Page 3 of The Red (The Godwicks 1)

"Your mother had a spare key made. She hid it in the potted plantoutside.”

"What Mother lacked in common sense she made up for instyle.”

"That she did. Do you, by any chance, have a book of Morland’spaintings?”

"Ithinkso.”

"Fetch itplease.”

"Fetch it?” Was she adognow?

The man grinned that fiendish grin again. "Please.”

Mad as it was, Mona returned to her office to find the book. It was on the shelf somewhere with hundreds of other art books her mother had collected through the years. They’d all have to be sold to a book collector, though it broke her heart to think of parting with them. After a few minutes searching, she found the slim blue Morland catalog and returned to thegallery.

The manwasgone.

There was a bell on the door that chimed when anyone came or left. Her ears were trained to hear that bell no matter if she were in the office, the bathroom, or the back room. That bell meant a customer had entered and a customer meant money. But the bell hadn’t rung and yet he was not there, not anywhere in the gallery. Nowhereatall.

Unbelievable. All of it. Yet the man’s certainty had infected her somehow. Not a Morland he said. Not a Morland. Well, this book had a picture of every Morland evercatalogued.

She flipped through it, page after page, looking for the painting of the four men in red coats, the four brown horses. There. Itwasa Morland. Red coats. Brown horses. She examined the artist’s signature in the book and found it matched the artist’s signature on thepainting.

The man in the suit waswrong.

Andyet.

Mona lightly touched the signature—the ornateM, the curvingD. She knew she shouldn’t. One should never touch a painting with bare hands, but the painting was so uninteresting and uninspired and was taking up valuable wall space that she didn’t feel too guilty about touching a tiny corner of it with herfingertip.

"Shit.” TheMflaked off onto her finger. Just like that. Barely a touch and the paint crumbled. Well, it was her fault and she’d take the blame for it when the painting’s owner demanded an explanation for the damage. It could be repaired, but that meant more time and more money, money she didn’t have. She peered at the bare spot where theMhad been, fearful of seeing more damage. But she didn’t see anydamage.

She sawaJ.

There was noJin Morland. But that was without a doubt theletterJ.

Before she could stop herself, she’d used her red fingernail to chip off one more tiny fleck of paint. It was against every rule. It was madness. But she did it anyway. She’d seen a glint of gold in the bottom of a box of China dishes and she was breaking the China to pieces to get tothegold.

And thereitwas.

AnRaftertheJ.

Mona took the painting off the wall, back to the office, flicked on the lights and as slowly and carefully as she could, set about extracting the top layer of paint off the signature below it. Her mother had taught her how to do it while simultaneously warning her never to do it. Yet her mother was gone and Mona did it. And when she finished, she not only had aJand anR. She’d uncovered anEand possibly aYaswell.

J.

J.Reynolds.

JoshuaReynolds?

Surely not. Or was it? She had tofindout.

"Forgive me, Mother,” Mona breathed as she went about removing more of thepaint.

Her mother had told her to do anything to save the gallery. That’s exactly what Monawoulddo.

TheCourtesan

The week passedin a blur as the newly discovered Reynolds painting became the talk of the art world. Mona spent hours on the phone with arts and culture reporters who’d seized upon the story in a slow news week. They all wanted to know how she knew there was a Reynolds hidden under the unremarkable Morland painting. All she could tell them was that a visitor to the gallery noted something off about the painting. When she examined the signature, she noticed the flaking paint and followed a hunch. When they wanted to know the visitor’s name to talk to him as well, she had to tell them the truth—she had no idea who he was. He came in, made a comment about the painting and left before she could get his name. The news drew visitors to the gallery. She sold two pieces for tenthousandeach.

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