Gulliver got from Flushing to Bed-Stuy as fast as he could. He skidded to a stop in front of Shea’s brownstone and hobbled down to the basement as fast as his uneven little legs would carry him.
“What is it?” Gulliver asked, out of breath.
“That was fast, Mr. Dowd.”
“As long as I don’t have to run, I can be quick.” The joke was lost on Shea. “So, what’s so urgent?”
Shea pointed at a big monitor on a desk next to his work station. “Pull up a chair over there and keep your eyes on the monitor.”
Gulliver did as the hacker supreme instructed.
“Bella’s phone is definitely a dead end. It’s probably at the bottom of Sheepshead Bay, and I didn’t find much in her texts either,” Shea said. “There were some texts from a guy in her art-history class that I think were flirty, but it’s hard for me to know. And there were some graphic texts from two girls in her figure-drawing class. They mentioned wanting…wanting to be with her.”
“Should we check them out?”
“I don’t think so. Unless I’m totally wrong.”
“Where are you going with this?” Gulliver pushed.
“I’m not sure yet, so just follow me for a few minutes.”
Gulliver knew he had no choice. Shea worked in his own rigid way, and you either went with it or not at all. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
“There wasn’t much in her email account that on its own would get anyone’s attention either,” Shea continued. “But when I was digging around, I found this. Look at your screen, Mr. Dowd.”
An image flashed onto the monitor. It was the home page for a website called bellartgirl.com. At the top of the page were the headings “Home,” “About Bellartgirl,” “FAQ,” “Gallery” and “Sales.” Below the headings and set against a dark-green backdrop was the image of a wildly colorful painting. Red. Orange. Black. Deep blue. Neon green. There were drips and splatters. Droplets and sprays. Thick lines and shadows. Circles and squares. It was very good but looked like a combination of paintings done by famous artists.
“Click on ‘Gallery,’” Shea said.
And when Gulliver did, he was amazed to see the wide range of Bella’s work. He was impressed. She had done figure drawing. Sculpture. Photography. Mostly she had painted—and in very different styles. Some of her paintings were almost like photos. Others were like the home-page cover image. Daring and splashy. Some were portraits. Some were landscapes. Some were street scenes. Some were still lifes.
Gulliver knew some of the people in the portraits. Maria. Bella’s sisters. There was even one of Tony, looking tired and glum. There were none of Joey. There wouldn’t be. Not for sale, at least. All were well done, but all had that young-artist feel. The feel of a girl trying to discover her own style and voice by copying others. Gulliver had no artistic talent himself. Yet he understood that you found your own voice and style by first copying others.
“Okay,” he said. “So Bella was talented. She wanted to sell her stuff, and she set up a website to do it. There must be thousands of sites like this all over the Internet. Kids who want to sell their art or their T-shirts or whatever. But does it get us anywhere?”
“We’re almost there, Mr. Dowd. The domain name is still hers, and the hosting fee has been prepaid for five years. There are still two years left on that. But the site hasn’t been active for at least two years. Click on ‘About Bellartgirl.’ Look at her image. Look at her bio.”
Gulliver did so. Bella was a smart girl. She wanted to sell her work and get it out into the world. But she also knew she could not do it as the girl of a Mafia don. So there was no photograph of her. Only a sketch done in charcoal with her turned away from the viewer. All it revealed was a portion of the right side of her face, her bare shoulder and the sweep of her hair. Her bio was just the opposite. It was full of details—but the details were lies. The post-office box to which buyers were to send payment for her art was in New Jersey, not New York City.
“And did people buy her art?” Gulliver asked.
“Some. Mostly other art kids.”
“But not all.”
Shea smiled the Happy Meal smile he flashed when you got to where he wanted you to go. Gulliver had seen it before.
“One person bought most of it,” Shea said. “A man named Igor Telenovich. He also wrote to her all the time. Scroll down to the bottom of the ‘About Bellartgirl’ page. See? There’s a box for sending messages to her. At first his messages were pretty plain. Stuff about how much he loved her work and how with the right teaching she could be great. She would thank him and be nice. Then after a few months, his messages started getting weird. I have all of them printed out for you. He started asking to meet her. He offered to be her teacher. He said he could make her great. Then they turned threatening.”
“Threatening?”
“You can read for yourself. But they aren’t threatening like, I will kill you. He says he must save her from herself. He will take her and teach her and make her great. That it would be a crime to waste her talent, and how he can’t let that happen.” Shea stopped to let his words have their full impact on Gulliver.
“Go on.”
“Once his messages got weird, Bella seems to have abandoned the site. This guy spooked her. She no longer responded to sales requests and didn’t answer when people wrote to her.”
“And you say this was two years ago?”
Shea nodded. “Look at your screen,” he said, clicking his mouse.
And there on Gulliver’s screen were two side-by-side photographs. Both showed an older man with gray hair and a gaunt face.
Gulliver said, “Igor Telenovich.”
“That’s him. The photo on the right is from Plandome Art Institute on Long Island, where he used to teach painting. The one on the left is from—”
Gulliver finished the sentence. “The closed-circuit video outside Bella’s building in Brooklyn.”
“That’s right, Mr. Dowd. I think this Telenovich guy has her somewhere.”
“The Phantom of the Opera,” Gulliver said to himself.
“What?”
“Never mind. What about this guy? Where is he? You said he used to teach at the Plandome Art Institute. Why not any longer?”
“It’s all printed out for you there, and I’ve sent all this to your computer. Telenovich was fired.”
“Why?”
Shea shrugged. “It’s not clear why. The when is more important.”
“About two years ago,” Gulliver said.
“Twenty-two months ago. It took him most of that time to track Bella down.”
“How?”
Shea said, “I may be the best at this, but I’m not the only one who does it, Mr. Dowd. He might have even taught himself how to do it.”
“That’s not important now.”
Gulliver collected all the materials Happy Meal had printed for him and turned to leave.
“You may have found Bella, Sha’wan. Maybe even saved her life. Thank you.”
“You saved me, Mr. Dowd. Go get her. I like her work, and she is beautiful.”
“Do you think so?”
“The most beautiful girl I have ever seen.”
Gulliver smiled and left.