Chapter 5

About three days later.

That day something came up at the office, and I worked late, not getting home until past eight.

The moment I walked in, I felt it. Something was off.

Every light in the living room was blazing. On the coffee table sat a steaming pot of the finest aged whiskey, poured out and warm.

And there, planted dead center on the sofa, was that grim, humorless father-in-law of mine, the man who'd chewed me out just a few days ago until I didn't know which way was up. Ethan Pruitt.

Yolanda sat beside him like a good daughter, peeling grapes for him.

When Ethan saw me come in, he gave a cold snort and didn't so much as lift an eyelid.

Something in my chest dropped.

What was the old man doing here? What was this? A surprise inspection? Or had the last chewing-out not been enough, so now he'd come to my place for overtime?

"Dad, you're here."

I changed my shoes and forced myself over. "Have you eaten? I could have the housekeeper—"

"No need."

Ethan cut me off, flat. "I didn't come here to eat."

He raised his head, and through those thick lenses his sharp eyes locked onto me, a mocking smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Dick. I hear you've done well for yourself lately?"

"Huh?" I was completely lost. "Dad, where's this coming from? I'm the same as I've always been."

Just then Yolanda cut in, her face lit up with excitement.

"Dad! Stop keeping him in suspense! I told Dick you're an expert, so I wanted you to come take a look!"

A bad feeling rose up in me.

"Take a look? A look at what?" My voice was shaking.

Yolanda stood, took my arm, and said proudly, "Honey, last time you said that painting was too valuable, that neither of us knew how to care for it. Dad happened to call today, so I mentioned it. The second he heard you'd spent three million on a genuine Taylor Hughes original, he got in a car and came right over!"

Boom.

A bolt of thunder split my skull.

I froze where I stood.

Three million? Taylor Hughes?

I was joking, wife! I was messing with you! How could you take that seriously? And then drag over your expert of a father!

I was finished.

This was swinging a broadsword in front of a master swordsman, waving an axe outside a carpenter's door.

If Ethan saw the two-hundred-dollar piece of junk I'd bought, and heard me brag it was a three-million-dollar original, he'd tear me apart. That label, no taste, showing off, getting fleeced like a pig at slaughter, I'd never live it down.

"About that, Dad. Yol heard wrong."

Cold sweat was running down my back. I threw Yolanda every desperate look I could, but she didn't catch a single one. "That's just something I grabbed off a street stall, some cheap knockoff, thirty, forty bucks. It's no original. Ha ha ha, I was joking—"

"Joking?"

Ethan's face darkened. "Dick, three million and you call that a joke? Do you think money grows on trees, or do you just think Yol and I are easy to fool?"

"No, Dad, really, that's not it—"

"Enough!"

Ethan slapped his thigh and put on his full expert bearing. "Whether it's the real thing, one look will tell. I've spent my whole life on historical relics, and I've never once been fooled. If it truly is a Taylor Hughes original, then you've done something remarkable this time, and I'll see you in a whole new light. And if it's a fake—hmph."

He didn't finish. But that one hmph was more terrifying than anything.

"Honey, go get it, quick!" Yolanda urged. "Let Dad see it. This is your chance to prove your eye!"

I was riding a tiger with no way off, stuck coming and going.

Bring it out? A dead end.

Not bring it out? The way he looked, Ethan wasn't leaving until he saw that painting. He'd think I had something to hide.

"What's the dawdling for? Do I have to go fetch you myself?" Ethan was losing patience.

"Fine—fine, I'll get it."

Like a condemned man walking to the gallows, I shuffled into the study.

I opened the cabinet. The black plastic bag was still lying there, alone.

I looked at it, past tears.

God almighty, this wasn't a painting. This was my death warrant.

Nothing for it. Might as well treat a dead horse like it's still alive. When I brought it out, I'd swear up and down the seller had cheated me, take my punishment, own it. Even a full-blast tongue-lashing beat this standoff.

I carried the plastic bag back to the living room.

When Ethan saw the black plastic bag in my hand, the kind you'd toss trash in, his brows knotted tighter and the contempt in his eyes thickened.

"A three-million-dollar painting, and you keep it in that?" He sneered.

"This—it's moisture-proof." I made it up on the spot.

I took the painting out, laid it on the coffee table, steeled myself, and shut my eyes. "Dad, take a look. Let me say up front, if I misjudged, don't be angry."

Yolanda leaned in at once and carefully helped unroll the scroll.

The scroll spread open, inch by inch.

That yellowed, damaged paper, that blurry, indistinct landscape, that crooked, lopsided seal, all of it laid bare under the bright lights.

Head down, I didn't dare look at Ethan's face. I'd braced myself for a storm of ridicule.

I could already picture him jabbing a finger in my face. "Idiot! This isn't worth two hundred bucks! It's street-stall garbage!"

One second.

Two seconds.

Ten seconds passed.

The living room was dead silent.

The scolding I'd expected never came.

Even Yolanda felt something was wrong. "Dad? Why aren't you saying anything? Is the painting a fake? I said Dick got cheated—"

Confused, I lifted my head.

And when I did, I stopped short.

Ethan sat frozen on the sofa, as if some pressure point had locked him in place.

The mockery on his face was long gone. In its place was a shock I'd never seen from him before, something closer to—dread?

His eyes were round and staring, fixed hard on one corner of that ruined painting.

The hand that had been so composed a moment ago, steady as a mountain, was trembling violently now.

He reached toward the painting, then stopped, hand hovering in the air, shaking, as though he feared damaging some priceless treasure.

His breathing turned ragged, his chest heaving, his face flushed red.

"Dad? What's wrong? Don't scare me!" I was starting to panic. Please don't let the old man be having a stroke over this.

Ethan's head snapped up, his eyes bloodshot, and he stared straight at me, his voice rasping like a man who'd gone three days without water in the desert.

"Where—where did you get this painting?"