Serious Moonlight(60)

“Yes! They do!” I said, exasperated. “It’s a planned act of revenge.”

“For you maybe. For me vengeance just happens.”

“Did you know about this painting when you suggested we consult him about the spreadsheet?”

She squeezed one eye shut. “Maybe I suspected it? Two birds, one stone?”

“I’m so angry at you right now!”

“That’s fair,” she whispered. “But are you going to help me, or what?”

I started to tell her no, but Daniel spoke up.

“I’m in,” he said. “Why not? That guy’s an asshole.”

“Oh God,” I whispered, glancing down the hallway to the stairwell.

Cool and calm as could be, Daniel pushed his hair back over one shoulder and got on the opposite side of the painting. “It’s on hooks,” he told Aunt Mona. “We can lift it off if we go straight up. On three . . .”

With dueling grunts, they pushed the painting up and off the hooks. Then they argued in whispers about the best way to get it out of the room. It had to be turned sideways—even I could see that. And at this point, it was too late to keep my hands clean. So I helped them flip it around and guide it on its side out of the bedroom. It barely cleared the top of the doorframe. Getting it over the stairwell railing and down the last flight of stairs was even trickier. But we managed.

When we guided it down the final step, a small noise startled me. I turned around to find the housekeeper, holding a stack of towels in both arms.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eyes wide. But she didn’t wait for an answer. She just trotted around the painting and called up the stairwell, “Mr. Sharkie! Mr. Sharkie!”

“Go, go, go!” Aunt Mona shouted.

She and Daniel carried the painting outside while I held the front door open, and then the three of us . . . well, it wasn’t running exactly. More like quick shuffling. All the way down the dock, until we got to her car. I dug Aunt Mona’s keys out of the glittery handbag threaded on her arm and popped open the back of her Jeep.

“It won’t fit!” I said.

“Back seat down,” she said breathlessly. “It’ll fit. I put it in here when I took it to the gallery.”

“Mona!” a voice bellowed from on high.

We all looked up to find Sharkovsky leaning over his glass roof railing, kimono billowing in the wind.

“Bring it back, Mona!” he yelled.

“Fuck you, you crook!” she yelled back. “I’m telling every artist in Seattle what a lying snake you are, and then I’m suing you for the rest of the money you owe me!”

Several people were watching us: a guy on a bike, an elderly man from his window, and a woman who appeared to be Sharkovsky’s masseur, getting out of a nearby car. They were all so embarrassed by the scene, no one would look us in the face. That seemed about right.

I flipped the back seat down and helped Daniel and Mona shove the enormous painting into the Jeep. A good foot or so stuck out the back.

“Don’t panic!” she told us. Being an experienced hauler of big artwork, she quickly bungee-corded the back hatch down with Daniel’s help, and after realizing we’d just eliminated Daniel’s seat for the ride home, we all piled into the front in a panicked flurry—Aunt Mona driving and me on Daniel’s lap.

One minute I was trying to make myself small and unobtrusive while balancing on his legs, and the next, Aunt Mona was tearing out of the parking space and Daniel was pulling me back against him.

“Snake!” Aunt Mona yelled out the window at Sharkovsky as he limped across the dock, shouting obscenities at her. She turned out of the drive like a bat out of hell, and the last thing I saw was his graying hair blowing erratically in the breeze.

Aunt Mona raised both her hands. “Vengeance is mine!”

“I can’t believe we just did that,” I mumbled.

Daniel high-fived her, and for a moment the car was feral with wild emotions. Most of Mona’s were centered on victory and revenge; most of mine were anger and embarrassment. I’d told her about the conversation I’d had with Daniel in the hotel van last night—she knew I was taking baby steps with him. This all felt selfish and outrageous, and I couldn’t believe she was acting like this was a super-fun way to spend an afternoon. She was too old for this kind of stunt. It was humiliating.

But I didn’t say any of that. Not in front of Daniel. To be honest, I was a little peeved at him, too, because he seemed perfectly happy to be her partner in crime.

This was not how I wanted things to go today.

By the time we got back to the diner, all the adrenaline in the car had worn off. Aunt Mona made a weak attempt at apologizing to both of us, but Daniel wouldn’t accept it. He said it was “fun.” And while she parked at the curb and called another fellow artist to brag about what happened, I exited the car with Daniel and talked to him on the sidewalk.

“I’m so sorry,” I told him after shutting the door and making sure Mona couldn’t hear us.

“Don’t be sorry. Seriously. That was unexpected, and your godmother is a trip.”

“She’s something, all right,” I muttered.

He chuckled and gave me a gentle smile. “It’s fine. Seriously.”

“I’m just . . . I don’t know. This didn’t turn out like I wanted. I’m sorry I gave you the wrong impression about her tagging along, and I’m sorry about her nutty shenanigans. To top it all off, we didn’t even learn much about the spreadsheet.”