to respect the professional boundary he’d set. But maybe after his case was over? Determined, she faced forward to the skyline, pointing out the landmarks and giving them their French pronunciations—Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, Arc de Triumph.

  He gave a gusty sigh of the breeze blowing up this high. “It really is beautiful here.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  His smile was wry. “You ready for lunch?”

  She nodded though she was far from hungry. The excitement of being with him in all these classically romantic settings had stolen her appetite.

  As they wound down toward the station, they ambled through picturesque streets. Even without flowers, the painted window boxes created splashes of color against the buildings’ stonework. Elle was toasty, despite the cold air, from the climb but also from the warm glow of strolling with a handsome man in this section of Paris that had so much significance for the Surrealist period.

  They eventually reached the Place du Tertre, the square where street artists sketched portraits and caricatures of tourists. An Asian man wearing a French beret, obviously trying to get a jump on the competition by coming to meet them, had his hand outstretched to display a skillful charcoal of a pensive preteen with long hair. Elle smiled and shook her head.

  As they entered the square proper, the artists they passed clamored and gestured at them to pose.

  “Very preetty girlfriend,” said a man with eyelids so heavy Elle was surprised he could see her at all. “You need a picture of her, Monsieur,” he said to Ryan. He gestured at his chair for her to sit.

  “Non, merci,” she said and turned to Ryan, inordinately pleased she had been referred to as his girlfriend.

  He was smiling, too. “I liked your accent there.”

  As charming as it was, Elle was relieved when they reached the other side of the square, so they could free themselves of the tourist trap they had stepped into.

  They were passing a cluster of eating establishments—from fast food to upscale restaurants with wineglass place settings—and Ryan breathed in. “Can you smell that?”

  She wasn’t able to pinpoint the place that wafted out the smoky smell of steak, but it did act to stir her stomach.

  He studied the outside signage of La Cave de Lune. “Do you think they have steak frites here?”

  She pulled his arm. Just touching him in that casual way caused an electric zing to charge through her whole body. He looked at her, his eyes wide. Had he felt it, too, or was he just surprised she’d made contact? She cleared her throat to cover her confusion. “One tip about restaurants—look for ones that don’t have menus and signs outside in English. They’re catering to tourists.”

  “Ah, rookie mistake. Let’s move on then.”

  Eventually, they found one where the menu was written in French. It was busy without being hectic, and they could get a seat inside. They ordered quickly from the waitress, who, in a messy bun and ripped jeans, was handling the busy lunch crowd with aplomb.

  Elle gratefully drank her water. She was parched after the metro, the studio, and walking around in dry, cold air.

  As they were finishing up lunch, which was French onion soup—she couldn’t resist—and she was chasing around a piece of spiky arugula, Ryan’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it dispassionately, but when he saw the number, she sensed his interest quickened. Was it Babette?

  “I have to take this,” he said, snatching up the phone. When he stood, she couldn’t help noticing that his crotch was at her eye level across the table. He caught her gaze, but his focus was on his call, not her. She looked away. When she glanced up again, he was weaving his way out of the restaurant.

  He paced around on the sidewalk outside under a sun so watery it cast no shadows. When he made his way back in, she pretended to be absorbed in watching the other patrons—most of them were speaking French, which was a good sign about the restaurant they had chosen.

  “Sorry about that,” he said as he approached the table. He seemed distracted as he plucked the check from the table. “Inspector Faunier is going to pick us up from the station, so he and his partner can interview you about the painting you saw in that Gaillot’s closet. I talked them into it. That with Expectation of Time going missing at the same time, it was pretty suspicious he was pulling a scam about another Marc Luc work.”

  She completely agreed, and if he was going to play this professionally, then so would she. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Swing, Fragonard (1767)

  Elle waited with Ryan outside the Anvers metro station, watching as Inspector Faunier took a sharp turn to the sidewalk, seemingly inured to angry honks. Ryan went into the front and Elle ducked into the backseat of the kelly-green, late-model Peugeot, nothing like U.S. law enforcement sedans. The interior smelled of cigarette smoke.

  Inspector Faunier looked in his mirrors and shot into the street of rushing traffic. As more honks sounded behind him, he chuckled.

  Elle had learned Inspector Faunier worked at the French Central Office for Art Theft, along with the female officer, Inspector Girod, while the bald inspector who had visited her apartment was with the Parisian police. Just like the last time, Ryan had told the Art Theft detectives to talk to her about what she’d seen at Gaillot’s. She looked out the backseat window, enjoying the speed and the sights without having to walk. Her feet still throbbed.

  Ryan and Inspector Faunier labored over polite conversation but it jerked like the stick shift gears of the Peugeot. Her dad had owned a couple of stick shifts in his day, and he’d taught her to drive on one.

  The French Central Office for Art Theft was located on the fourth floor of a neo-Renaissance government building made of limestone. Inside was as beautiful, with a high-plated ceiling. Inspector Faunier led them to his office, which was spacious and well appointed by U.S. standards, and sat behind his desk.

  He indicated a chair on the other side for Elle. While she told him the tale of the supposed painting of Marc Luc, he held his pen in the middle like a seesaw. Sometimes it went to one side, sometimes the other.

  Inspector Girod entered, carrying a tray full of mismatched coffee cups. “Without a peecture, it is very difficult to make a determination,” she said, placing the tray on Faunier’s desk, obviously having heard their conversation as she made the coffee preparations.

  Elle flushed and tried to explain. “Francois said before we went in that I wasn’t allowed to take a picture. And at the end—” Her throat closed up at the memory. She took one of the cups and hastily took a swallow, burning her tongue.

  “Please, Ryan,” said Inspector Girod, gesturing he should take a cup from the tray on the desk as well.

  Elle was conscious of Ryan’s solid presence next to her as he doctored his coffee, pouring from a carton of milk. He looked down at her and murmured, “You okay?”

  She nodded. They had discussed beforehand that the inspectors were not going to “touch” the attempted sexual assault, that they encouraged her to make a report about that to the Parisian police. Indeed, they had only agreed to interview her about the fraud of Marc Luc’s work because of Ryan’s pressure.

  “We took a visit to Gaillot,” said Girod, taking a cup for herself and moving to the chair next to Elle.

  “Oh, you did?” Ryan had really made things happen.

  “He was—what do you say…” Girod looked at Inspector Faunier for help, but he only raised his eyebrows. “Outraged,” she came up with. “‘Who is saying such things?’” she said, in obvious imitation of Francois. “‘The Americans?’”

  Inspector Faunier took over. “His wife was present.”

  “Oh, now she shows up.” Elle imagined an elegant white-haired woman with a pursed mouth. “She wasn’t even at his party—supposedly with a sick mother.”

  “Yes, her mother is dying of the cancer.” Inspector Girod’s tone was chiding. “She said her husband would never do such a thing. We even searched this, this…” Girod turned to Faunier, perplexed.

  “Closet,” Faunier supplied.

  “Creepy place, right?” said Ryan.

  Faunier took over. “But we did not see the painting you describe.”

  Elle looked up at Ryan, shocked.

  Faunier grabbed at his cell phone, which was lying on his desk.

  At first, Elle thought he was being rude, distracted by his phone, like so many were these days. Then, she realized he was scrolling for an image. “Ah,” he said and turned the phone toward them.

  A painting more suited to the Musee d’Orsay rather than the Pompidou: a huge Romantic—perhaps the size of a Fragonard but much less skillfully done—of a naked woman lying on a chaise longue throwing a mischievous glance over her shoulder.

  Elle’s first thought: Gaillot finally had hung something more suited to the boudoir. Then she realized this work, too, was derivative. Gaillot, for all his pretensions and privilege, actually had very poor taste.

 

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