The office on Barrow Street was cold and dark when they stumbled through the door. Julian guided Cora to the worn leather chair behind her desk, his hands trembling as he fumbled for the lamp. The bulb flickered to life, casting long shadows across the cluttered room. In the yellow light, Cora's face was the color of old paper, her lips pressed tight against the pain.
"The medical kit," she said, nodding toward a metal cabinet in the corner. "Second shelf. Bring the bottle of iodine, the bandages, and the forceps."
Julian retrieved the supplies and laid them on the desk. Cora shrugged off her jacket with a sharp intake of breath. The bullet had torn through the meat of her shoulder, leaving a dark, seeping wound. She poured iodine over it without flinching, the amber liquid running down her arm in thin rivulets.
"The bullet went through," she said, probing the wound with her fingers. "Small caliber. Cobb doesn't like noise. Clean exit wound. I'll be fine."
"You need a doctor."
"I need a drink. There's a bottle of rye in the bottom drawer."
Julian found the bottle and poured two fingers into a dusty glass. Cora drank it in one swallow, her throat working, then set the glass down with a click.
"Help me with the bandage."
They worked in silence. Julian wrapped the gauze around her shoulder, his artist's hands steady now that there was a task to perform. When it was done, Cora leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The office was quiet except for the drip of rain that had started outside, tapping against the window like fingers.
"We can't stay here," Julian said. "They know about this place. It's only a matter of time before Cobb comes."
"I know." Cora opened her eyes. "But I'm not running. Not anymore. I've been running from these people for a year, ever since they fired me. I've been hiding in this office, taking small cases, telling myself I was building something. But all I was doing was waiting." She looked at the files on her desk, the clippings, the photographs of dead families. "I'm done waiting."
"What do you propose?"
"We hit them where it hurts. Not their operation. Not their warehouse. Them. Tann and Cobb. We expose them publicly, in a way they can't cover up."
"How? We have no evidence. The police won't listen. The newspapers won't print accusations without proof. Tann has connections everywhere."
Cora was silent for a moment. Then she reached into her desk and pulled out a crumpled business card. She handed it to Julian. The card read: "Archibald Dent, City Editor, Dunmore Courier."
"Dent is a drunk and a cynic," Cora said. "But he's also the only reporter in this city who isn't on Tann's payroll. He was a real journalist once, before the war. He broke the story about the mayor taking kickbacks from the streetcar company. It cost him his marriage and most of his friends, but he printed the truth. If we can convince him to print ours, Tann and Cobb won't be able to hide behind their connections."
"What would we give him? Our word against theirs?"
"No. We give him the paintings."
Julian stared at her. "The paintings are in a vault in Geneva. Or on their way to Buenos Aires. We can't reach them."
"The ones that were already sold, yes. But there are more. Tann is running a pipeline. New paintings come in, get copied, get burned. The copyist before you, Ferris, he painted at least six forgeries that I know of. Some of those paintings were never burned. They're still here, in the city, waiting for Tann to arrange the next fire."
"How do you know?"
Cora pulled a file from the stack on her desk and opened it. Inside were shipping manifests, insurance forms, and handwritten notes in a cramped, precise script. "Ferris kept records. He was terrified of Tann, but he was also smart. He documented every forgery he made, every original that passed through his hands. Before he died, he mailed these documents to me. I think he knew what was coming."
She handed Julian a sheet of paper. It was a list, written in Ferris's careful hand. Six paintings—a Rembrandt sketch, two Turners, a Fragonard, a Hals portrait, and the Vermeer Julian had copied. Next to each entry was a status: "Burned," "Sold," or "Held." The Hals portrait was marked "Held." Next to it, a location: "Iron Street Warehouse, Bay 7."
"That's what we were looking for tonight," Julian said. "The Hals."
"Yes. If we can get that painting, we can prove it's the original. We can show it to Dent, have him photograph it, print the story. Once the story is public, Tann can't destroy it. The insurance company will have to investigate. The police will have to act."
"Cobb is watching the warehouse. We barely escaped with our lives."
"Then we don't go back to the warehouse. We go to Tann directly."
Julian shook his head. "Tann won't help us. He just ordered Cobb to kill us both."
"Not willingly. But Tann has a weakness. He's vain. He thinks he's the smartest man in any room. If we can make him believe we have something he wants, something that threatens his operation, he'll meet with us. And when he does, we'll have Dent watching. If Tann incriminates himself, we don't need the painting."
"It's too dangerous."
"It's the only play we have." Cora leaned forward, her eyes fierce despite the pain. "Julian, I've been chasing these men for a year. You've been running from them for a week. Neither of us has gotten anywhere. It's time to stop running and start fighting."
Julian looked at Ferris's list, at the names of paintings that had been reduced to ash, at the families who had died in fires that were ruled accidents. He thought of Harold and Eleanor Vance, smiling in their photograph. He thought of the girl in the yellow shawl, her secret smile, her downcast eyes.
"All right," he said. "We do it your way."
They spent the rest of the night planning. Cora drafted a letter to Tann, careful and precise, hinting that Ferris had left behind evidence that could destroy his operation. She offered a meeting—neutral ground, a public place—to discuss terms. Julian would deliver the letter personally, hand it to Tann's assistant at the gallery.
At dawn, Julian left the office and walked through the gray, waking streets to the Tann Galleries. The morning was cold, and a thin fog clung to the buildings, muffling the sounds of the city. He slipped the envelope under the door and walked away without looking back.
He spent the day in a diner on the corner of Prosperity Row and Vine, drinking coffee and watching the gallery entrance. Around noon, a courier arrived on a bicycle and disappeared inside. Twenty minutes later, he emerged and pedaled away. Julian paid his bill and walked back to Barrow Street.
Cora was waiting, her arm in a sling, her face still pale but her eyes alert. She held up a folded piece of paper.
"The courier brought this. Tann will meet us. Tonight, at the Iron Street pier. Nine o'clock."
"It's a trap."
"Of course it's a trap. But we'll be ready." She gestured to the corner of the office, where a bulky figure sat in shadow. "Julian, meet Archibald Dent."
The man who rose from the chair was not what Julian expected. He was short and round, with a crumpled hat and a waistcoat stained with what looked like egg yolk. His face was red and veined, the face of a man who had spent decades pickling himself in cheap whiskey. But his eyes, behind a pair of thick spectacles, were sharp and calculating.
"You're the painter," Dent said, his voice a gravelly rumble. "The one who copied the Vermeer."
"Yes."
"And now you want to burn the man who paid you. You've got a funny kind of loyalty, Mr. Wade."
"I'm not asking for your approval. I'm asking for your help."
Dent chuckled and pulled a flask from his coat pocket. He took a long swallow, then offered it to Julian. Julian shook his head.
"Suit yourself." Dent capped the flask and put it away. "Miss Kilbane has told me the broad strokes. Art forgery, insurance fraud, a few convenient fires. It's a hell of a story. But a story needs proof. You have any?"
"We'll have proof tonight," Cora said. "We're meeting Tann at the Iron Street pier. He'll incriminate himself. All you have to do is be there to hear it."
"Be there? You want me to hide in the shadows and eavesdrop like a cheap detective?"
"I want you to be a witness. A credible one. You're a respected journalist. If you print what you hear, people will believe it."
Dent laughed, a short, bitter sound. "Respected. That's a good one. I haven't been respected since the Coolidge administration." He looked at Julian, then at Cora, his expression unreadable. "But I'll do it. Not because I believe you, and not because I give a damn about justice. I'll do it because Leo Tann once called me a hack at a charity function, and I've been waiting fifteen years to repay the favor."
The fog was thick on Iron Street that night, rolling in from the river in dense, choking waves. Julian and Cora walked slowly toward the pier, their footsteps echoing on the wet cobblestones. Julian carried a small satchel containing Ferris's documents, the list of paintings, the newspaper clippings. His heart was pounding, but his hands were steady.
Cora walked beside him, her good hand in her coat pocket, gripping the revolver. Her face was pale, and Julian could see the strain in her eyes, but she didn't slow down.
"Do you think Dent will actually help us?" Julian asked.
"I think Dent will do whatever is best for Dent. But right now, that means exposing Tann. A front-page story about a murderous art ring will sell more papers than anything the Courier has printed in years."
"And if something goes wrong?"
"Then we improvise."
The pier was a long, wooden structure that jutted out into the black water of the river. At its end, a single figure stood silhouetted against the fog. Leo Tann, wrapped in a heavy overcoat, a homburg pulled low over his eyes. He was alone.
Julian and Cora approached slowly. The fog muffled their footsteps, swallowed the sound of the river lapping against the pilings. When they were ten feet away, Tann turned to face them.
"Mr. Wade. Miss Kilbane." His voice was smooth, but there was an edge to it, a tension that Julian hadn't heard before. "I was surprised to receive your letter. I thought we had an understanding."
"Understandings change," Cora said.
"So they do. You mentioned certain documents. Evidence, you called it. I'm curious to know what you think you have."
Julian opened the satchel and held up Ferris's list. "Your previous copyist kept records. Every painting he forged, every original you sold. He mailed them to Miss Kilbane before you killed him."
Tann's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. "Ferris killed himself. The coroner ruled it suicide."
"We both know that's not true," Cora said. "We also know about the Cyclone fans. The fires in Port Gerard, Ashwick, Bellefonte. Cobb was the adjuster on every claim. Indemnity and Casualty paid out every time. You've been running this scheme for three years."
"You've done your homework. But homework isn't proof. Anyone can make a list. Anyone can draw connections between unrelated events. A journalist might call that a coincidence. A prosecutor would call it nothing at all."
"There's more," Julian said. "The Hals portrait. It's still in your warehouse. You haven't burned it yet. If the police raid that warehouse, they'll find the original, and they'll find the forgery waiting to take its place."
For the first time, Tann's composure cracked. His smile tightened, and his hands, which had been resting casually in his pockets, came out and clasped behind his back.
"If you knew about the Hals, why come to me? Why not go directly to the police?"
"Because we want to make a deal," Cora said. "We don't want to destroy you, Mr. Tann. We want to get out of this alive. You have resources. Connections. You can make us disappear—not in the way Cobb makes people disappear, but in the way that matters. New identities. Safe passage out of the country. Enough money to start over. In exchange, we give you Ferris's documents and our silence."
Tann studied them for a long moment. The fog swirled around him, and the river lapped against the pier with a sound like a slow heartbeat.
"A deal," he said. "You want a deal."
"Yes."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then we go to the Courier. Archibald Dent is already working on the story. If anything happens to us, he prints everything. The forgeries, the fires, the names of every collector who died. Indemnity and Casualty will have to investigate. Your entire operation will collapse."
Tann was silent. Julian could see the calculations running behind his eyes, the weighing of risks, the measuring of threats. Then Tann smiled again, and this time, the smile was cold and sharp as a blade.
"You've made one mistake," he said.
"What's that?"
"You assumed I came alone."
From the fog behind them, a figure emerged. Cobb. His footsteps made no sound on the wooden planks. His pale eyes were fixed on Julian and Cora, and there was something in his gaze that was almost hungry.
"I always have backup," Tann said. "It's a lesson I learned early in this business. Never trust anyone. Never meet without insurance. Cobb, if you please."
Cobb raised his automatic, the same black gun he had used at the warehouse. But before he could fire, another voice cut through the fog.
"That's far enough, Cobb."
Archibald Dent stepped out of the shadows near the shore end of the pier, a bulky figure in a rumpled coat. In his hand was a camera, its lens glinting in the dim light.
"I've been here the whole time," Dent said. "I've heard every word. The forgeries, the fires, the murders. It's all going in the paper. Tomorrow morning, the whole city will know what you've done."
Tann stared at Dent, his composure finally breaking. "You. You worthless drunk. You think anyone will believe you?"
"They'll believe the photographs." Dent held up the camera. "I've been taking pictures since you arrived. You, Cobb, the pier, the meeting. It's all here. And even if you destroy the camera, I've already written the story. It's on my desk at the Courier, waiting for the morning edition. Kill us now, and you'll only make the story bigger."
Cobb's gun didn't waver. He looked at Tann, waiting for an order. But Tann hesitated. For the first time, Julian saw something he had never expected to see in Leo Tann's eyes: fear.
"This isn't over," Tann said, his voice low and dangerous. "You've made powerful enemies tonight, all of you. You think a newspaper story will protect you? You think the police will keep you safe? You have no idea what you've started."
He turned and walked into the fog, his figure dissolving into the gray. Cobb followed, his pale eyes lingering on Julian for a moment longer than necessary. Then he, too, disappeared.
The pier was silent. Julian let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. Cora sagged against him, her strength finally giving out. Dent walked toward them, his camera held tight in his hands.
"Well," Dent said, "I hope one of you has a drink. I'm going to need about ten."
They made their way back to the street, three figures moving slowly through the fog. Behind them, the river lapped against the pier, and somewhere in the distance, a tugboat sounded its horn. The sound was mournful and low, like a warning that came too late.
Julian helped Cora into the back seat of Dent's car, a battered Model A that smelled of tobacco and old newsprint. Dent climbed behind the wheel and started the engine.
"I'll drive you to my office," Dent said. "You can stay there tonight. Tomorrow, we'll go to the police together, with the photographs and the documents. Tann won't be able to touch us once the story breaks."
Julian nodded, but he wasn't listening. He was thinking about Cobb's eyes, the way they had lingered on him. Cobb wasn't a man who gave up. He wasn't a man who walked away from a threat.
This wasn't over. It was just beginning.
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