Chapter 11 - The Painting UpstairsKiara ran upstairs.
Miriam followed.
The gallery door was locked.
Kiara entered the code.
The lights came on.
At the center wall hung Everett’s most valuable painting.
A nineteenth-century American landscape.
Lake.
Storm clouds.
A tiny farmhouse beneath them.
Kiara had stared at it as a child.
The canvas looked exactly the same.
The appraiser arrived within the hour.
He used magnification first.
Then ultraviolet light.
Then examined the frame.
Finally, he looked at Kiara.
“It’s not the original.”
She stared.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How good is it?”
“Very.”
“Value?”
“As a decorative copy? A few thousand.”
Kiara felt ill.
The real painting was worth nearly $1.8 million.
“Julian said Loretta didn’t sell it.”
The appraiser glanced at Detective Bell.
“Then perhaps she moved it.”
The search expanded.
Loretta’s Savannah condominium did not contain it.
Neither did Julian’s storage.
Bank records showed no sale proceeds matching the value.
Why remove it?
The answer came from an email.
Loretta to Julian:
The lake stays with me. Non-negotiable.
Julian:
You cannot hide a seven-figure painting forever.
Loretta:
I don’t need forever.
Kiara read the exchange.
“What does that mean?”
Bell shook his head.
“We’re working on it.”
The painting had special emotional importance.
Everett bought it for Loretta on their twentieth anniversary.
She called it The Lake, though that was not its official title.
Perhaps she saw it differently from the rest of the collection.
Not money.
Proof of a marriage she believed the trust had erased.
Kiara understood the emotion.
Not the theft.
Then Malik overheard the name.
“The lake picture?”
Kiara turned.
“You know it?”
“Grandma showed me.”
“When?”
“Before Christmas.”
“Where?”
“In the little room downstairs.”
Kiara frowned.
“What little room?”
“The one behind the wine room.”
Kiara stared.
“There is no room behind the wine room.”
Malik shrugged.
“Yes there is.”
Briarwood had been renovated repeatedly over eighty years.
Kiara remembered a storage corridor near the wine cellar.
She had not entered it in years.
Malik led them downstairs.
Past the wine room.
Behind a shelving panel was a narrow service door.
Unlocked.
Inside:
Old furniture.
Trunks.
Archive boxes.
And one enormous wooden shipping crate.
Kiara stopped.
Detective Bell called for evidence personnel before anyone touched it.
Hours later, the crate was opened.
Inside was Everett’s original painting.
Protected.
Wrapped.
Not sold.
Not damaged.
Loretta had hidden it inside the house.
Kiara stared.
“Why?”
The answer was taped to the backing.
An envelope.
Loretta’s handwriting.
For Kiara, if everything goes wrong.
Bell photographed it before allowing review.
Inside was a letter.
Not a confession exactly.
But close.
You will say I stole from Malik. I did not see it that way. Your father spent thirty-six years building a life with me and then let paper decide I was a guest in my own home.
Kiara’s jaw tightened.
I sold things because lawyers cost money, and lawyers cost money because I was trying to correct what he did.
No remorse.
Just justification.
Then:
The Lake is mine emotionally even if Miriam says otherwise. I could never sell it.
Kiara stopped reading.
The final paragraph changed tone.
If the insurance plan works, I will leave. You can have the house, the trust, the arguments, all of it. Maybe when I am gone you will finally understand that Everett made us enemies before he died.
Kiara lowered the letter.
Miriam said quietly:
“Everett did not make you enemies.”
“No.”
Kiara looked toward the wrapped painting.
“Mom did.”
Then Malik spoke behind them.
“Why did she put my name in it?”
Kiara froze.
He had seen one line near the bottom.
She looked again.
A postscript.
Keep Malik away from the gallery until this is finished. He notices too much.
Kiara’s blood went cold.
Loretta had been watching Malik as a risk long before the vase broke.
May you like
The incident had not created her fear of him.
It merely made that fear explode.
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