20

“I want to feel your breasts, Marion. I want to smell your hair. I want to be deep inside you, to taste your mouth, and your neck. I need to feel your breath, hear your screams.”

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Alain Ozenberg whispered, “Meet me, now.”

Marion listened to the message on her voicemail one more time. It was blunt, racy, explicit, exciting, erotic, and surprising. How could she not respond to that? If only he knew. He was a force of nature shaking up so many feelings inside her. Something sharp and painful—the sense of losing herself. But also something new and precious: an awareness of excitement and sensitivity. It was incredible how she loved his passion, his way of breaking through a barrier separating two worlds: the wild and the refined. Incredible how she loved the way his voice changed when he caressed her body.

But no, something was off. His name was coming up too many times. What was his real connection to all this?

For now, the sculptures demanded her attention—and her involvement. Marion had gone home to change clothes before meeting with Laurent Duverger. Chris had given her tips for shooting holes in the appraiser’s game. Her friend had done some additional analysis on the sculptures. They were definitely fakes.

A real murder over a replicated object, real fortunes paid for clones, real cops investigating the crime of receiving stolen duplicates, a real will and testament bequeathing imitations. That pretty much summed up Magni’s legacy. Her father had given her nothing, nothing but chaos and ruin. And if she exposed the sculptures’ true nature, she would have nothing.

Still under Ozenberg’s influence, she was tempted to drop everything and cancel her meeting with Duverger. But she couldn’t afford to lose any time. Combes was hot on her trail. If she wanted to claim all three sculptures, she would have to act fast. Once that was done, she’d be free to decide on the issue of selling.

Marion knew she was charging into the lion’s den. But being aware of the dangers and moving ahead anyway gave her a rush. And that feeling, which she had already discovered with Ozenberg, was liberating. No longer a timid and scared little girl, she had the sense now that she could meet a threatening situation and master it. And so, on this afternoon, the challenge was dealing with Laurent Duverger.

He would wait for her at two o’clock at the Elsa photo gallery in the Verdeau Passage, where he was handling an appraisal. Marion was familiar with the area. Just five years earlier, the place had played a role in her professional life. It was there that she had met a collector who, moments after acquiring a photograph by Gustave Le Gray, had burned it right in front of her and the gallery owner. Two hundred thousand euros up in smoke without the slightest trace of guilt on the buyer’s part. She had sworn on that day to never again interact with collectors. The irony of fate. She was now the heiress of the world’s most famous collector.

~ ~ ~

As she approached the well-lit gallery with its large glass windows, she had no trouble making out owner Marc Chastagne conversing with Laurent Duverger. The place hadn’t changed a bit over the years. It still catered to mainstream clients who liked everything out in the open, rather than the privileged few who were accustomed to viewing their prospective purchases in private rooms and secretive galleries. The art dealer barely deigned to greet Marion. Looking both excited and relieved to be ending his side of the conversation, Duverger drew her by the arm to a corner of the shop.

“Let’s go get coffee—some place close by,” he said in a tone that was welcoming—practically ecstatic. “I’ll be back,” he told the owner, who seemed to be trying his best to keep up a good front. His smile was friendly but tense.

“You have my sculpture, don’t you?” Marion said as soon as they were seated. She didn’t intend to dillydally or get bogged down in foreplay. She wanted to take the appraiser by surprise if that was still possible.

“Yes, I have it,” he said as he nonchalantly removed his leather jacket.

A waiter carrying a silver tray came over to their table.

“Are you selling it?” Marion asked, keeping a tight grip on her victim, who immediately ordered a hot chocolate.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you have the other two?”

“Why does that matter?” Marion was giving the direct tactic her all, while the man was hedging.

“We’ll pretend you have them.”

“Okay, let’s say I have them.”

“I will lend you mine for the time it takes you to testify that you, indeed, have all three.”

Marion was panicking inside, but she wasn’t about to let Duverger see it. She had no reason to trust him, and deep down she understood that he was hiding something.

“In exchange for what?” she asked at last.

“Afterward, you’ll give me the two sculptures.”

She suppressed a shiver, aware that she had to march straight in and lie without messing up. “They’re worth a fortune—”

“That’s not all,” the appraiser interrupted. “I want exclusive rights to the appraisal.”

“If I sell!”

“I’m not twisting your arm.”

“It would be a sort of guardianship.”

“Call it whatever you want.”

“What about George Gaudin?”

“He won’t have anything further to say in the matter.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because we’ll sell the objects one at a time to avoid saturating the market. We have years of work ahead of us. And Gaudin will have all the time in the world to look at his clay figurines.”

Marion could see the upside of this arrangement. She had no interest in business or finance. But there was a downside too. She didn’t want to be connected to this man for life.

“Sell me your sculpture. Just name your price,” she said in a final attempt to come out on top.

“You know very well… I have no interest in selling.”

“Why do you want all of them?”

“They’re part of an ensemble.”

“What about the one from the Louvre?” she asked, wondering why the fifth piece, The Tattooed Man, was absent from this discussion, as well.

“It’s out of play. It won’t ever appear on the market again.”

The precision of his response took her by surprise. Marion clutched her cup and brought it to her lips to gain some time. Duverger had done his homework. He knew, or at least suspected, that there was a problem with the sculptures, and she had only a few seconds to decide before making her move.

“Would they instill doubt regarding the rest of the collection?” Marion saw an instant reaction on the appraiser’s face: a hint of panic in his eyes and tension in his jaw.

“You realize that your fortune doesn’t depend on just you, don’t you?”

“Same goes for your fortune. Without my silence…”

“Hence, a mutual understanding.”

The appraiser was still using his as-few-words-as-possible strategy. Marion wanted to make sure she was following along. Was it Duverger’s intent to quietly take the sculptures out of the picture because of their suspicious nature and the threat to the market that they posed? Was she ready to seal the deal?

“You were nothing to your father. Nothing but a cog in his power-hungry machine,” the appraiser said, as if he needed to hit her with that reality to convince her to team up with him.

Marion took it on the chin. Hearing this come from someone else’s mouth was really no shock. Her father had never extended himself to her. For her, he had been dead for a long time.

“There’s still the collection,” she said. “At least he’s given me that. And I’ll remain the sole owner. No guardianship and definitely not yours.”

“So we are in agreement over the most important factor then?” he said, practically ecstatic.

“What is the most important factor, in your opinion?”

“Those sculptures never existed. Apparently I have more to lose than you do. But all things considered, it could be the reverse…”

“So you’ll let me have your jaguar then?”

“Yes, I will lend it to you. And at the right time we’ll destroy them.”

“And what about the rest of the collection?”

“You will surely end up calling on me,” Duverger responded, a smile returning to his face. “You see, I’m the best.”