Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
We are not arrested. Thankfully. Oh, Connolly goes along with it, preparing to contact his lawyer while advising the officers to call the local police and the crime-scene technicians. Get everyone here and explain to them how Platts freaked out over the hallucination of a little girl’s ghost after we mentioned the curse. Also, please be advised that Connolly’s lawyer will be contacting pharmacological experts to weigh in on the plausibility of Platts’s claim. What exactly does he think Connolly slipped him that would act so quickly? He’d only drank half his coffee, and Grove barely sipped hers.
Not that Connolly’s arguing with officers of the law. Please, take whatever they need for testing, and he almost hopes they find something because otherwise . . .? Well, otherwise, Platts just hallucinated a ghost on the pure power of suggestion itself. He wouldn’t happen to be superstitious, would he?
Connolly wisely focuses on Platts. That lets Grove relax and take a mental step back to evaluate. Maybe she didn’t see a ghost after all. Platts said it, and her imagination ran away with her. After all, the painting is right there, with the image of the girl, and the lighting is kind of wonky, and it’s really late . . .
I feel a little bad about manipulating Grove. Still, I can argue that she’s better off thinking it was just a trick of the mind. If that upsets her partner, maybe she’ll get a new one. In the end, she decides she didn’t see anything, and the coffee seemed fine, and maybe they don’t want to actually arrest us. At least not yet.
Platts sputters, but his reddening face tells me that even without Grove bailing, he’s reconsidering his story. Connolly insists they take the coffee-machine water and Grove’s leftover coffee for analysis, and Platts packages it up, grumbling the whole time.
“We’re going to test it,” he says.
“I want you to test it,” Connolly says. “That will clear us in this matter.”
“It doesn’t clear you in that matter.” Platts jabs a finger at the painting. “You took possession of stolen goods.”
“Mistakenly,” Connolly says. “We used a reputable website, and we will happily provide all required information. If this Ms. Silver was responsible for the theft, I hope she is held accountable. I’m glad the painting is being returned to the rightful owner.” He pauses. “Would you like it packaged for transport?”
Platts glares at him and stalks off.
“Yes, please,” Grove says. “Package it up, if you would.”
When her partner is out of earshot, she says to me, voice lowered. “That was an actual curse, wasn’t it?”
I don’t answer, just meet her gaze and let her interpret that as she will.
* * *
The police are gone. I’ve locked up the shop, and we leave the car parked out front while Connolly walks me home. We’re silent for the first half, as we’ve been since the police pulled away. Then I say, “Platt isn’t dropping this, is he?”
Connolly doesn’t answer, and I think that’s all I’m getting until he says, “I’m torn between thinking the illusion made the situation worse . . . and thinking it may have made it better. He’s not going to pursue that part, which could poison the rest. He may let it drop. We didn’t do anything, after all.”
“Except not pay for the painting,” I say. “And somehow have it in our possession despite there being no Ms. Silver at that address.”
“True, but we did speak to the neighbor. She can confirm that we believed a Ms. Silver lived there, and we claimed to have spoken to her. We picked up the painting, drove away, discussed it and then came back for . . . Well, we should figure out why we went back, but otherwise, our story works.”
He takes a few more steps. “I will need to contact my lawyer. Just in case.”
“Which means your parents will find out.” I sigh. “So much for them not knowing you were with me tonight. At least we were on legitimate business.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “Of course, if they did this, they already knew where you were.”
“Yes.”
“The possibility they were behind this?”
“I’m still assessing.”
“Can I get a statistical estimate of risk? From the actuarial genius?”
His lips quirk. “This genius requires further data and analysis of said data, but very roughly speaking, I would set the probability that it is fully my parents at 34%, the chance it is fully Mercury at 37%, the chance it is an unintentional combination at 22% and an intentional combination at 1%.”
“It is way too late to add those numbers up, but I don’t think they hit a hundred.”
“They do not. That allows a 6% probability that neither is involved.”
“Right. And unintentional combination means they both did part of it but not working together.”
“Yes, and I’d set the intentional probability lower than one percent, except that I must allow, within that, for an accidental intentional combination.”
“Uh . . .”
“That they did not realize they were colluding, one or the other party believing they were in fact colluding with a third party.”
“Okay, now my head really hurts. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I have more combinations, if you’d like them.” He shoots me a quarter smile, and I shake my head.
“In short,” he says. “We need to work it out further to properly assess all the possibilities and probabilities, but I believe, right now, we are both far too tired for that.”
“Agreed.”
* * *
Day 2: Wednesday, June 19
I don’t want to get up at seven the next morning. I don’t want to be to the shop by eight. I want to sleep, perchance to dream . . . as long as those dreams have nothing to do with creepy-kid ghosts and haunted paintings and arranged-marriage contracts and immortals who screw around with mortals for shits and giggles. Yeah, it’s probably a good thing I have an eight AM showing. It’s not as if I’m getting much sleep anyway. My brain ping-pongs from one problem to the next, and when my alarm goes off at seven, it’s a relief, even if I’d never admit it.
I’m planning to just grab a cupcake from the counter, but Ani’s making breakfast, and since Hope was out late and still in bed, I’m the one who gets the mothering.
“Hope says you were with Aiden last night,” she says as I sit down. “You got in late. Everything went well?”
“That depends. Nearly getting arrested for art theft did make for an interesting evening.”
The fact that Ani doesn’t even blink says everything one needs to know about my sister. Also, possibly, about me.
She slides a pancake onto my plate. “Apparently, you have a story to tell.”
“I do indeed.”
“Is it going to make me burn the next batch?”
I waggle my hand, giving it fifty-fifty odds.
“Then let me finish, and you can tell me all about it.”
I explain over breakfast. As I wrap up, she says, “Everything is fine with Aiden, then? Between you two?”