Page 1 of Devil's Due: Sarge

Greer

One and a half years ago…

“Drew?” I rap on his office door, hopefully this time gaining his attention. We don’t spend a whole lot of time together. I know he’s not crazy about having a daughter, and since I’m not biologically his, he doesn’t really have to like me, but I need him today. I rap on the door again. “Come on, Drew. Please. I don’t have much time. This is time sensitive.”

Ever since Mom married Drew when I was eleven, I’ve been hanging with a different crowd. They jet set around the world. Literally. That’s how they spend their free time home from school, off of work, vacations and holidays. And typically, I never go. I’m a poor college student. My mother always says that I shouldn’t have any trouble spending Drew’s money because she could spend Drew’s money – my mother is an expert when it comes to spending Drew’s money. She’s his wife. The man prefers not to spend any time around me. But today, if he helps, then I get what I want and he gets what he wants. It’s a win/win. My friends are preparing to fly to Ireland to see My Chemical Romance perform in Dublin. I love My Chemical Romance. Have I ever gotten to see them? Not once in my life. They broke up before I had the chance. Now, they’re having a reunion tour? Uh… yes, please. I’ll do just about anything to go on this trip, even if it means groveling. I’m not above it.

I haven’t been home in over a year, but when my semester ended, my mother begged me. “Please, Greer, we miss you so much. The house just isn’t the same without you. I won’t be around forever, you know, and you’ll regret the time that we didn’t spend together…” Yada, yada, yada. I have good reason for not being home for over a year. It’s not like I’ve been sitting on my hands doing nothing, or like in my mother’s case, lounging poolside in the sun. I happen to be a full-time college student. I graduated last year from UCLA’s Art History Criticism and Conservation Program. Now I’m going for my master’s degree while I wait to get into their doctorate program.

My love of art, of conserving art, is the one thing I have in common with Drew. I actually have him to thank for getting me interested in art. My mother, Monique, doesn’t give two rips about art. She cares about money. How someone as refined as Drew couldn’t see through my mother, I still don’t know. But I think going to school and getting my degree in art conservation is the one thing Drew’s ever been proud of me for, not that he’s actually said the words, “Greer, I’m proud of you.” It’s been more just the feeling I get.

Drew didn’t even fund my academic career – well, aside from high school. My mother enrolled me in a private school, and I’m sure Drew’s money paid for it. But I’m smart, a great test-taker, did every extracurricular known to man, joined the National Honor Society, and kicked butt on my SATs. Given all that, I earned a full ride scholarship all on my own. And for extra money, I’d been working for a local nonprofit museum until my mom called me home.

Okay, this is getting old. I shove open the door to Drew’s office because I don’t have time to put it off any longer. My—I guess they’re friends for this trip, at least—are going to be leaving. I already have a valid passport. My dormmates and I all went down to Cabo for spring break last year. But I don’t have the cash to go all the way to Ireland, stay in a fancy hotel, eat delicious Irish pub food, or any of that other stuff they plan on doing, plus pay my friend back for the concert ticket that she grabbed for me while she was ordering them online. They’re taking a private plane. That’s the level of wealth my high school friends come from. And I’m sure they wouldn’t mind, but I can’t be the moochy friend.

“Drew?” I walk over to his office’s private bathroom and knock on that door. Still no answer. He has an entire wall of books on one side of the office. On the other, there’s artwork hanging on the walls and beautiful sculptures that would make any museum weep with envy. It’s a private collector’s dream. My favorite piece is the Picasso. Although I’m typically most drawn to the older works, for some reason, this piece grabs my attention every time. Not that I’ve been in its presence very many times. I’m not allowed in here when Drew’s not, and clearly, he doesn’t let me in here with him very often.

What could it hurt, right? If I took this prime opportunity I’ve been given to look around his office. As I’ll probably never get this chance again, I start my illicitly slow perusal of the space – it’s truly magnificent.

Somehow, because I’m truly not a snoop on most occasions, I end up behind his desk and to my surprise he’s left his email open. That seems very unusual for a man like Drew, or, then again, maybe not. Maybe leaving his emails open is very typical Drew behavior. I mean, considering this is the first I’ve spent this much time in here, how would I really know? Although he always seems the very guarded type. I don’t even know what he does for a living to afford this house, this lifestyle, and these beautiful pieces of artwork. He’s never talked about it. At least not with me.

What does that say about me, if I don’t know what my own stepfather, the man whom I’ve been living with, or sort of with, for the last eleven years, does for a living?

I read the email, and then I read it again, and then I read it for a third time. It seems Andrew “Drew” Broadchurch is an art broker. Well, that makes plenty of sense now. Not only is he an art broker, but this email says he’s brokering the sale of an Artemisia Gentileschi. She was an Italian Baroque painter and considered to be one of the seventeenth century’s most accomplished artists. And she’s a name that most people outside of the art world, unfortunately, have never heard of. She was amazing – and with a hell of a backstory. Her teacher raped her, and she filed charges against him and took him to court, and she won. He spent time in prison but then as soon as he got out, he went back to work for her father. I could go on and on about her, she was a sister who did things for herself, and from all appearances never put up with shit from a man.

As curious as I am to read more about his job, I need to find him to borrow cash. And if he catches me in here, there’s no way he’ll fund the trip for me. I slip back out of his office, making sure to close the door. Then I wander the house – which, okay, it’s a mansion – looking for Drew.

Passing by the employee break room – because yes, Drew employs a full staff and provides them with a break room where they can eat their lunch, sip on coffee, or generally engage in downtime before they have to go back to waiting hand and foot on the wealthy inhabitants of the home – the TV’s on, and there’s a breaking news story that catches my attention for an unbelievably crazy reason.

It’s being reported that a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, worth an undisclosed amount of money, had been stolen four days ago. According to the news outlet, they kept the theft quiet while following up leads. But those leads have gone cold, so they’re putting it out into the public in hopes that any underworld art dealers might find it hard to unload.

That can’t be right. The email from the buyer came in just today. They’re meeting tomorrow.

Give me a break, Greer. You’re just being ridiculous. Clearly, these are two different Artemisia Gentileschi paintings. But… her pieces hang in national galleries… I’ve never heard of one going to a private seller…No, no… it has to be a different piece. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.

The bigger problem is that I can’t find Drew. I keep wandering around the house until I see my mother sunning herself out by the pool, through the glass French doors. I walk outside to join her, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand pressed against my forehead like a visor. When my shadow covers her, my mother in her large hat and tiny bikini, opens her eyes and smiles up at me.

“Greer dear, why don’t you get your suit on and join me?”

“Mom, have you seen Drew?”

“Your father ” – she’s forever trying to get me to call Drew ‘Father’ or ‘Dad’ or whatever other endearment she has in mind, but he is not my father. My father’s name was Alan. He was a good man who died way too young from colon cancer, of all things. Plus, she always seems to neglect the fact that Drew doesn’t want me calling him ‘Father’ or ‘Dad’ or whatever other endearment she has in mind – “and your brothers have gone to the city to take care of some business. They’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I need to borrow money. My friends are going to Dublin to see a concert. They want me to come along.”

“You don’t need to borrow money from your father; he’ll just give it to you. But, really, Greer, I just got you home. I’d rather you stay and keep me company.”

And that’s the end of my My Chemical Romance dreams. Drew isn’t home, and my mother isn’t ponying up the cash.

I love my mother, but sometimes she is so self-centric. Not in a narcissistic way. She’s just built this bubble around herself and thinks everyone she knows lives within that bubble with her at the center.

Disheartened, I run upstairs to my room to grab my purse. I’m not going to stay and sun myself. Instead, I take off to go grab something to eat, by myself because all my friends are boarding a stinking private jet to go to Ireland, and then I’ll head down to some museums.

We live in Pinecrest, a suburb – I should say, the wealthiest suburb – outside of Miami. I’ve never felt like I belong there. Hence me choosing UCLA all the way back across the country to go to college. I understand California. Hell, I even understand neighboring Nevada. That’s where I was born, that’s where my father, Alan Durning, is buried, and where my mother met Drew. After my dad passed, my mother made it her business to find friends who had influential, i.e., wealthy, husbands, and thus influential, i.e., wealthy, friends of their own. Single preferably, but she’s been known to ruin a marriage or two. Again, not necessarily on purpose. She is the kind of woman who believes any story a man tells her, so long as that man is wealthy enough. So when they told her, “My wife and I are getting divorced,” she happily believed them. Because she wanted to.

Drew – now Drew was a different story. His first wife had passed away after a botched plastic surgery job. The details are still sketchy after all these years, but what I’ve come to figure out is that she wanted several procedures done at once, ones that really shouldn’t be done at once because it puts a strain on your body. And when one doctor would tell herno, she’d go to another. When she’d gone through all the certified plastic surgeons, then she moved on to the uncertified. And this would be why Drew put his foot down and told my mother that she could only see board-certified plastic surgeons. They’d bonded over the loss of a spouse. The rest, as they say, is history.

I make the drive to a local Jewish deli, where I wait twenty minutes in line just to place my order. The food makes the wait time worth it. After I get my order of matzah ball soup and a Ruben to go, I head to Miami for an afternoon of museums. There are more contemporary art museums in this area and yes, I’m more of a classical girl, but it’s okay to branch out once in a while.

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