Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy #2)(44)

“Pozzi’s on the nose, don’t you think?”

Samuel-Jean Pozzi was the subject of one of John Singer Sargent’s most dramatic portraits, a full-length glory featuring his friend Dr. Pozzi, a well-known dandy and OB-GYN, in a blazing red dressing gown. Declan had feared using it as a name when contacting Jordan for a forgery might give the game away, but the potential reward of looking clever was too great a temptation.

“You didn’t guess it, did you?” Declan lifted his red scarf from his collar. “I’m wearing this scarf in his honor.”

“Cadmium red,” Jordan said. “Slightly toxic but little risk if handled well. Before I forget—”

She handed him the keys to his stolen car.

“Did you remember it takes premium?”

“Crumbs, I knew I forgot something. I did top up the wiper fluid.”

“Where is it?”

“A lady never tells.” She grinned at him. Then she stepped as close to the painting as she was permitted, bending at the waist to study the brushstrokes, graceful as one of Degas’s dancers. Her grin tugged wider as she guessed, correctly, that he was looking at her. Straightening, she lifted her arm and twisted her body, pulling herself into a perfect imitation of El Jaleo’s dancer. There was nothing like the sound of a museum, and the Gardner was no exception. The murmur of other patrons in the adjacent courtyard, the sound of footsteps echoing in hallways, the respectful whispers. Jordan Hennessy was art in front of art in a room that was art in a building that was art in a life that was art, and Declan told himself he had only come here to get his car back.

Foolish Declan smirked; Paranoid Declan sneered.

Paranoid Declan lost. Foolish Declan said, in an even tone, “You never finished my portrait. Seems unprofessional to just leave a client hanging like that.”

Jordan nodded. “And now you want a refund.”

“A refund won’t fill that hole on my wall.”

“It’d take multiple sittings. It might be ugly along the way before it’s all said and done.”

“I trust your expertise.”

She tapped her fingertips together absently. She didn’t look at him. “You know at the end of the day, it’s still a portrait, right? Just a copy of your face. No matter how well it turns out, that’s never changing. Just a copy.”

Declan said, “I’m perfecting my understanding of art more every day.”

Jordan frowned then—or at least she stopped smiling, which for her was as good as a frown. “What would you say if I told you I’d found a way to keep dreams awake?”

“I would wait for the punch line.”

“What if I told you this painting would keep Matthew awake if something happened to Ronan? That it had dream energy in it?”

Declan didn’t answer right away, because a trio of women entered the room, along with a docent. The four of them took an agonizing amount of time looking at the painting and taking photos in front of it and then asking the docent questions about the landscaping before they all trooped into the next room.

He glanced to be sure they were out of earshot, then glanced to see that Matthew was still sitting on the bench in the courtyard, looking at the flowers. Finally, he said, “I don’t think I’d say anything. I’d listen.”

And he did, quietly, as she pressed one of her hands into his shoulder to lean close and whisper everything she’d learned about the sweetmetals into his ear. She whispered how she’d realized that they were all art, and she whispered that perhaps this was why she felt so at home in museums. She whispered that this might be why she had been so drawn to John Singer Sargent in particular, and she whispered that she had decided to go to the most famous Sargent in Boston to see if it was a sweetmetal.

“And it is,” Declan said.

They looked at the painting in question. Neither said anything for a space. They just listened to the sound of both of them breathing and looking at the painting.

Jordan asked, “If you were me, what would you do next?”

He whispered: “Steal it.”

She laughed with delight, and he memorized the sound.

“It’s a shame you have mixed feelings about crime, Pozzi,” Jordan said, “because I’m pretty sure you were made for it. But don’t you think the Gardner’s been looted enough?”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I think … I think I’m gonna find out how they were made,” Jordan said. “And if I can, I’m gonna try to make one.”

She looked at him. He looked at her.

Declan could feel all his previous goals wandering even further away from him, all of them seeming silly and arbitrary now, the childhood dreams of a kid looking for stability, wishing upon a star that later turned out to be a satellite.

“Say you’ll stay in Boston,” she said.

You have to know what you want, or you’ll never get it.

“I’ll stay in Boston,” he said.





Ronan thought: This is what I was made for, probably.

The three dreamers sat shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the Pennsylvanian landscape below, the wind buffeting them hard. Mountain ridges and valleys looked like fingers had pinched the landscape in places and thumbprinted it in others. A broad river moved northwest to southeast. A smaller river came in from west to east, curled back on itself in rippling serpentine that reminded him of the black snake they’d found at the museum. Farms were cut into rectangles that butted up against wild dark forests. Roads were fine white hairs across it all, like parasitic worms in a dish. From this height, humans were invisible.