Look here. These are all of Guy Miroir’s mentions on Twitter over the past year. He has a ton of fans, and if you click on their profiles you can see that many of them are artists themselves. Like this man. He tweeted at Guy and the gallery in DC holding his show.”
Rob SanGogh @RobTheArtistSanGogh: Can’t wait to meet my favorite artist in person! You’re such an inspiration @miroirdelame. @DCartists
“Well, after I saw that Rob was an artist, I found his online portfolio, and in it was this piece,” said Nina showing Ada and Tycho the art. “Honestly, it was the best piece he had in there, but still!” The piece was a deep midnight blue color with a bright pink circle floating at its center. It was abstract, but it felt like it had some depth to it.
“This tweet was posted about a month out from a show Guy Miroir had in DC.” Nina pointed to the time stamp on the tweet and then switched tabs and pointed to the date of the DC show.
“Okay,” said Ada.
“And then! What do you know?! Guy had this brand-new piece in the show.”
Nina clicked over to Miroir’s piece. It was similar, but, again, not exactly the same. The shape in the center was more of a full orb—almost planetlike, Ada thought. The hue looked a little different, although it was hard for Ada to judge, and the surrounding color was grayer. But the resemblance was strong—almost exact.
“Just like what happened to you,” said Ada.
“Let’s do a little more digging,” said Tycho. “If we find a few more examples like that, we’ll have a pattern. . . .”
“We’ll have that fraud right where we want him!” Nina said.
• • •
The next day Nina met Ada at her house. Among Nina, Tycho, and Ada, they had five more pieces of art to consider. The craziest part was that they reached out to each of the artists, and all were aware of what had happened. Nina asked them why they hadn’t come forward. Two of them said they tried, but no one would listen to them. The others said they were too afraid to say anything. The stolen pieces weren’t exact replicas, plus, Guy Miroir was too big of an artist with too much influence in the art world. One word from Miroir and no one would be interested in featuring their work again.
“We’ve got to tell your mom,” said Nina. “Where is she?”
“She’s at the gallery,” said Ada. “She and Miroir are preparing to meet the mayor.”
“Perfect! I have an idea.”