Page 143 of The Chase
I studied his face, trying to read his reaction.
He rose to his feet and strolled over to the window. He pulled back the curtain. “You have a nice neighborhood.”
“I like it.”
He seemed thoughtful as his gaze scanned the view.
I went to ask if he’d like me to put music on and thought better of it, sensing his comfort with the silence.
Pulling my legs under me I continued to nurse my wine and rested my head on my arm and watched him.
He peered out. “I like it here.”
“Me too.”
“I think you might have something to do with it.”
He looked so beautiful standing there and seemed more relaxed than I’d ever seen him and I loved being part of the reason he’d allowed himself these precious hours to recharge.
The quiet between us felt welcome and I knew we both needed this time to decompress.
He turned and faced the room as he sipped his wine, his frown deepening. “My dad was flying a painting from France to Sydney,” he began softly. “I’d accompanied him on the trip to Australia. Our plane went down in the middle of the night. The pilot and my dad died instantly. Mom...”
My hand went to my mouth and I held back from speaking, realizing how fragile this moment was.
“I don’t remember much. Flashes here and there. The mind’s way of protecting me, I suppose. Tau, an Aborigine, found me just in time. I’d run out of water. I’d heard somewhere that you should stay with the plane. So I did. I’d never been so damn thirsty.”
I wondered if Tau had seen the plane go down.
“He was on a tribal challenge. They’re hunters and gatherers, as you know. He’d just turned seventeen and had been sent out there to prove he could survive in a rite of passage. They didn’t expect him to bring back a souvenir in the way of a nine-year-old. The tribe took good care of me until help arrived.”
My face flushed with the realization his tattoo on his right arm wasn’t Polynesian, it was Aborigine. He’d immortalized his experience in ink.
“A team retrieved my parents’ bodies and flew them to the States. The painting survived, if you can believe that. Two weeks later I made the journey that ensured it reached its destination. Reni was an old friend of my parents’.” He breathed through a wave of pain. “These were my mother’s final wishes spoken seconds before she passed away.”
“Oh, Tobias.”
“I’ll never forget Reni’s face when I turned up with herMadonna Enthroned with Saint Matthew.”
“By Annibale Carracci?” I whispered it.
“It’s at the Getty now.”
And yet those people viewing theMadonnawould never know the bravery behind it hanging there.
“My uncle Fabienne flew out and helped me get to Reni’s place in Sydney. After my parents’ funeral he took me back with him to France. He didn’t want me to forget my dad’s legacy, so when I turned fourteen we returned to Massachusetts and the town where I grew up. I enrolled in school there and later studied technology at Stanford. My uncle returned to France.”
“He was good to you?”
“He’s wonderful. Like a dad.” He smiled. “Now I just hop on a plane and see him whenever I like.”
It was so good to know he was still close to his uncle.
“Turned out I had a knack for business.”
All that had happened to him was what drove him now, all that pain, all that fear, those suppressed memories his consciousness must have battled every day.
I swiped away a tear.
