“No, he contacted me and insisted on buying it for the asking price, or he’d call the police and say I was selling stolen artwork.” She straightens. “If it was stolen, I knew nothing about that. I bought it in good faith, from a reputable dealer. I tried to say that, but Mr. Costa started rattling off legal gibberish. I’m not an art dealer. I’m just a regular person trying to make a little extra to get by. I decided that if he was willing to pay the same as the buyer, then there was no reason I couldn’t sell it to him.”
“Except that it’s a clear violation of eBay’s policy. And also a really shady business practice.”
“I didn’t have a choice. He’s the artist.”
“Right. And if I sew a dress and sell it to you, is it still mine? Can I ask for it back? Demand to buy it back? Mr. Costa gave his art dealer that painting right after he finished it in 1977. It sold within a week. It has not belonged to him since.”
“B-but he said—”
“Do you even know how old he’d be now?” I say. “Over eighty. Did you see him?”
“He sent someone to pick it up an hour ago.”
“That was quick,” I murmur, just low enough for Connolly to hear.
He tilts me a nod and says to Ms. Silver. “Then there is no point in pursuing this matter with you. We will take it up with Mr. Costa directly. I presume he provided contact information? We’ll need that, everything you have, including a description of whoever picked it up.”
She pulls back. “I’m . . . not sure I should give you that.”
“All right, then. We are back to lawyers again.” He takes a card from his pocket. “I will notify them to expect your lawyer’s call. Is one hour sufficient?”
She hesitates.
“It’s your choice,” I say. “We’re eventually going to need to pursue it with Mr. Costa in small claims court. We can speak to him directly, with the information you provide, or we can get the lawyers involved. Mr. Costa lied to you. You legitimately owned that painting, and he bullied you into breaking faith with a customer.”
“He did,” she murmurs. “He was very abrasive.”
“Which you did not deserve, and now he’s endangered your reputation by forcing you to violate eBay’s policies. If Aiden reports it, you’ll lose your account and everything you’ve built on that platform. That’s not fair. You’re a small business owner, and Mr. Costa screwed you over.”
“He did.”
“Then do you allow him to keep screwing you over? Or do you let Aiden—with his very expensive lawyers—show up on Mr. Costa’s doorstep instead?”
Her lips curve as she envisions that.
“Come in, please,” she says. “I’ll give you what I have.”
* * *
I am sorely tempted to have a little chat with Ms. Silver about the dangers of inviting online buyers into your home. Of course, one could argue then that we’re equally gullible for walking into her house. Still we’re careful, only stepping into her front room and keeping the path to the door open, with my weapon and Connolly’s luck at the ready.
I have a gun in my purse. That’s not the real weapon, though. It’s not a weapon at all, considering it’s a modified paint gun. The real weapon is my Magic 8 Ball I always bring on curse-related jobs. Just as Connolly needs to balance his good luck with bad, I need to balance my uncursing with cursing. I cast them all into a Magic 8 ball. Curse bomb at the ready.
I don’t need my gun here, or my curse bomb, or Connolly’s luck. Ms. Silver is exactly what she seems to be—a seller who was taken advantage of by a bully and is eager for retribution.
Ms. Silver hasn’t been in the online business long. She stumbled into it after reading an article about someone paying a few hundred for a fountain pen once owned by Al Capone. Ms. Silver hatched a scheme—sorry, business plan—to buy objects with a colorful history and leverage the story during resale.
I could roll my eyes, but that would be wildly hypocritical, given what I do for a living. I’m only amused that she still seems surprised anyone was willing to shell out two grand for a cursed painting. Obviously she’s never set foot in Unstable.
She’d bought the painting in an estate sale. The previous owner had died, which may seem suspicious, but he’d been seventy and in hospice care, never having had any trouble with the painting.
She got it cheap and put it up for sale this morning. It might seem like incredible luck that we found it on the first day of sale, but credit goes to the platform’s algorithm. Hope was searching for cursed dolls, so eBay also suggested its newest cursed object.
Ms. Silver provides us with the details she was able to get from “Mr. Costa.” I’m damned sure the buyer wasn’t actually the artist. While she gives us an address, I’m sure it’s fake. I’m also not sure what we’d do even if it isn’t.
“Follow up, of course,” Connolly says as I ask this once we’re back in the car. “It’s less than an hour away. While I agree it’s likely a fake address, we should check it. Either way, we’ll find that painting.”
I bite my lip against the obvious question of why. Yes, when I saw the painting for sale, I wanted it. An infamous cursed painting for a couple hundred bucks? Hell, yeah. Buy it, uncurse it and resell it. Altruism plus profit. It doesn’t get better than that.
Then Connolly bought it at a price I almost certainly can’t recoup. I’d felt a nudge of guilt, scrubbed away by the reminder that he didn’t expect full repayment, and uncursing it was a good deed. If he wanted to drive and pick it up, I could justify that, too. A cursed object isn’t something you should toss into a FedEx box.
But now the painting is gone, and our only leads are almost certainly fake. This is where we need to stop. To say that we’ve done our best, and it’s not as if the painting hasn’t been in the world for decades, along with three others, and I’ve hardly felt compelled to track down any of them.
My mother’s scrapbook of famous cursed objects is thicker than any published book on the subject, and half of those would be fakes. Her book contains only the real thing. I have only ever seen three of those objects. One that my grandmother uncursed, one that my mother did and then the Necklace of Harmonia, which I uncursed . . . and, in doing so, took on the curse myself.
In an ideal world, I’d devote my life to tracking down those infamous objects and removing the terrible curses. In that ideal world, I’d also have a multi-million-dollar trust fund plus the skillset of a trained private investigator and undercover operative.
In other words, the best I can do—like my mother and grandmother did—is keep my eye out for those objects crossing my path. Now one has, and as much as I long to pursue it, I know that makes no practical sense. I have spotted one deadly fish in the sea, and I cannot dive in after it. But I want to. Damn it, I want to.
Connolly is offering to help me do dive in after that fish. The guy who does have that multi-million-dollar trust fund plus the skillset of an insurance investigator. So why argue?
Because I’m me, and I can’t let him dive into dangerous waters without warning.
“Should we bother?” I say. “Even if it’s the real address, this guy’s not going to sell us the painting.”