"Woman's Head" by Pablo Picasso (1939), stolen 2012, recovered 2021 - value $17.3 million

Chapter Forty-Eight

"Beautiful service."

"Just beautiful! So fitting, really."

"Full of surprises, too."

"Hush, Frederick. Be respectful."

The individual chatter was quiet among the crowd, but the large number of people made it seem loud. It reminded me of a grain of sand; small on its own, but heavy when multiplied. This afternoon wake was public. It directly followed the private ceremony of the morning, and was even more overflowing with visitors. The grounds of Whitehills crawled with mourners.

I hadn't said a word since my eulogy. But Simon's grip hadn't lessened on my hand, and his presence hadn't left my side. We stood together. We sipped aperols under the dappled sun, quiet beneath vibrant Jacarandas. Those haunted trees were in full blossom. They were putting on their best show, as if to honor the woman who'd loved them so much—as if their brightest colors were only for her.

How it hurt she wasn't here to see them.

There was a new memorial among the Jacarandas, though. A bench had found a home under the blossoms of the oldest tree, facing the fian as he stood guard over the museum. It was a place where one could sit and take in the entire empire she'd built; it was a bench taken from Damar. Hell, it was a bench I knew too goddamn well.

The Whitehill family stood by it, greeting every mourner who'd come to pay their respects. They were strong, united, hosting in a way that came naturally to them. I hovered on the edges.

I saw how sturdy they were, even in their grief. I saw how August had all of his gates up to guard his vulnerability, yet was still the graciously proud and sorrowful grandson he was supposed to be. I saw the struggle in his blue eyes, behind the barriers, in a way hardly anyone else could. I saw it. I felt the weight of knowing I used to have the key to those gates; the weight of knowing I used to know how to soothe those defenses, to provide my own for him, so he didn't have to worry about protecting himself when injured. In another life, I would've done it for him while he grieved.

I thought about how I didn't know how to do that anymore while I watched him beside his family.

I thought about a lot.

I should've looked away. But I didn't, and I was a silent spectator until his blue eyes met mine. Until, for a moment, I saw his gates tremble under the onslaught they tried to hold back, and I saw the crack that ran so deep from her death; the crack he was hiding so well from the eyes of most everyone else. I saw it like the white spark of a fatal flash—blinding, all-encompassing for the split second it was there, then gone.

Augustus Whitehill looked away, and I mourned the loss of more than just the Whitehill Widows.

"I'm surprised you came back."

Part of me didn't want to look. Part of me wasn't ready to move on, to close that chapter of my life, to give up the role of onlooker when it was all I had left. But the strings had been cut. The disease had been burned away, charred to defeat, and the root system would heal without me. It would grow, and someday it would be as healthy and lush as the Jacarandas. So I turned. I looked away from shattered remains, away from the empty hull of a piece of my heart, and away from a former friend to face the speaker.

Yolanda stared with a shrewd look on her face.

"I wasn't planning to," I told her.

My answer was honest, but even clear water wasn't trusted when pipes were rusty. Maybe Yolanda knew that. I didn't know; I didn't care. Simon squeezed my hand again, and I returned it, releasing him as I turned to fully face Yolanda. From the corner of my eye, I saw Simon slink out of earshot.

Yolanda came closer with what looked like hardly concealed anger and disdain. She glared at me where we stood away from the others.

"You never reached back out," she accused.

"There was no need to."

"What did Signore Eriberto say?"

I shrugged, nonchalant. The lies came easier with time. Maybe the truth would, too. "Nothing important," I said. "The usual regulatory stuff for the proposed restoration."

"What—"

"He wanted to see if there was anything else he could do for us since the Widow was gone. I wasn't surprised; when I called, his museum was apparently eager to loan their team out and get some jobs, since their funding dwindled—unfortunately, I had to tell him I no longer work at Whitehill."

"That wasn't what it sounded like when he called," Yolanda rebuffed. "It sounded like there was some huge secret he would only tell you. Then you fell off the face of the earth."

"Sounds exciting, but no. I was supporting the Whitehills. Like I said, it was nothing you needed to know or be involved in, Yolanda."

The anger became choppier in her gaze, but I didn't flinch. Her accusations were hardly veiled. "I guess you haven't heard the news, then," she baited. "Signore Eriberto's museum isn't struggling anymore. They got a huge donation from an anonymous funder."

"That's great. Good for them."

"I called him again—recently, in fact. Asked him what his concerns were about, and told him I could help. Funnily enough, he told me there weren't any concerns; that you and him had figured it all out, and settled everything."

"That's what I just said," I reminded, gazing boredly around the grounds.

She stepped closer, fiercely shaking her head. "No, there's something you're not telling me. It's something about the Widow."

Annoyed, my gaze cut to the woman who walked the path I'd forged for her, in boots she wasn't good enough to wear.

"Yolanda, there is nothing to be said about the widow other than that there is no widow at the museum. There's nothing for you to concern yourself with," I emphasized. "Nothing at all—except making sure you don't screw up Geraldine's work and what she spent her life creating. What I spent my life creating."

A flash of red behind the dramatic woman before me caught my eye. Yolanda wasn't someone who needed to know Geraldine's secrets; the people who deserved them couldn't be found within the halls of Whitehill. They were beyond my reach, but there was one person here who could help reach them.

"If you'll excuse me, Yolanda, I have people to see," I said abruptly. I left her speechless with anger in the broken shade of a sapling, but I didn't look back. I chased the red until I found who I was looking for.

Her partner-in-crime was already beside her, entrenched in hushed conversation. Andrew Graves was brave to show his face among this crowd. Sure, he'd worked for Geraldine, but to the public who didn't have the right knowledge, he'd failed in returning her lost painting before she'd died.

"Vanessa!"

Vanessa looked startled to see me. Most people were.

"Eleanor!" she gasped. "I didn't think you were coming."

"I know."

"I didn't think I would see you again, actually," she admitted. Her eyes were wide, darting around the crowd.

"I know," I said again. "But I need to talk to you. Well, I need to talk to your... er, employers."

Grave was watching me with his usual stone; his trademark distaste and anger branded across his face. His words were short and clipped as he welcomed himself into our conversation. "They don't want to see you."

"I'm sorry, did I ask you?" I snapped, before turning back to Vanessa. "It's regarding the gift we got them last year."

Vanessa looked confused. Frustration surged then, threatening to spill, because I couldn't be clearer without saying something I shouldn't. She needed to understand. I didn't understand why she didn't. Her expression looked concerned, and her mouth was parted softly, looking as if I'd gone mad; as if the heat, grief, or exile had shattered me into pieces she would need gloves to handle. I'd gotten good at recognizing pity. There was sympathy running rampant across her expression.

"Eleanor," she started carefully, peering at me with alarm. "I was trying to tell you at the fundraiser. Then I thought you already knew, after we talked, because of what you said. Are you saying you don't?"

"Know what?"

"If you don't... well, I don't understand," she admitted despite my interruption. Her words were as confusing and cloaked as my own. "Eleanor, surely you know we never got the gift."

The wind whistled between the Jacarandas in a sudden gust of wind. Or maybe it was the ringing in my ears after her words swung their fist. God, maybe it was Geraldine. My tongue wasn't cooperating. My mind was blank. I was staring at Vanessa, trying to tell her the joke wasn't funny, even as I saw in her eyes she wasn't joking.

The words squeezed through the grip on my throat. "Excuse me?"

"Eleanor," she said again, glancing around some more, urgently leaning in to grasp my arm. "We never got the gift. Someone else got it first, remember?"

My mouth was dry. I shook my head. "No," I denied. "No, they didn't."

Vanessa paused, then nodded. She glanced at Graves behind her. Her hand was cold on my arm, even on a hot California day.

"He can tell you," she said softly. "His family is the one we were getting the gift for."

I scoffed. "Are you saying he is—"

"Yes. It was his great-great-grandmother's. Remember, we were trying to return it, but we never got it. Someone else did."

I stared. She wasn't making sense. I stared some more. She wasn't saying anything else, or denying it. Neither was Graves—and her words were starting to sink in.

"No," I suddenly forced out, stumbling away. I could feel the open expanse of emotional cliffs behind me.

Vanessa looked panicked. "Don't—"

"No!"

I was louder this time. Desperation, panic, fear. They rumbled the ground beneath my feet, and the world tilted, making me slide closer to the edge. I was grasping for anything. "That's not true. I was there. I set everything up—"

Vanessa's tight leash on Graves snapped and he stepped forward, furious. "See! I told you! She was the one who did it!"

"Graves, stop," Vanessa demanded. I didn't have to look, but I could feel it; the scene was drawing eyes, like a jumper on the brink earned an audience.

"You told her how to do it, Vanessa!" Graves exclaimed, still snarling and frothing with anger. "And she did! She moved forward alone; I don't know why you ever trusted her. Now we'll never get it back. Son of a bitch, it's gone, isn't it?"

"Andrew, don't be ridiculous, she clearly didn't know—" Vanessa started, but I stumbled back. My arm hugged my waist as my other hand curled around my throat.

"No, it was you," I wheezed. I could feel air escape my lungs like she'd popped them. My heart was beating and beating and beating and beating and she wasn't saying anything, she wasn't admitting she was lying, she wasn't laughing, or admitting she was joking—

Graves looked down at me, sneering. "Would I be here if it was? Why would I help them if I was on Vanessa's side; if we already knew where it was? It's not like I needed to throw off anyone's investigation, they hardly have one."

"No—"

"God, don't be such an idiot, Vaycker! You know why I'm here, so drop the act and give me the goddamn painting!"

The world spun harder. Tears sprouted and thrashed my skin like switches of bark, and I bled salt that ached the very wounds they'd created. There were always eyes; there was always someone watching the skies when the meteors fell. Always someone to witness the crimes, to view the devastation; always an audience, a jury, a crowd of onlookers. They were always watching.

So they watched.

Through the thrusting of denial into my mind like spikes, through the murkiness of purple panic and acidic tears, I saw the realization of what was happening spread until it reached the Whitehills. They turned as the witch exposed herself as wicked.

They all looked confused at first.

As always, August was the first to realize.

August started forward, fear in his wide eyes, sorrowful pain fresh in his own wounds as he ran to tend to mine. I saw the rubbernecking ripples of the funeralgoers reach further, to where I'd left Yolanda, to where I'd slipped through the crowd and escaped the watchful eyes of the man I loved. The man who already looked panicked as he pushed through the crowd, but who looked to exponentially face fear when he saw where I stood alone in the flames. I'd been found at the scene of the crime. I was now soaked in the blood of secrets, and I was falling apart under the pressure of regret. I saw it. I saw it all from the tattered edges of my vision. It was hazy below the surface, trying to distract me from where I turned back to nail the pair before me with my fury.

"You're lying!" I shouted. My eyes were staring at Vanessa and a man I now knew to be Clara Vouten's great-great-grandson, but I wasn't seeing them anymore. I wasn't seeing anything other than purple. "It's fake! You have it!"

LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR—

Hands reached out to me, clasping around my shaking body as I collapsed. I didn't know whose grip it was. If it was August's, the man full of gold, who never deserved the agony I inflicted on him. Or if it was Simon's, the man full of love, who worshipped the devil as if only a fallen angel; who'd given her peace she'd never deserved.

Or if it was the ghostly hands of Geraldine Whitehill herself.

The woman who'd led me here. Who'd lied. Who I wanted back more than anything in the world, yet was terrified of facing. I didn't know as I fell, didn't know as I was caught and gently lowered to the ground, didn't know as I lost what sanity I'd cradled like the lastborn. I only knew whoever was holding me loved me, that it wasn't a stranger—and that made it worse.

"They're lying!"

My voice was haunting and excruciating in the bright spring sun, spiraling where I laid on emerald grass, through the amethyst painted ceiling of blossoms, and all the way to the sapphire sky.

"It's not real!" I pleaded.

I was choking on the tears, choking on the truth, and choking on the grief. I was suffocating, smothered by the gnarled hands of time and loyalty.

I'd broken my promise to Geraldine. Within hours of my oath, I'd betrayed her again. The soothing whispers of the people I loved tried to envelope me, tried to break through, but the crumbling of my walls was making it hard to get through the rubble. I was surrounded by loved ones, but that only put them in the line of fire.

I'm not guilty I'm not guilty I'm not guilty—

My hands clawed at my chest until caught in someone's firm grip, even as my nails dug into their own skin. My legs kicked and thrashed even as my back met a solid chest, as arms wrapped around me like they could be a life jacket while I drowned.

As if they could save me.

"It wasn't me!" I sobbed. "It wasn't me, Geraldine!"

"Stop! Please!" The voice was ragged, and injured, and overflowing with pain. It was begging. It was asking for mercy, but it wasn't mine. "Eleanor, please! You're going to hurt yourself!"

I was already hurt, I wanted to say. I was hysterical. I was dying. I couldn't get enough air. Expanding my lungs was like bench pressing a building, and my arms were shaking too much to push anymore. The glue I'd used to put myself back together had bled into my veins and sealed them closed, and my heart was beating on the doors to be let out, because the building was on fire. The building was on fire, but everything was blocked.

"It was fake!" I tried again, like she could hear me wherever she was. "It wasn't me!"

Whoever held me was trembling; I could feel it. I could feel the arms tighten like I was the life jacket all along; like I wasn't the very torpedo that'd sank the ship in the first place. I felt the shaking lips that pressed against my ear, whispering words I wished I could hold. They alternated between begging and showing a strength their heart against my back didn't have, but they never stopped. Not even when those lips pressed against my cheek instead, their words muffled and choking under the downpour of tears, pummeled by the sobs that hiccupped out of my beaten frame.

I'm sorry.

I wondered if they could hear when my screaming stopped. If they heard when my screams became a whisper. When everything was so broken there was no stopping the gentle exposure of the most vulnerable words I had; the scariest, most precious gem of a question I'd hid.

"Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

The words were whispered as I laid limp under those beautiful blossoms and gorgeous, crystal skies.

The whispers around me hadn't stopped. They never would. It didn't matter. I knew they didn't have the answer. Hell, I wasn't sure who did, if anyone. I'd wondered about that question for weeks. I'd been bullied by it even before Geraldine died, but I'd been truly tormented by it today, and it wasn't done yet. No, it was compounded even further by this new information. If it was fake all along, did that mean I was forgiven? And now, if it wasn't my fault, did that mean there was nothing to forgive?

I can't speak of intentions, only impacts.

Except I could. I could speak of intentions, and conspiracies, and plans. I could speak of everything but the choices of others—and the truths she'd been buried with.

But for now, I could only grip whoever held me and pull them closer, soaking their suit with the tears of false guilt.

Don't worry, everything will be explained... but almost all of the truth has already been revealed.

- H