Page 68 of The Mouse and the Maestro

“Ouch, what is your problem?” Nick asked, shaking free from her as soon as they were outside.

“What is my problem? What are you doing here?” Jane asked.

“Are you still mad about the other day?” Nick asked.

Jane grabbed both his biceps and shook him. “Answer the question. What are you doing here?”

“Some guys said you wanted to have a conversation,” Nick said.

Jane’s hands went slack. She stared at him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve stumbled into?”

“What?” Nick asked, smiling. His hand slipped up, reaching for her hair.

“Don’t touch her,” Blue said, stepping forward, his hand reaching for the gun inside his jacket.

“Or what?” Nick asked. “You going to arrest me?”

“Not me,” Blue said as Ridge rounded the corner, a pair of police officers in his wake. Technically they had the power to arrest people, but it tended to cut through a few layers of inter-agency bureaucracy if they involved the police and let them do it instead.

“Hands where I can see them,” Ridge said. He grabbed Nick’s wrist and tossed him against the wall.

“What?” Nick said, confused. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, it’s not a joke,” Jane said. “They think you’re a forger, a terrorist. You are in big trouble here, Nick. Huge.”

“Is this for real?” Nick said, his smile beginning to slip.

“Nick, what did you do?” Jane pressed as the two officers frisked him, cuffed him, and read him his rights.

“A guy paid me to paint some artifacts for him,” Nick said. “Why is that bad?”

“Did you do a canopic jar?” Jane asked.

“Among other things.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jane asked.

“Because I thought you’d be mad, and rightly so, apparently. You’ve always had a hair trigger when it came to this kind of stuff, Jane, you know you have.”

“Who was the guy?” Ridge asked.

“No idea. He found me on the internet. I had an ad out to do freelance artwork,” Nick said.

“How much did he pay you?” Ridge asked.

“Five thousand dollars,” Nick said.

“Five thousand dollars?” Jane echoed. “What were you thinking?”

“That I needed the money. Where else am I going to get that kind of cash, parking cars?” he asked. “I had the talent to do what he wanted, and I knew a bunch of stuff from listening to you talk all these years. So, really, it was kind of an homage to you and how much I listened and absorbed.”

“Wait a minute, is that how you were able to afford my engagement ring?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I used some of it for that, and for some other stuff. It was good money, Jane. Come on, it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Not that big of a deal? You know how I feel about forgeries, that they’re a scourge on my profession, and you knowingly did it anyway,” Jane said. She was yelling now, but she didn’t care. Nick still didn’t realize how much trouble he was in, how wrong he’d been. And he’d used forgery money to buy the engagement ring he presented to her. She had never been more furious with him; she had never been more furious with anyone.

“So a few fakes slip in now and then. You’re the only one who knows the difference,” he said, and it was the complete wrong thing to say to her. She lunged for him, arms outstretched. Blue caught her around the waist, holding her off the ground as she struggled against him.

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