Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(55)

But now Ronan was the same age as the man in the photograph, and in any case, their father had already made all the choices he was ever going to make, all of them leading to him being dead.

He pulled out the photo and studied it again now.

Niall wore a leather jacket, collar popped up. A white V-neck. Leather bands wound round his wrists that he’d stopped wearing before Ronan was born—strange to think that Ronan wore them now without having remembered this detail. This young Niall had long, curly hair nearly down to his shoulders. He had a ferocious, living expression. He was young and alive, alive, oh.

It did not make Ronan feel bad to look at it. It made him feel the opposite. It also gave him something he wasn’t expecting: an answer.

It wasn’t Ronan’s face he’d seen peering out of the car by the burned hotel. It had been his father’s.





34

Jordan spent quite a bit of time working in museums. Continuing education. Job security. Sanity check. At least twice a week, she joined the ranks of area art students who went to galleries to learn by imitation. For a few hours, she became a forgery herself: She looked exactly like the other young artists working in the museum while in reality being nothing like them.

DC was spoiled for choice when it came to museums. The pink-hued National Portrait Gallery. The slyly uncomfortable Renwick. The chaotically colorful Museum of African Art. The Art Museum of the Americas and Mexican Cultural Institute with their beautiful Mayan and Pueblo tiles. Dumbarton Oaks’ lovely garden. The NMWA, which Hennessy had once gotten thrown out of for an altercation so now none of them could really go back. The Kreeger and the Phillips, the Hillwood and the Hirshhorn. There were so many. The small and chilly Freer was Jordan’s favorite, its small collection curated long ago by a man who collected with his heart first and his brain second. She and Hennessy had an agreement: Jordan would not work in the Sackler next door, and Hennessy would not work in the Freer.

One thing, at least, that they didn’t share.

But this morning, because she was not giving away real pieces of herself, she headed into the National Gallery of Art. It was a big, handsome building with sky-high ceilings, heavy crown molding, and richly muted walls to show off its gilt-edged treasure. There were always plenty of students and art groups sketching, and several of the rooms already had massive, heavy easels for visiting artists to copy works. A forger could work right in the middle of it without being the center of attention.

She checked the time. She was a little late. Hennessy said that arriving late for a meeting was an act of aggression. It was like reaching into someone’s pocket, she said, and thumbing out their wallet. It was leaning against their car and siphoning their fuel, she said, while making eye contact. Or it was just DC traffic, Jordan had replied once, and Hennessy had said they’d have to agree to disagree.

She glimpsed a figure on the other side of the lobby, studying one of the marble statues. His back was to her, and his gray suit was unspecific and anonymous, but nonetheless she felt certain she recognized the posture, the curled dark hair. It was an artful scene with the light filtering in among the columns, everything brown and black and white. It would have been a good painting, if she painted originals.

“I heard,” she announced, “you’re the son of the Devil.”

Declan Lynch did not turn his head as she approached, but she saw his mouth tense in a suppressed smile. He said, “That’s true.”

It had taken only a few keystrokes to find out that he was the eldest son of Niall Lynch, The Dark Lady’s creator. She hadn’t been trying to research him. Really she’d just wanted to know what to expect for the dutiful date. In the few photos she found of him—in his private school’s website archives, in background shots on political news articles, in posed photos at an art show opening—he looked dull and forgettable. Portrait of a Dark-Haired Youth. There was nothing to remind her of what had seemed fleetingly appealing about him at the Fairy Market; it was probably the heightened atmosphere of the night that had lent him charm, she thought. This would be a chore, she decided. An acceptable chore she could bullshit through while they reached into his pocket and thumbed out his wallet, but a chore nonetheless. She was relieved, really. Better that way.

She sidled by him. He was not as dull-looking as the photos and her memory had suggested. Already she had forgotten that he was handsome. It seemed a strange thing to forget. He was scented with something subtly mannish, mild and unfamiliar, an oil rather than a fragrance. Jordan was reminded at a most basic level of all the strangers she had made out with, strangers who smelled pleasantly of scents never again encountered, scents that forever belonged only to them in her memory.

“I did a little reading on you since we last met.”

“Coincidentally,” Declan said, his gaze still fixed on the statue, “so did I. I hear you grew up in London.”

What did one find when one looked up Jordan Hennessy? They found her mother, who possessed a tragic story so familiar it registered less as tragedy than as nodding predictability. The troubled genius artist, the life cut short, the body of work suddenly rendered meaningful and pricey. Hennessy had grown up with her in London; Hennessy had a London accent and so, therefore, did Jordan and all the other girls. “I grew up everywhere. I hear you grew up west of here.”

“I was born grown-up,” he said blandly.

“I found out about your father. Tragic.”