Faking It

Chapter 9

UPSTAIRS, DAVY HAD GONE through the scarlet notes and was now contemplating his future. “I’m starting to like this room, Steve,” he said to the dog as they stretched out on the white quilt. “Like its owner, it has infinite possibilities.” Steve sighed and put his head between his paws and Davy scratched his ears. “You’ve really got a thing for her, don’t you? Good thinking on your part. She’ll never let you down. Dog biscuits and sleeping on the bed for life.” Steve rolled his head to one side a little to listen, and Davy thought about Tilda, taking care of everybody, desperate to get those paintings back so people wouldn’t find out her father sold forgeries.

That had to be it. There had to be something wrong with those paintings, something dangerous enough to make Tilda turn to crime. Because she wasn’t a natural at it, that was for sure. He spared a moment to wonder what Tilda would have been like if his dad had raised her instead of hers. Not much difference, he decided. Some people were straight clean through. They never got that insane buzz that sliding into forbidden territory set up in the blood, when every nerve ending sharpened and hummed, and every sound and scent was magnified. God, I miss it, he thought. Thanks for raising me to be an adrenaline junkie, Pop. At least he hadn’t turned out like his dad. There would be a horror story for you.

There had to be another way to get that buzz. Some way that was legal. Bungee jumping. No, that was stupid. Drugs. No, that was illegal. Sex. That was Tilda. Okay, she wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but he could get a second shot and make sure she paid attention this time. She could even bite if she wanted to since, given Gwennie’s needlework, it appeared to be a genetic predisposition. He began to think about her instead of crime, and he was feeling fairly cheerful by the time he and Steve heard her step on the stairs.

“We were wondering where you were,” Davy said as she came through the door and Steve sat up and wagged his tail.

“Working,” Tilda said. “Remember me, Matilda Veronica, Mural Painter? That’s what pays the bills here, boy.” She made kissing noises at Steve. “Hi, puppy.”

“That would be Veronica the control-freak bitch you mentioned last night?” Davy said, trying to imagine her making kissing noises in leather. It was surprisingly easy. He patted the bed beside him. “Come and talk to me about these paintings.”

“It’s all in the notes.” She sat down beside him and Steve climbed into her lap and sighed with happiness. “The first one was the city scene,” she said, scratching the dog behind the ears. “That’s the one Nadine sold to Clea.”

“The one I keep missing,” Davy said, watching Steve stretch his head to meet her fingers.

“The second one was the cows and the third one was the flowers,” Tilda said. “You got those.” She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and smiled at him crookedly, her Kewpie-doll mouth askew, the first real smile she’d ever given him, and he leaned toward her a little because she looked so warm.

“Then there were butterflies,” she said. “Somebody named Susan Frost bought that. She’s in Gahanna.”

“Butterflies,” he said, and wondered what she’d do if he went for that warm place under the curve of her jaw.

“Then mermaids,” she said. “A guy named Robert Olafson got that one. He lives in Westerville.”

Maybe he wouldn’t wait until he had all the paintings. Maybe-

“And the last one, which I can’t believe he sold, is dancers,” Tilda said. “That one went to Mr. and Mrs. John Brenner.”

“Why can’t you believe he sold it?” Davy said, enjoying the energy in her voice. “This is your dad we’re talking about, right?”

“Because it was smeared,” Tilda said. “It was damaged. But my dad sold it anyway.”

She looked unhappy, so Davy changed the subject. “Okay, today we get the butterflies.”

“Can’t we do them all today?” Tilda said. “Can’t we just go buy them back?”

“Sure,” Davy said. “Unless they don’t want to sell. Or they want more than we have to spend. Let’s take our time and do it right.”

“Oh.” Tilda swallowed. “I thought… well, that you could do anything.”

“ ‘You rush a miracle man,’” Davy said,“ ‘you get rotten miracles.’”

She pushed her glasses back up again. “So what do we do if they don’t want to sell?”

“We convince them,” Davy said cheerfully.

Tilda’s face changed.

“What?” Davy said.

“You sound like… somebody I used to know,” Tilda said.

“Your dad,” Davy said.

“No,” Tilda said, but she was lying. She really was a terrible liar.

“Who forged the Scarlets, Tilda?”

“The Scarlets aren’t forgeries,” Tilda said, rising. “But we need to get them back anyway.”

“Okay,” Davy said, rolling off the bed. “Try not to kick anybody this time.”

“Oh, God, I’m trying to forget that,” Tilda said, wincing. “That guy’s probably okay, right?”

“I didn’t see anything in the paper,” Davy said. “And he’s not exactly in a position to whine. He was breaking in, too. He probably came to and got out of there.”

“Right.” Tilda opened the bedroom door, leaving Steve disconsolate on the bed. “You sure you know how to do this?”

“Oh, yeah,” Davy said. “I know exactly how to do this.”

DOWNSTAIRS IN the gallery, Pippy Shannon sang “He Is,” the phone rang, and Gwen discovered to her disgust that the answer to M, “sweetheart,” was “tootsy wootsy.” “Goodnight Gallery,” she said, still frowning at the puzzle book.

“Gwen? This is Mason Phipps.”

“Oh.” Gwen shut the puzzle book and tried to sound bright and innocent. “Hello.”

“I wanted to thank you for last night.”

“Oh, my pleasure,” Gwen lied. “Really. Like old times.”

“I’d like to show my gratitude by taking you to a late lunch tomorrow,” Mason said. “You can get away from the gallery on Sunday, can’t you?”

I’ll never get away from the gallery. “I don’t know-”

“I would truly appreciate it if you’d join me, say about two?”

Gwen thought she heard some vulnerability in his voice. The poor man was living with Clea. That could leave anybody flayed and bleeding.

But he’d want to talk about Tony, On the other hand, if she didn’t eat lunch with him, she’d be eating it with a Double-Crostic. “Tell me an eight-letter word for ‘capable of sin’ and I’ll go.”

“All right,” Mason said, sounding taken aback. “Any other clues?”

“Begins with P, ends in E.”

“Give me a minute,” he said, and there was a smile in his voice, and she thought, This is a nice guy. I should go to lunch.

“It couldn’t possibly be ‘peccable,’ could it?” he said finally.

“Peccable?”

“You know, as in ‘impeccable,’ only the opposite?”

Gwen opened the crostic book. “Hang on.” She filled in the letters and then transferred them to the quote squares. “I’ll be damned.”

“That’s it?” Mason said.

“I’ll also be having lunch with you,” Gwen said, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “I can’t believe you got that. Because I was never going to.”

“I was motivated,” Mason said, the smile in his voice growing bigger.

“You are my hero,” she said.

They talked about Double-Crostics for a while, and he thanked her again for the night before, and when she finally hung up the phone, she was looking forward to seeing him again. I wonder if that’s a date, she thought.

It’s just lunch. But Clea isn’t coming along. I wonder…

The door opened as Pippy did her big finish, and Gwen saw Ford Brown, now forever a cowboy in her mind with the soundtrack to match: Do not forsake me, oh, my darling. “Oh,” she said to him, trying to ignore the music in her head. “Is everything all right upstairs?”

“It’s fine.” He looked around the gallery. “Nice place.”

Gwen looked around at the dingy walls and cracked window and dull wood floors. “Uh-huh.”

His lips twitched in that not-grin again. “I was being polite.”

“That only works when there’s some possibility it might be true,” Gwen said, wondering what he was up to. She hadn’t known him long, but she knew he was being abnormally chatty.

“So why isn’t it?” He wandered past the Finsters, his hands in his pockets.

“What? Nice?” Gwen shrugged. “No money.”

Ford stopped at the cracked window. “Wouldn’t take that much.”

“Are you a contractor?” Gwen said.

“You could say that.” Ford turned back to her. “I was heading for lunch. What’s your favorite restaurant?”

“Lunch,” Gwen said.

Ford nodded patiently. “You tell me where the best place to eat is, I’ll pay you back by bringing you lunch.”

“Do I look hungry or something?” Gwen said. “Because you’re the second guy who’s offered to feed me in fifteen minutes.”

“People eat,” Ford said. “Usually about this time. Even in Florida.”

“Imagine that. I figured you all lived on the fruit in the drinks with the little umbrellas.”

“What is it with you and the umbrellas?” Ford said.

“Just looking for a way out of the rain.” Gwen went back to her Double-Crostic. “Try the Fire House. Great seafood. You’ll feel right at home.”

An hour later he brought her back a piña colada with an umbrella in it. “Extra fruit,” he said when he put it on the counter. Then he went upstairs.

“Damn,” Gwen said, surprised, and tasted it.

It was delicious.

WHEN DAVY and Tilda got into Jeff’s car that afternoon, Davy said, “Here’s the way this goes. When we get there, I go to the door. You watch me. You will stay in the car, unless I do one of three things, then you come up with me.”

“Three things,” Tilda said.

“If I motion you up and call you Betty,” Davy said, “be a ditz. I’m the one in charge, I’ll patronize you a little bit while you search through your purse.”

“Big purse,” Tilda said, holding it up. “Is Betty a ditz because I was such a mess in the closet?”

“You were not a mess in the closet,” Davy said. “You were Vilma in the closet. If I need somebody to jump my bones, I’ll call you Vilma. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to come up this afternoon. If I call you Betty and say we’ve been together a year, you put a hundred-dollar bill in the mark’s hand and then you look for a second hundred.”

“The mark?”

“Pay attention,” Davy said sternly. “If I say we’ve been together one year…”

“I put a hundred in the mark’s hand and then start digging for a second hundred,” Tilda said.

“Right, if I say we’ve been together for two years…”

“I give her two hundred,” Tilda said.

“Good girl.”

“Why?”

“Because once she has the money in her hand, it’s going to be really hard to give it back. If you hand it over while you’re looking for the second bill, she’ll take it automatically and we’ll have her.”

“We can’t just offer her the money?”

“Yes,” Davy said. “We can. That’s what I will do. If that doesn’t work, you come up.”

“Okay.” Tilda looked a little uneasy. “One. Betty. Ditz. Money.”

“Two is I look at my watch. You come up and tell me we’re running late and we have to go.”

Tilda nodded. “Am I nice?”

“Take your cue from me. If I call you Veronica and act like I’m afraid of you, be a bitch.” Tilda sighed. “If I call you Betty and snarl, you grovel. We’re putting a time lock on the deal, and if the mark doesn’t hurry up, he’ll lose it.”

“Time lock. Okay. What’s three?”

“I put my hands behind my back, and you come up and be the enemy.”

“The enemy,” Tilda said.

“If I can’t get the mark on my own, I’m going to have to give him a reason to bond with me,” Davy said. “The fastest way to do that is for the mark and me to confront an enemy together. That’s you.”

“Okay,” Tilda said. “What do I do?”

“Take your cue from me again. If I call you Veronica and cringe, say I couldn’t get the painting, whatever, bitch me out. Say you knew I couldn’t do it. Bully me.”

“And that works how?” Tilda said, frowning at him.

“If the person at the door lives with a bully, he’ll side with me. Now if the person at the door is the bully, I’ll call you Betty and you come up whining.”

“I didn’t whine in the closet.”

“No, you didn’t. Be as annoying as you can be without challenging me. Put me in a position where the guy at the door thinks I should be bullying you. Whine that we don’t need the dumb painting, that we should be spending that money on you.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got it.” Tilda sat frowning for a minute and then nodded. “So Betty’s a ditz, and Veronica’s a bitch, and Vilma’s a slut. I had no idea you thought so much of me.”

“You’re not concentrating, Matilda,” Davy said. “I’m going to try to work it so that you don’t have to come up at all. It’s better if we can just buy the damn things. And no matter how we do it, the fewer recognizable faces associated with this mess, the better.” He looked into her pale blue eyes and lost his train of thought for a minute. “You are memorable, Celeste.”

“Oh,” Tilda said. “I can fix that, Ralph. Wait a minute.”

She got out of the car, and Davy slid down in his seat and thought, Now what? When she still wasn’t back fifteen minutes later, he opened the door to go find her and there she was.

She’d slicked her curls down into a smooth bob and taken off her glasses. She was wearing a pink sweater that fit very well and a green dotted scarf around her neck and she looked neat and respectable and sort of Yuppie and completely unlike herself.

“I’m impressed,” Davy said. “What did you do?”

Tilda slid back into the front seat. “Mousse, eye makeup, dark contacts, Eve’s sweater, scarf, and skirt. Now can I go up to the door with you?”

“No,” Davy said. “You still stay in the car. But I am really impressed.” And turned on. Hello, Vilma.

“Easy,” Tilda said, and picked up her bag and pulled out the first card. “Let’s go see Mrs. Susan Frost. She has a lovely Scarlet of butterflies for which she paid five hundred dollars. She’s in Gahanna. Take 670 east.”

TWENTY MINUTES later, Davy pulled up in front of a tidy little ranch house in Gahanna. “Okay. Got the money?”

Tilda opened her billfold and picked out ten very crisp hundred-dollar bills. “Simon isn’t a counterfeiter, is he?”

“No,” Davy said. “He doesn’t have that much concentration. Why?”

“Because these are his,” Tilda said. “From your rent.”

“His rent,” Davy said. “I haven’t seen that room since he got here. Give me five of them in case I can do this without you.”

“It’s a painting of butterflies,” Tilda said, handing over the bills. “You sure you don’t want me to come up with you?”

“Nope.” Davy opened the door. “Stay in the car and watch me. If you come up, I’m your husband Steve.”

“Okay,” Tilda said, clearly humoring him.

A tight-lipped woman about Gwennie’s age answered the door, and Davy smiled at her and discarded the idea of asking for donations of paintings. This one would want money and she’d gouge them for all she could get. “Mrs. Frost?”

“Yes,” she said suspiciously.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Steve Foster. You don’t know me but my wife’s aunt used to visit you here with a friend.” He shook his head. “I can’t remember the friend’s name.”

“So?” Mrs. Frost said.

“I’m sorry, I’m telling this so badly.” Davy stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled at her, his best I’m-an-idiot smile. “I guess I’m nervous.”

“What is it you want?” she said, but her mouth relaxed a little.

“My wife’s aunt’s coming into town today,” Davy said, going earnest on her. “It’s her sixtieth birthday and she’s been really good to Betty, and, when she was here years ago, she saw this butterfly painting, and she told Betty all about it, a big checkerboard sky and lots of beautiful butterflies. She said she looked at it the whole visit and she used to dream about it at night. She really loved it.”

“I think I remember her,” Mrs. Frost said, the suspicion easing from her face a little. “Was her friend Bernadette Lowell?”

“Maybe,” Davy said, watching her face, smiling. “That sounds about right. Betty would really like to buy that painting for her aunt, but she’s really shy, that’s Betty down in the car…” He turned and waved at Tilda. “It would make her so happy, and it’d make me so happy to make her so happy-”

“I don’t even know what happened to that painting,” Mrs. Frost said, distracted, looking behind him.

“Hi,” Tilda said, coming to stand beside him, smiling and confident, and he put his arm around her.

“Don’t be shy, Betty,” he said, and Tilda hunched her shoulders under his arm. “Mrs. Frost isn’t even sure she has the painting. She hasn’t seen it in a year-”

“Oh, but we’ll pay for it,” Tilda said, looking slightly goony as she dug in her bag. “I know we’re interrupting you-” She came up with a hundred-dollar bill and Mrs. Frost’s eyes swiveled right to it. “That’s not enough.” She jabbed it at Mrs. Frost, who took it, and then went back to her bag. “I’m so sorry, I know I have the other one in here…”

“Hey.” Davy squeezed her shoulder a little. “She’s not even sure she has it. Maybe-”

The vague look on Mrs. Frost’s face had sheared off into avarice as she looked at the hundred in her hand. “Let me look upstairs in the attic,” she said and was gone, taking the money with her.

“I know it’s here somewhere,” Tilda said, her head practically in her bag.

“It’s okay, honey.” Davy patted her shoulder and wondered how she knew to stay in character when he hadn’t told her to. Maybe he’d been wrong about Tilda. Maybe Michael Dempsey could have turned her into a crook. Damn good thing she hadn’t been born a Dempsey. “Don’t worry, she’s looking for it,” he said and Tilda turned her face to his and smiled, as open as the sun, and he tightened his arm around her and was even more grateful that she hadn’t been born a Dempsey.

“Oh, I hope she finds it.” Tilda dug in her bag again. “Wait, here it is.” She held up another hundred.

“That’s good,” Davy said. “You hold on to it and try to calm down.”

They sat down on the top step and Tilda talked about her aunt and how happy she’d be to see the painting, and Davy left his arm around her and let the sun seep into his bones and thought, Damn, I’m happy.

“This it?” Mrs. Frost said from behind them about fifteen minutes later, and Davy looked up to see a dusty eighteen-inch painting, full of the wickedest-looking butterflies he’d ever seen.

“That’s it!” Tilda sprang up. “Oh, that’s exactly the way Aunt Gwen described it. Oh, this is so wonderful. And look…” She held the second hundred out. “I found the other hundred.” She pressed it into Mrs. Frost’s hand.

“You know, we paid over a thousand dollars for this painting,” Mrs. Frost lied through her teeth.

“Oh.” Tilda looked devastated as she turned to face him. “Steve, we can’t…”

“Well, now, wait a minute, honey,” Davy said, and got out his wallet. He counted out a twenty, a ten, and four ones. “We can go up to two thirty-four,” he said, offering Mrs. Frost the bills. He looked apologetically at Tilda. “We can just eat at home instead of taking Aunt Gwen out to Bob Evans. Your cooking’s better than eating out anyway.”

“Oh, Steve,” Tilda said, putting her head down. Davy could have sworn she blushed.

“Okay,” Mrs. Frost said, taking the bills out of his hand, probably to get the two of them off her front porch before they got any ickier. “Here you go.”

“Oh, thank you!” Tilda said, grabbing the painting. “Oh, my aunt is going to be-”

Mrs. Frost shut the door in her face.

“-so happy,” Tilda finished, still sweetness and light.

“Come on, honey,” Davy said, taking her arm. “Let’s go get Aunt Gwen.”

When they were in the car, Tilda said, “She did not pay a thousand dollars for this.”

“That’s okay. Neither did you.” Davy handed the five hundreds she’d given him back to her and started the engine. “About those butterflies.”

“Boy.” Tilda angled the painting to catch some of the sunlight from the window. “I haven’t seen this for fifteen years.”

“Scarlet must have been a little annoyed when she painted them,” Davy said, pulling out into the street. “They look like they could strip a cow faster than piranha.”

“Oh.” Tilda looked at them closer. “They are sort of edgy, aren’t they? Well, Scarlet had issues.”

“You still want to try the next one right away?” Davy said.

“No,” Tilda said. “My heart should be out of my throat by tomorrow. That is possibly the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

Davy looked over at her, surprised. “I couldn’t tell. You were really good.”

“Really?” Tilda said.

“Quite an actress.”

“That’s Gwennie,” Tilda said, looking back at the butterflies. “Eve and I could both do Lady Macbeth in kindergarten. Nadine could do it even earlier. You should hear ‘All the perfumes of Arabia ’ with a lisp. She was so cute.”

“Yeah.” Davy stole a glance at her profile as she studied the painting. “Runs in the family.”

She turned to him. “You were damn good yourself. Gwennie couldn’t do a character better. You were amazing.”

You haven’t seen anything yet, Velma, Davy thought.

“I really am grateful,” she told him.

“My pleasure,” he said and kept his eyes on the road.

TILDA HAD braced herself for another pass that night, but Davy left with Simon to do God knew what and she felt oddly bereft. They should have celebrated or something. Nadine showed up shortly after they were gone, on her way to sing with Burton ’s band, and handed over Steve, who had a bleeding gash across his nose.

“What happened?” Tilda said, appalled.

“He met Ariadne on the way up the stairs,” Nadine said, shaking her head at him.

“And she attacked you, poor baby?” Tilda cuddled Steve’s little furry body.

“No,” Nadine said. “He jumped her and tried to, uh, well, hump her.”

Tilda stopped cuddling to look into his beady, clueless eyes. “Steve, she’s a cat.”

“And he’s a guy,” Nadine said. “Which reminds me, I’m late to meet Burton. Where’s Davy?”

“He and Simon went out,” Tilda said, still not sure what to do about Steve. “They’ll be back soon.”

When Louise got home at midnight, Steve’s nose was better, and Simon and Davy were still gone, but five minutes later, they turned up, as if on cue. “That was lucky,” Tilda said as Simon and Louise faded upstairs. “Lucky, my ass,” Davy said. “He had one eye on the clock all night. She must have told him when she was getting off work.” He went upstairs then, and when she followed an hour later with Steve, he was fast asleep, looking like a fallen angel in her bed.

Right, Tilda thought. Lucifer, right here in my sheets. He did not learn to scam people in heaven. But the next morning, after she’d taken Steve out for his morning Dumpster encounter, she found out Davy might be on the side of the angels after all.

“Good morning,” she said to Gwen and Eve when she got to the office. “What’s new?” She poured a glass of pineapple-orange juice as Steve attacked his food bowl, and then she turned to find them watching her. “What?”

“Louise had a talk with Simon last night,” Gwen said.

“You talked?” Tilda said, raising her eyebrows at Eve.

“He’s with the FBI,” Eve said, and Tilda sat down hard in the desk chair, gripping her juice glass like death.

“What’s he here for?” she said.

“He’s here because he’s working with Davy,” Eve said.

Tilda swallowed. “Davy’s FBI?”

Eve nodded. “Louise found that exciting. Then I woke up this morning and realized what it meant.”

“Tell me you’re being nice to Davy,” Gwen said to Tilda. “Don’t make him mad.”

“I’m not making him mad.” Tilda bit her lip. “Well, I haven’t made him mad lately. You know, that would explain why he was so good at scamming that painting. If he’s FBI, he probably knows all there is to know about crime.”

“How is he on art fraud?” Gwen said grimly.

“He was asking a lot of questions about it,” Tilda said. “But I think it was general information. I don’t think he’s here for… me.” She swallowed. “I mean, we met burgling Clea’s closet, he couldn’t have planned that.”

“So what was he doing in Clea’s closet?” Eve said. “The FBI is investigating Clea?”

“I don’t think so,” Tilda said. “He told me she’d made his financial manager embezzle all his money and he’s here to get it back. It sounded personal, not professional.”

“If he’s FBI, why doesn’t he have her arrested?” Eve said.

“I don’t know, Eve,” Tilda said, still trying to wrap her mind around the new information. “Maybe it’s part of a plan. He’s a devious son of a bitch.”

“Don’t get angry with him,” Gwen said. “We need him to like us.”

“Well, hell, I slept with him,” Tilda said. “You’d think someplace in there he’d have mentioned something like the FB-fucking-I. Are we sure Simon wasn’t just trying to impress Louise into bed?”

“Louise was in bed,” Eve said, looking at the ceiling. “There were handcuffs. Nice ones. Louise asked him where he’d gotten them.”

“Great,” Tilda said. “Tonight have Louise ask him what he’s here for.”

“She can’t,” Eve said. “It’s Sunday. She doesn’t exist again until Wednesday.”

“She’s not supposed to exist here at all,” Tilda said. “Are you going to tell him who you are?”

“No. It turns out he has a thing about sleeping with women who are mothers. If I tell him, he’ll be furious.” She sighed. “I’m thinking maybe Louise won’t be back on Wednesday. I’ll leave her at the Double Take.”

“Well, figure out where the hell she is tonight because Simon’s going to want to know.” Tilda put her juice glass down, not thirsty anymore. “Men tend to miss women who get to the handcuff stage by the second night.”

“I’m going to miss him, too,” Eve said miserably, and Tilda thought, You’re going to? Not Louise?

“Miss who?” Nadine said, coming in from the hall. “Steve, baby, poochie, how’s the nose?”

Steve lifted his head from his food bowl, barked once, and went back to eating.

“Doesn’t he have a beautiful voice?” Nadine picked up the orange juice carton. “So who’s leaving?”

“Nobody’s leaving, baby,” Eve said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “How was singing with Burton last night?”

“The singing part was good,” Nadine said, pouring her juice. “The Burton part, not so. He wants to see me today, though, so maybe he’s sorry.”

“What did he do?” Eve said, moving into dangerous mother mode.

“Well,” Nadine said, sitting down at the table. “He acts like he’s this big rebel, walks on the wild side, but it turns out he’s pretty conservative after all. He didn’t like the Lucy dress at all.”

“What a fool,” Eve said. “You look great in the Lucy dress.”

“I know.” Nadine sounded perplexed. “I think I may have misjudged him. Men are so seldom what they seem to be.”

“Tell me about it,” Tilda said, thinking of Davy upstairs, asleep in the security of federal employment. She picked up her orange juice glass, “I have to go work. I start that Monet in New Albany tomorrow.”

She went down to the basement, Steve with her in case Ariadne decided to come down to the gallery. She really didn’t think Davy was going to arrest her, she wasn’t even sure he was really FBI, but he was still a danger. She locked herself in her dad’s studio, cut a piece of foam core board to dimensions in ratio with the wall in New Albany, and began to lay in the colors for the bathroom lilies while she obsessed on the question. “You’d think he would have told me,” she said to Steve, who lay with his chin on his paws, gazing patiently up at her. “I told him I painted murals. But is he honest with me? No, he says he’s in sales. He consults. What the hell is that, consults!” She was still obsessing when somebody knocked on the door two hours later.

“What?” she said when she opened the door, and was only marginally relieved to see it was Andrew. “Oh. Hi.”

“Can I talk to you?” he said, coming in and pulling the door shut behind him.

“Sure.” Tilda went back to the drawing board.

“It’s about Simon. And Louise.”

“Get a life, Andrew.”

“I can’t really blame him.” Andrew pulled up a stool and sat down beside Tilda. “He seems like a nice guy and Louise probably made the first move.”

“She jumped him at the door.” Tilda picked up her brush. “Real bundle of lust, our Louise.”

“But she’s sleeping with him here” Andrew said. “Suppose Nadine finds out?”

“Finds out what? Nadine knows about Louise.”

“She doesn’t know Louise is a…”

“Yes, Andrew?” Tilda said, laying in another ultramarine wash.

“She thinks Louise just sings,” Andrew finished.

“Andrew, you’re a good man, but you’re an idiot. Nadine knows exactly what Louise is. Nadine is smarter than the rest of us put together.”

“Well, she shouldn’t be seeing it.” Andrew shifted on the stool. “I wish Eve would give up Louise.”

Tilda sighed. “Right. Then who headlines the Double Take?”

Andrew blinked at her. “Well, she’d be Louise there. Just on stage.”

“You know,” Tilda put down her brush. “There are times when you talk like a straight guy.”

“What?” Andrew said, appalled. “What did I say?”

“You only want Eve to be sexual in service to you,” Tilda said. “That sucks, Andrew. You dealt her a lousy hand, and now you want her to play by your rules.”

“That’s not fair. I didn’t know I was gay. I meant it when I said I loved her. I do love her.”

“Yeah,” Tilda said. “Well, if you love her, respect her for what she is.”

“I would,” Andrew said, frowning, “if I knew what that was. I don’t think she does.”

“Well, she’s the one who gets to figure that out, not you.” Tilda picked up her brush again.

“So it didn’t go well with Davy, I hear,” Andrew said.

Tilda set her jaw. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Eve said you had lousy sex on the couch.”

Tilda looked at the ceiling. “Are there families that don’t discuss each other’s sex lives? Because if there are, I’m going to go live with them.”

“Why didn’t you marry Scott?” Andrew shook his head. “The sex was good. He was perfect for you.”

“And yet, he left me,” Tilda said. “Anything else depressing you want to talk about?”

“No.” Andrew stood up. “Talk to Eve, will you?”

“I don’t need to,” Tilda said, keeping her back to him. “She’s already decided to keep Louise at the Double Take. All your wishes are granted.”

“Well, that’s good,” Andrew said and went upstairs, much relieved, leaving Tilda below, much annoyed.

At least her next mural was Monet, easy to copy. Even Monet had forged the water lilies, turning them out like a factory. She didn’t feel nearly as guilty painting one on a wall. Monet would have done the same if somebody had paid him enough.

Why didn‘t you marry Scott?

Tilda sat back from the drawing table and looked at the bank of white cabinets, full of family secrets. “You’ve mortgaged your life to them,” Scott had said, but he didn’t get it, and that’s why she couldn’t marry him. She’d already betrayed enough family by going straight. The least she could do was make sure everybody survived, that everything her father had worked for wasn’t lost. It wasn’t going to take that much longer. Maybe fifteen years. She could do it. Scott didn’t understand.

Of course, that was because Scott didn’t know there were three hundred years of bad Goodnight forgeries in her basement.

There was no way she could have told him about the buried gallery of Durers and Bouchers and Corots and God-knew-who-elses, all painted by Goodnights, most of them before they changed the family name from Giordano, and every one a little too wrong to safely sell. She couldn’t tell him about those, she couldn’t tell anybody, and it was probably a bad idea to marry a guy you couldn’t tell everything to.

She stood up and began to clean her brushes for the next day. She had a painting to retrieve that afternoon, and the guy who was helping her get it back might be working for the FBI.

“As God is my witness, Steve,” she said to the dog. “Once I get these paintings back, I will never go wrong again.” He looked skeptical, so she sighed and went upstairs to get ready to scam with a possible Fed.