“Of course she is,” the man snapped, and straightened and pulled back from the door. “Come inside if you’re coming.”
Kat and Hale stood alone in the sun, watching the old man disappear into the shadow of the house, and that was when Hale mumbled, “Uncle Eddie’s got a twin.…There are two Uncle Eddies.”
“No.” Kat shook her head. “There aren’t.”
* * *
False walls and fake IDs, frames with forged paintings, necklaces with imitation gems. Kat was well aware that most things in her world were a little bit unreal, but it had never seemed so obvious until she stood on the threshold of the tiny cottage at the top of the world. She thought of Mr. Stein’s house in Warsaw, entire rooms dedicated to the search for treasures that were gone, hidden, lost—perhaps never to be seen again. But Uncle Charlie’s house…Charlie’s house was the opposite in almost every way.
Three Mona Lisas hung beside the doorway. The mantel over the fireplace held at least a dozen Fabergé eggs. There was a basket of bearer bonds by the fire with the rest of the kindling, a set of hand towels in the bathroom that, had they not been made from terry cloth, would have been, collectively, an exact replica of Leonardo’s Last Supper.
It was the oddest sort of museum that any of them had ever seen, so they turned slowly, taking the whole sight in.
“Forgive the mess,” Charlie said, pushing aside a pile of canvases to clear a place on a faded wingback chair. “Haven’t had company in a few days.”
Or years, Kat thought, remembering the long snowy drive. She stood quietly, watching Hale’s gaze sweep over the room, waiting for his eventual, “Um…Charlie?”
The old man jumped a little at the sound of his own name, but still managed to mutter, “What?”
“Is that a real Michelangelo?” Hale pointed to a sculpture that sat in the corner, covered with hats and scarves and dust.
“Of course it is.” Charlie patted the sculpture on the back. “Nadia helped me steal it.”
Gabrielle and Hale seemed almost afraid to look at Kat then, as if the mention of her mother’s name might be too much for her. Only Charlie seemed immune to the silence.
“Now that’s one of mine.” He pointed to the Rembrandt on the wall, dusty and old and perfectly identical to the one that had hung above Uncle Eddie’s fireplace all of Kat’s life. The original didn’t matter. Not to Kat. Not when there were two perfect forgeries hanging a few thousand miles apart, like a portal linking two totally different worlds. When Kat looked at Charlie’s painting, she tried to see how it might differ from its twin, but the differences were not a matter of canvas or paint. The differences, Kat knew, were in the paintings’ lives.
“You look just like your mother.”
Kat jerked, her uncle’s voice pulling her back into the room and the moment. She felt her eyes begin to water and knew she wasn’t the only one seeing double.
“Yeah.” Kat wiped her eyes and hoped no one noticed. “I guess I do.”
When Kat moved toward him, she thought that he might bolt and run, but instead he caught her arm and held her there. His hands were covered with varnish and stain—an artist’s hands. Unburned and unscarred. And yet he just squeezed harder, tighter than a vise. There was something real about the master forger when he stared into her eyes and said, “Does he know you’re here?”
Kat shook her head. “No.”
When he released Kat’s arm and dropped into a chair, Gabrielle grabbed a footstool and pulled it closer. “Uncle Charlie,” she started, “we have a job—a big one.”
“You have a job?” he asked, then laughed, quick and hard. “Where’s your mother?” he chided.
“She’s busy,” Gabrielle told him. “And we’ve pulled plenty of jobs on our own.”
“I don’t suppose you heard about the Henley?” Hale said, but his smooth smile broke when faced with Charlie’s glare.
“Beginner’s luck,” the old man countered.
“We can do this, Uncle Charlie.” For the first time in her life, Gabrielle sounded like someone who genuinely needed someone else’s approval. “We’ve got a plan.”
“You’re children,” the old man hissed.
“Like Nadia was a child?” Gabrielle said. “And my mother. And—”
“Don’t touch that,” Charlie snapped, and Hale inched away from the Ming vase that held an assortment of ratty old umbrellas.
“We came a long way to see you, Charlie,” Gabrielle said.
The old man cut his eyes at her. “The ride is always easier on the way down.”