Read Chapter 13: The Last Laugh

The two-lane blacktop unspooled through a quilt of vineyards gone sere and dormant under the October sky. Julien drove with the window cracked, letting the cold air keep him honest. The Peugeot's engine hummed a tired note, the same one it had made on the way to Anton's studio. That had been twenty-four hours ago. A lifetime.

He passed a wooden sign, the paint flaking, that read: VIGNON — 4 KM. The estate had belonged to old man Vignon, a collector of minor repute, who'd died before Julien had ever had the pleasure. His widow, the story went, had let the place rot for two decades. Now the relatives were circling, hungry for the proceeds.

Julien's own hunger was of a different order. He hadn't eaten since yesterday. His hands were steady, though. That was what mattered.

The gate was rusted iron, held open by a cinder block. He drove through, gravel crunching beneath the tires like dry bones. The house rose ahead of him: a Second Empire pile of grey stone and mansard roofs, its windows dark, its shutters hanging at odd angles. The kind of place that ate money and spat out memories.

A black Citroën DS was parked in the turnaround, immaculate, gleaming. A man in a charcoal suit leaned against its hood, smoking a cigarette. He was young, mid-thirties, with wire-framed glasses and the polished air of someone who'd never had to run from a Corsican's men.

Julien killed the engine, stepped out. The gravel was loud. "You the buyer's agent?"

The man smiled, flicked his cigarette into the dirt. "Curator. For the estate sale." He extended a hand. "Bastien Leclerc. And you are?"

"An admirer of the property," Julien said, taking the hand. The grip was dry, confident. "I heard the house was being cleared. Hoped I might pay my respects to the collection before it goes to auction."

Leclerc's brow rose. "You're a dealer?"

"Independent."

"Ah. Then you'll understand why I'm being careful." Leclerc's smile didn't reach his eyes. "The Vignon library was well-known. But the cellar—" He paused, savoring the word. "The cellar is the real prize. Monsieur Vignon kept his best pieces locked away down there. We're still cataloguing."

Julien's pulse quickened, but he kept his face neutral. "Any surprises?"

"A few. A bronze attributed to Houdon, contested. Some first editions." Leclerc shrugged. "Nothing you'd cross Paris for."

"You'd be surprised what I'd cross for." Julien started walking toward the house. The front door was ajar, held by a chain. Inside, the air was cold and smelled of linen and dust. Portraits lined the hall; Vignon had collected faces the way other men collected stamps. Julien passed a grim-eyed cardinal and a lace-collared woman who might have been laughing at him.

"Where's the cellar access?"

Leclerc gestured toward the back of the house. "Kitchen. But there's nothing down there but crates and a wine rack that's seen better days."

"I'd still like to look."

"Suit yourself."

The kitchen was a wreck of yellowed tile and a cast-iron stove the size of a car. The cellar door was reinforced steel, unlocked. Julien pulled it open. Stone stairs descended into a smell of cold earth and something metallic. He took the steps slowly, letting his eyes adjust.

His father's cellar had been like this. Long before Paul vanished, before the gambling debts and the laundering, his father had kept a cellar of locked cabinets. When Julien was twelve, he'd found the key on a hook behind the boiler. What he'd found inside had started all of this—the photographs, the letters, the seed of the obsession.

This cellar held no mysteries of that order. Just crates and dust and a wine rack with a few dusty bottles. Julien moved through them anyway, feeling the walls. Plaster over stone. Ancient, cold. He tapped along the far wall. Hollow near the corner. He tapped again. There.

He ran his fingers over the plaster until he found the seam. The panel swung inward on hidden hinges, almost silent. Behind it, a niche cut into the stone, barely a meter square. No crates. No frames.

Just a single rolled canvas, wrapped in oilcloth.

His hands were not steady now. He unwound the cloth with the care of a bomb-disposal man. The canvas went from roll to flat. The surface was dark with age. But there, in the lamplight trickling through the cellar window, he saw it.

The Caravaggio. The *Boy with a Basket of Fruit*. The one Paul had chased. The one he had died chasing, or something close enough to death.

For a moment Julien couldn't breathe. The brushwork was alive in a way no copy could ever achieve. The light on the boy's shoulder. The bruised ripeness of the peaches. He'd seen the copy—Anton's copy—and it had been good. Very good. But this was something else. This was breathing.

He heard the footsteps a second before the cellar door slammed shut. The lock clicked—solid, deliberate, new. Julien stood in the dark with the real Caravaggio in his hands and a man's laugh filtering down through the floorboards.

Leclerc.

"Mr. Moreau?" The voice was muffled. "My employer sends his regards. He suspected you'd come here before Geneva."

Julien forced calm into his voice. "Your employer?"

"Dupont."

The name hit like a punch to the chest. Julien's hand went to the sweat-slick wall. He'd led them here. He'd walked every step of the way with a trail so obvious a child could follow it.

"You've got the painting," Julien called up. "The one from the studio. Why do you care about this place?"

"Because my employer believes in redundancy. You've just found what we couldn't. Consider yourself a consultant, Mr. Moreau. A well-paid consultant in the coin of your continued existence."

Leclerc's footsteps moved away. A door closed. The silence settled like snow.

Julien pressed his palm to the cellar door. Solid. The window was a narrow slit at ground level, no more than twenty centimeters tall. The stone walls had been there for a hundred years. The air was cold and growing colder.

He looked down at the canvas in his hands. Ten million francs' worth of desperation.

The lock was a mortice type, key-operated from the outside. But the hinge pins—he felt along them. They were old iron, corroded. He found a nail lying among the rubble and worked at the bottom pin. It took minutes, his fingers cramping, the cold seeping into his bones. When the pin finally slid free, he set the canvas down and used both hands on the second.

The door sagged. He pushed it open far enough to squeeze through, dragging the canvas behind him.

In the kitchen, sunlight had shifted. Leclerc's Citroën was gone. The house was silent. Julien stood there, breathing hard, the Caravaggio wrapped against his chest. His legs were shaking.

Dupont had the copy. The real painting was in his arms.

And Dupont knew he was here, which meant Dupont knew he had the real painting. The estate's relatives would be alerted. The whole valley would be watching for him by nightfall.

The game had changed. Dupont had been one step ahead. Now Julien had the lead, but everyone knew it.

Ten million francs. One painter. A widow's cellar. A dead forger. A brother who had walked into the Corsicans' car willingly and never walked out.

He walked to the Peugeot, put the canvas in the trunk, and got behind the wheel. His hands were steady now. It was a strange feeling, being steady. He thought of Claire. He thought of Anton's throat and the blood collecting on the floorboards. He thought of his brother's last laugh.

Julien started the engine and turned the car south, toward Paris. He didn't know how long he had before Dupont's men cut him off. But for the first time in weeks, he had something worth holding onto.