Chapter 4
“Give me the painting.”
Ethan entered the frame shop as if he still had the right to order me around.
I stepped between him and the sealed portrait.
“You signed it over to me.”
“It hung inside LAST LIGHT. That could make it company property.”
“You wrote that the company had no claim.”
“I didn’t know what it might be worth.”
There it was.
Not concern. Not family history.
Money.
I opened Rachel’s email and held up the signed agreement.
“You didn’t make a mistake, Ethan. You made a choice. You thought it was worthless when you gave it to me.”
He moved toward the portrait.
Noah blocked him.
“The painting is under professional examination. You cannot touch it without the owner’s permission.”
“I’m her husband.”
“You’re also being recorded.”
Noah pointed to the security camera above the counter.
Ethan stopped.
I called Rachel and put her on speaker.
“The portrait is specifically listed as Claire’s sole property,” she said. “If Ethan removes it without permission, report it as theft.”
He stared at me.
Yesterday, he had opened a door and made hundreds of people watch me leave.
Now I held open the door for him.
“Your announcement must be waiting.”
His face darkened, but he didn’t move.
“What if I release your buyout today?” he asked. “All fifteen thousand.”
“That money is already mine.”
“I’ll add fifty thousand for the painting.”
Yesterday it had been too ugly for Madison’s livestream.
Today he wanted to buy it before I learned its value.
“Yesterday it was worthless,” I said. “Today it’s ours?”
“I’m trying to be reasonable.”
“No. You’re trying to be early.”
His mouth tightened.
“You don’t know anything about art. Without me, you won’t know what to do with it.”
“Without you, it wouldn’t have spent the night beside a dumpster.”
For the first time, Ethan had no answer.
He walked out, but the look he gave the portrait promised he wasn’t finished.
Neither was I.
That afternoon, Noah transferred the painting to a secure examination room at the auction house.
A technician moved a scanning light across the blue dress. Colored images appeared on a monitor.
“The canvas dates to the right period,” Noah said. “And this blue pigment matches a mixture Moreau used in her early work.”
“Does that prove it?”
“No. But it removes two major reasons it could have been fake.”
He passed an ultraviolet lamp over the lower corner.
Letters emerged beneath the frame line.
Celeste Moreau, 1929.
This time, the name was complete.
My knees weakened, but I stayed standing.
“Tell me what that changes.”
Noah compared the signature with three authenticated paintings. The slant, spacing, and final stroke matched.
Then he opened a digitized exhibition catalogue.
A missing Moreau portrait appeared on the last page.
Woman in Blue. Private collection.
Beside it was the original owner’s name.
Elise Laurent.
“My grandmother.”
“That gives us the beginning of a provenance trail,” Noah said. “If we document how it passed from Elise to your mother and then to you, the ownership history may be clean.”
My mother had kept every important paper in one green metal box.
It was still in the storage room above LAST LIGHT.
Inside the home Ethan had locked me out of.
Noah printed a preliminary examination report and placed it in front of me.
At the bottom was a provisional valuation:
$3,000,000–$5,000,000, pending authentication.
Yesterday, Ethan had thrown the portrait beside a dumpster.
Today, an auction house was preparing to insure it for millions.
My phone rang.
Ethan again.
I declined the call, but a voicemail appeared seconds later.
Madison’s voice filled the examination room.
“Claire, we know the painting was displayed at LAST LIGHT. If you try to sell company property, we’ll stop you.”
Noah looked at me.
“Can they?”
I placed Ethan’s signed agreement beside the valuation.
Old portrait belonging solely to Claire Morgan. No company claim.
“No,” I said. “But the documents proving it are locked inside the home they stole from me.”