The Game

“Push me at your peril, Leighton.”

“What are you hiding?”

“What are you hiding?” he mirrored back.

“Me? Nothing.”

“Can I ask you something,” he said softly.

I shrugged that I’d hear his question at least.

He turned to face me. “How did your dad choose the paintings? The night of the fire?”

“We grabbed what we could.”

A flash of fear; disorientation.

“You remember something?”

“It was a long time ago.” But I understood the question. It was like asking which child you would save first, because each painting held a precious place in my father’s heart.

“Zara?” Tobias whispered.

I loosened my grip from where I’d been digging my fingernails into his bicep. “Dad went back for his favorite.”

“You went with him?”

“I couldn’t leave him.”

He looked horrified. “That was so dangerous.”

“He’d removed Madame Rose Récamier from my bedroom and placed her in his office weeks before. The frame needed to be refurbished. Otherwise she’d have gone too.”

“The smoke could have gotten to you.” Tobias rested his head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as though working through a difficult thought. “That’s where he kept the Michelangelo. That’s where he kept all the paintings you saved.”

“There were so many. We tried.” A familiar guilt that I couldn’t manage the Degas.

This drawn-out silence allowed those haunting memories to sweep in. “I should be able to ask you things too.”

“Go on, then.”

“How do they contact you?”

“Who?”

“Your clients? The ones who hire you to steal their paintings back?”

“Zara, please.” His tone insinuated I’d ruin what we’d shared.

I yearned to reach him and now felt so right. I scooted closer and rested my head on his chest and my scalp tingled as he ran his fingers through my hair.

“The thing is,” I began softly, “when a painting has been with a family for decades it’s hard to come to terms with the fact a family member obtained it illegally years before. The current family bonds with it.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No, but more people suffer.”

“When you saw St. Joan at Christie’s you wanted to take her home. You wanted her back?”

“Yes.”

He gave a shrug to indicate he’d made his point.

“You stole her from Christie’s for me?” I raised my head to look at him. “Tobias?”

He turned his face away and gave the deepest sigh.

“Toby?”

He slid into a sweet smile, and then his expression shifted to resignation, his gaze sweeping the ceiling.

“There’s something you’re not telling me?” I whispered.

He turned his head to look at me “This moment could change what we can have. You want that?”

“I need answers.”

“Proceed with caution.”

A flutter of nerves went berserk in my chest. “I have to know.”

His stare bored into my eyes as though gauging I was ready. “Do you remember that first evening we met?”

My eyes brightened with the memory of him half-naked in The Otillie basement. “Of course.”

“Later, when we met again in the gallery?”

“You introduced yourself and then left.”

He’d suddenly walked out of the gallery as though my name alone had caused his quick exit.

“You’d heard of me?” My voice rasped with emotion.

“I realized you were Bertram Leighton’s daughter.”

The hairs on my forearms pricked. “Did you know my dad?”

He hesitated. “No.”