Page 86 of The Picasso Heist
Only she’s not.
I look around again. I can see Michelle from head to toe, from her braids down to her pink Reeboks with the scuff marks. It’s crystal clear in my mind. But nowhere else. She’s not here.
I suddenly realize how crazy I am.What were you thinking, Halston? Why would you think she’d be here, that this is where she’d run away to?
And then I hear it.
“I knew you’d come,” she says.
I spin around and see Michelle standing there, her eyes still red from crying. I hold her tight. If I hugged her any harder, she’d pass out.
“A lot of people are very worried about you,” I say.
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
“No, everything’s fine. As long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”
“What about the museum people?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“I lied to get in here because I didn’t have any money. I told the person taking tickets that I got separated from my cousins and I thought they’d gone outside.”
It’s not lost on me that she chose to say her cousins instead of her parents, but all I do is smile and hug her again. “That’s more than okay, sweetheart. We’ll just keep that between you and me,” I say. I turn back to the Pollock painting, all those squiggly lines and drips of paint, the splatters and the splotches. “So did it help at all? Looking at it again?”
She bobs her head. “A little. I mean, it did make me stop crying.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s true, though, what Janet said, isn’t it? About my mother being away a lot longer?”
We’re surrounded by people, and all the benches in the room are taken. “Let’s talk about that,” I say. “I’ll answer each and every one of your questions, and I promise to tell you the truth. But first it’s me that gets to ask a question, okay?”
“Okay.”
I whisper in her ear, “Hot dog or pretzel?”
She cracks a smile, and it’s like the sun peeking through a cloud. “Hot dog,” she says.
“Me too,” I say. “I’m starving. There’s a guy out front selling them. I saw his cart on the way in.”
As we head out of the museum, I know I’ve got my work cut out for me. Words can fix only so much of a young girl’s broken spirit. But right now, words are all I have.
“Hey, remember when I told you that you shouldn’t call that Janet girl Janet from Another Planet?”
“Yeah, I remember,” says Michelle.
“Well, from now on you can call her that anytime you want.”
CHAPTER74
MALCOLM HADN’T TIPPEDhis hand.
He didn’t give Dominick Lugieri even a hint of a reason for wanting to meet with him. But the mere request said it all, and Lugieri knew it. The kid, Malcolm, wasn’t showing up at Osteria Contorni again just to say he hadn’t found anything on Bergamo. He most certainly had.
“Do you like clams Posillipo?” asked Lugieri, pouring himself a refill of Fontodi Chianti in his private dining room as Malcolm entered.
“Clams Posillipo? I’ve only had them once but they were pretty good,” answered Malcolm, joining his boss at the table.
