He turned to Amanda. “It seemed logical to the auction house. The drawings had been traced to David’s class. He’s the instructor. Ostensibly the most talented. They hired me, his brother, to prove that he wasn’t the forger figuring if anybody had a motivation to prove him innocent it would be me. If I can’t do it, David gets sent up by default.”
They were zooming up Ninth Avenue, screeching through red lights, racing past other late-night traffic.
“At the very least, his reputation would be ruined. Again,” he added grimly. “At the worst, he’d be put away for awhile. That would kill him.”
Amanda stared out the window, desperately trying to put all the pieces together. The jumbled New York landscape racing by making no impression. The cab hurtled past refurbished 42nd Street. 43rd. 44th.
None of this is making any sense.
“Do you think he is the forger? Is he capable of such a thing?” She couldn’t allow herself to even consider the possibility that he and David might be working together. She clutched Marc’s hand even tighter as if to squeeze that remote possibility from her mind.
“Talent-wise? The man’s a genius, when he lets himself forget how the world has never discovered that fact. He’s got a huge ego. He had to make something of himself; he had to show Dad. He’s still trying to do that. My brother wants to dance on my father’s grave. And I say more power to him. I just happen to have gotten another life. Better things to do with my time.”
He pulled her close. It wasn’t a romantic hansom cab clip-clopping through the spring rain, she thought, but it would do.
They were into the fifties now.
“You said his reputation would be ruined again.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
They pulled up in front of the emergency entrance to the hospital. Marc shoved large bills at the driver and he and Amanda dashed into the waiting room. The emergency room doctor she had dealt with before was still on duty. The doctor made a quick phone call and gave them David’s room number.
Christine sat glowering by David’s bed in the dimly lit room. Her face washed clean of most of its make-up and her hair beaten down by the day’s turmoil, she seemed soft and almost shockingly vulnerable, even through her annoyance. Nathan perched on the window sill nearby sketching on a small pad by the light of the small table lamp.
Marc stood frowning, framed in the doorway, the harsh, fluorescent hall lights behind him, his face in shadow.
“I called Christine,” Amanda explained. “She lives on Central Park South, minutes away. Nathan was a bonus.”
“Which I was rudely interrupted right in the middle of collecting,” Christine added airily, swooping over to shake Marc’s hand. She winked at Amanda. “Not bad. With or without the horn rims.” She looked more closely at Marc, squinting against the light. “You look familiar. Have we met? Nooo,” she decided. “I would have remembered you.”
“That’s my Ma,” Nathan said, as he chuckled smugly from across the room. He gave Marc a cursory glance and went back to sketching. “Thanks, boss lady,” he tossed over to Amanda. “You saved me from another night of sin. Guess this means I have to be at work on time tomorrow, huh?”
He slid off the window sill, preparing to leave.
“Everything under control now?” Christine looked from Amanda to Marc. “Can we get out of here? According to Nurse Grumpy, Parkerson’ll be good as new in no time.”
“No time meaning three or four days.” Nathan looked more closely at Marc.
Marc ducked his head and turned to Amanda, his face firm.
“You didn’t tell me what you had done…what you were going to do,” he said quietly, his voice hard.
“You didn’t give me much time to discuss anything.” Amanda felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She didn’t like being reprimanded in front of her older friend and her younger employee even if they weren’t paying that much attention as they prepared to leave.
“Nor did you tell me in the cab.”
“You were busy explaining some important information. I didn’t want to interrupt.” She turned to Christine who had collected Nathan and was standing in the doorway. “Did you notice anything special when you got here?”
Nathan grunted and shrugged. “We thought Wilde was still hanging around, but it turned out to be some other guy.”
Amanda blanched. Marc stayed in the doorway with the strong light behind his back. “Thank you both,” he said. “I’m sorry we interrupted your evening. What you did was very important. Thank you again.”
He shook their hands and ushered them out the door, keeping his head down as he turned his attention toward the sleeping patient.
Nathan gave one last attentive glance at the large, muscular figure, the wide shoulders, the narrow hips, before nodding goodnight to Amanda and following Christine out the door.
Marc picked up the phone, punched several numbers and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece. He hung up.
“I called a private security firm. They’re sending someone over right away. We’ll wait until they come. Okay?” He didn’t speak as harshly as he had a few moments ago.
Amanda sat down in one of the hospital chairs, her head in her hands.
“I had completely forgotten you were you. I mean, not Antonio… Oh Marc, what if they recognized you?”
“Don’t worry about it. I think they had other things on their mind.”
“And I was feeling so proud that I had thought to call…” Her voice trailed off.
“We seem to have a little rivalry going on here. You want to take my job away from me.” His playful tone was back. She stood, feeling abject, grateful for his understanding, confused at her own actions and hoping he would come to her.
He did. His strong arms enfolded her. Their kiss was deep and fervent. Safe in each other’s arms. Amanda’s pulse heightened. Marc’s chest rose and fell quickly as she nestled against it. She never wanted to let this protective presence go.
Marc turned toward his sleeping brother. David’s head was bound and tubes fed him medication. Even in sleep, David Parkerson’s face was strained. Marc studied it for quite a long time.
“He doesn’t seem to have such a big ego, now.” Amanda hoped her callous observation might lighten the mood.
“Do you know the painter Giorgione?”
She thought for a moment. “Sixteenth century, Italian?”
“Very good, Ace. Giorgio da Castelfranco, known as Giorgione. Not only was he a great painter, he was quite a swinger: poet, lover, musician. Shook the art establishment by its short ones. Died young; caught the plague from a lady friend. Probably was a great-looking corpse. He was my brother’s MFA thesis. Boy, did David empathize.”
“David? Empathize with a swinger?”
“He was quite a hellion in his younger days. Did everything he could to get Dad to pay attention to him. Dad hated the art crap stuff that David loved. He wanted David to be a salesman, a businessman, anything that would bring in the bucks.” He sighed, continuing to stare at the sleeping man.
“David turned his thesis into a book about Giorgione. Nobody had studied him as thoroughly as my nosy, self-absorbed brother, not in 200 years. I was damned impressed. The book was gonna be published by Abrams. Dad was not impressed. Writers were almost as bad as art critics.”
Amanda looked up at the grim face, flickering with ghostly memories.
“What happened?”
“One of Giorgione’s drawings came on the market. There are only about half a dozen of his paintings that can honestly be attributed to him. Most of the time experts can’t tell the difference between him and Titian, for God’s sake.
“They came to my brother to vet it, to tell them if it was for real. David was in seventh heaven. Surely Dad would be impressed now. He looked at the drawing and said sure it was a Giorgione. It wasn’t just the technique. Only one man could have thought that way. Only one man could have had the invention and the imagination. The right paper and ink, that’s the obvious stuff, but Giorgione’s soul was in that drawing. David knew it had to be his. He just knew!” His brow furrowed and he looked away.