Forged in Blood and Gold

Chapter 1: The Woman Who Is Never Wrong I had one rule when it came to jobs that included a private driver. Don't take them. Three days ago, I broke that rule. The invitation had arrived on thick cream paper with no return address. There was only one sentence written in dark blue ink. Name your fee. Bring your loupe. No signature. There didn't need to be one. Nico Vasari. Even people who had never met him knew the name. Billionaire. Art collector. Businessman. Depending on who you asked, there were a few other words attached to his reputation, but I had learned not to repeat those. I told myself I accepted the job because the money was good. That was the first lie I told myself that night. The car waiting outside my apartment was black and spotless. It looked expensive without trying too hard. The driver barely spoke as we pulled away from the curb. I watched the city disappear behind the tinted windows. Twenty minutes later, we stopped outside an old bank building. The bank had been closed for years. The sign had been removed, but the brass doors were polished so well they looked new. A man in a dark suit opened my door. "Phone." I handed it over. "Bag." I handed that over too. Then he held out his hand for my coat. I hesitated before giving it to him. He returned my loupe. "Mr. Vasari doesn't like surprises." "Neither do I." He didn't laugh. Apparently, neither of us was in the mood for jokes. We went downstairs. Then another flight. And another. By the time the elevator doors opened, I had lost track of how far underground we were. I expected a cold, ugly vault. Instead, I stepped into a room that looked almost beautiful. Warm amber lights covered the walls. Paintings hung from floor to ceiling, each one displayed like it belonged in a museum. Some of the frames probably cost more than my apartment. I counted them automatically. Forty. It was a habit I couldn't switch off. Then I saw him. Nico Vasari stood near the far wall with his hands in his pockets. He was younger than I'd expected. Thirty-four, perhaps. Black suit. No tie. The sleeves of his shirt were folded once at his wrists. But it wasn't his clothes that caught my attention. It was the way he looked at me. Most men looked at a woman and noticed her face first. Nico looked at me the way I looked at a painting. Carefully. As though he were searching for something that didn't belong. "Miss Hale." His voice was quiet. "You're on time." "You sent a car. It would have been difficult to be late." The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. "You always have a choice." He turned toward the paintings. "That's what makes people interesting." I wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be a compliment. "I'm told you've never been wrong." "That's what my clients tell people." "Eleven years. Museums, private collectors, auction houses." He looked back at me. "Not one authentication overturned." "I'm careful." "You're exact." His eyes stayed on mine. "It's not the same thing." Before I could answer, he pointed toward a small painting near the entrance. "Start there." I walked over. The painting showed a woman standing beside a window. It wasn't large, maybe the size of a placemat. The label identified it as a seventeenth-century Dutch work attributed to a minor artist whose paintings I'd examined before. I studied the surface. The craquelure looked right. The canvas looked right. The ground was right. I asked for a UV lamp. One of the men standing nearby handed me one without saying a word. I switched it on. The varnish reacted exactly as it should. Everything was telling me the same thing. Genuine. Then I looked at the woman's sleeve. My stomach dropped. The blue pigment was lapis lazuli. It had been ground slightly too coarsely. Most painters of that period would have noticed. But that wasn't what made my fingers go cold. It was the brushstroke. A tiny hook at the edge of the sleeve. I knew that stroke. I'd made it thousands of times. Nine years ago, when I was nineteen, I had painted this exact picture in a rented attic with the windows taped shut. A man had paid me in cash. He told me what to paint. He never told me why. I'd convinced myself that whoever bought it would hang it somewhere private and forget about it. Apparently, I had been wrong. "Well?" Nico's voice pulled me back. I lowered the loupe. For one brief second, I considered lying. "Genuine." One word. It would have been easy. It might even have saved me. Instead, I said, "It's a fine piece. The provenance needs more work, but—" "You hesitated." I stopped. Nobody moved. Nico walked toward me. "In eleven years," he said, "you've never hesitated while examining a painting." I said nothing. "I spoke to people who have watched you work. They described you as precise. Certain." He stopped a few feet away. "So I'll ask you once, Miss Hale." His voice remained calm. "Think carefully before you answer." He glanced at the painting. Then back at me. "I didn't bring you here to authenticate my collection." My heart began to pound. "I brought you here to tell me which paintings you forged." For the first time in eleven years, I had no idea what to say.