her hand on his knee, hoping to make him feel a little bit more relaxed. “Are you sure they know about us?”
“Positive.”
“Your client told you this?”
“No, he doesn’t know anything about this, thank God for that. I just saw them today at the graveyard at the Bergman mausoleum around an hour ago. I saw the dumbfuck watchman talking to Ken Sobel and his son or son-in-law. It’s not good, Angeline. We have to stop.”
Not as dumbfuck as you thought. “I guess if you change out the locks and the watchman does his job, discovery was a possible outcome.”
“I was going to replace it back with the original. It took me a while to get the fragment out. I couldn’t exactly take it to a locksmith.”
“That’s true.” Angeline took a deep breath and let it out. “When you say they’re onto us … do you mean us … or the forgeries?”
He looked up. “The family knows about the forgeries … I’m not positive about us.” A pause. “I’m sure they don’t know about us. If they did know, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“So there you go.” Angeline felt calmer.
“They can link me to the forgeries if they know my client. But I don’t see how that would be possible. You don’t even know my client. Unless …”
“What?” He always did that. Calm her down to make her nervous again. “Unless what?”
“You have the stained glass that was used in the forgeries. So … we need to get rid of the glass.”
“Right.” She smiled. “You’re thinking more clearly than I am.”
“And we should do that immediately.”
“Okay. So why don’t you grab a beer from the fridge and catch your breath and let me pack up my leftover crap. You think about where we should hide the stuff until things cool down.”
“I’m not going to hide it. I’ll dump it when I go back up north.”
“No way. It’s top-quality glass and I still have over a thousand dollars’ worth of material. I’m not throwing it away.”
“It’s not wise to hang on to it, Angeline.”
“Just … chill.” She got up and looked at him. Slim, dark, sultry, brilliant, a little bad boy, a little evil and a great fuck. “Think about a plausible story so if the cops pay me a visit, I don’t sound like a moron.”
“Why would they visit you?”
“Because they’ll probably talk to everyone in Littleton—me, my friends, my professors. We’re an art college remember?”
“The cops don’t touch the colleges, Angeline. Upstate owns this town.”
He was right about that. Whenever student shit spilled into Greenbury, the colleges called up the police and cleaned up the mess so mommy and daddy were none the wiser. “True, but just in case, we should plan something.”
He was still in a very dark place but not nearly as panicked as he was a few minutes ago. As she started packing up the glass, he stood up and grabbed a beer from her minifridge. “If you think that there is any chance that the cops will talk to you and will somehow magically find out that you’ve done stained glass way back when, let’s get you some new glass altogether. So when they ask if they can have a sample of your glass, you can say sure.”
“Great idea!” She walked over and threw her arms around his neck. “Now you’re thinking.”
He gently extricated himself from her grip. “I’ll go check the Dumpster for empty boxes.”
It took him a few minutes to find two big empty boxes. Since the apartment building housed a lot of students, the Dumpsters were always filled with discarded cartons from college kids ordering useless shit. She took the boxes and began the tedious job of wrapping up sheets of glass, one by one by one.
He watched her as she worked, sipping his beer, thinking about how his client had specified paying once he had all four panels … which of course was no longer an option. Angeline’s artistic ability was fine when the panels were twelve feet off the ground. But it wasn’t good enough to fool a trained eye. He’d have to find a way to get to the original panels—impossible now—or find a craftsperson good enough to convince a dealer that the works were genuine. And if he commissioned any noteworthy artist to copy the window, he’d have to pay for all four of the panels, because any reputable glass person would ask him why he’d only want two of the four seasons. That would cost big time and in the end, it probably wasn’t worth it. When the big one went down, all the other jobs would seem like pocket change. He just needed to hold on and hold out. He wondered if he should tell his contact about the change of plans.
When she finally finished up packing, she stood up and brushed off her jeans. “You can take it out to the car, but be careful. It’s breakable and heavy.”
He hoisted the boxes and she followed him outside, watching him stow away the prettiest glass she had ever worked with. It just broke her heart. She felt her eyes moisten.
He closed the trunk and turned to her. “Don’t worry, beautiful.” He kissed her lips. “It’ll be okay.”
“I’m just pissed.” Her voice was soft. “I actually loved copying those windows. I was really good at it.”
Does the word delusional mean anything? He said, “I’ll hide the glass somewhere safe. I won’t even tell you about it. If you’re questioned by the cops, you can honestly be in the dark. When things cool off, you can get your glass back. You’re graduating in June anyway. You’ll leave this dump and no one will be the wiser.”
“I can’t wait. I am so sick of small-town living. I can’t wait to go back to a real city.” Angeline kissed him passionately. “I want to be with you.”
“I want to be with you, too. But we have to be patient.” Once inside, he whispered, “You know I’m just as vulnerable as you are, Angeline. I still have the two original panels.”
She was flabbergasted. “You do? I thought you already sold them.”
“The client didn’t want to pay me in installments. The truth is I think he has an overseas buyer who will only pay for all four works. So he didn’t want the responsibility of having any until we had all four to give him.”
“Where are they?”
“Need-to-know basis, Angeline. Especially now.”
She was aware that he had several places to hide the stuff because he had given her keys—just in case. One bin she had even rented out for him. But as far as she knew, it was empty. But maybe not.
Need-to-know basis.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she told him.
He kissed her again. “You know you are my girl.”
“I
