Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy #2)(61)

Declan liked coming to the Fenway Studios at the end of the day when Jordan was just waking up for her workday, which lasted all night. He liked that without any conversation they’d decided it was right for him to sit in the antique leather chair by the window and tell her about his day while she worked at her canvases. He liked that she had begun painting him again, although she refused to show him this portrait. He liked that she was trying to make him her sweetmetal. He liked watching her create her copies of El Jaleo and Madame X, her ability with the brush never failing to transfix him as she forged layer upon layer in oils, same as when he had first glimpsed her at the Fairy Market. Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau.

Jordan Hennessy.

He thought about her all the time.

He liked it all. He liked it very much.



“What are you thinking?” Matthew asked.

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?”

“I’m not thinking about anything, Matthew, I’m just waiting for Jordan like you are.”

The two brothers lingered in the Dutch Room in the Gardner museum, killing time until Jordan was meant to meet them for late lunch. Breakfast for her, since she probably was only just now waking up.

“You are thinking, though,” Matthew insisted. He had that whinge to his voice that indicated today was going to be one of his tricky days. “You’re thinking of things you’re going to talk about with Jordan. Why don’t you talk about them with me?”

He wasn’t wrong, which was an impressive display of discernment on his part. But it was no less aggravating. Declan said, “Because you’re two different people. I’m not going to copy-paste a conversation.”

“You just think I’m stupider than her,” Matthew said. “You save all the smart things to talk about with her and then just point out people walking dogs to me.”

“Do you or don’t you like it when I point out dogs?” Declan asked.

Matthew groused. “I don’t only like when you point out dogs. I want to know what you’re doing. What you’re, like, you know, thinking.”

“Fine,” Declan said. “I was wondering if these paintings are sweetmetals. If that’s why they were stolen.”

The green-wallpapered Dutch Room in the Gardner was notable for many things, including a Rembrandt self-portrait, a few Rubens, and some very excellent historical furniture, but it was now probably most famous for the things that weren’t there.

One cold March several decades before, two thieves dressed as policemen had stolen thirteen works, including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer. It remained the largest unsolved art heist in history. Any crime of that size would have been notable, but the loss was felt even more acutely because the Gardner museum was both small and unusual, unable to rebound in the way any other museum might have. Isabella Stewart Gardner had overseen every inch of the intimate museum’s creation. She’d acquired and placed every piece, micromanaged down to the building and tearing down of walls and other architectural features, and one of the requirements in her will was that nothing in the museum be changed after her death. Even widening one of the doorways a few inches for accessibility had required petitions and paperwork. This mandate meant that the museum couldn’t acquire new works or rearrange old ones to take the place of the stolen works. Instead, the empty frames had been hung back up where the pieces had been. In essence, the loss itself was now displayed—and what more universal piece of art could there be?

“Sweetmetals, why? Because they were weird choices? The stolen stuff, I mean?” Matthew asked, which, again, displayed slightly more focus than Declan had come to expect from his brother. He’d been paying attention on their many visits.

“Because they were weird, yes. Because there were more expensive pieces hanging just feet away and they left them. Because they took that bronze finial, of all things.”

“The bird thing,” said Matthew.

“Yes,” Declan echoed drily. This was more of what he expected from his brother. “The bird thing.”

For decades experts had been trying to understand why the thieves had taken the pieces they had, and why they had treated them the way they did. They’d hacked valuable canvases right out of the frame. They’d pocketed disparate works on paper. They’d taken the Shang dynasty bronze beaker that had been on the table in front of the Rembrandt they also stole. And of course, as Matthew noted, the bird thing—they had stolen a bronze eagle finial off the end of a random flagpole. Was it personal? Experts wondered. A random grab? What did these works have in common?

“I was thinking if they were sweetmetals, the randomness would make sense,” Declan said. “Or at least as much sense as any other explanation. It wouldn’t have been about traditional value or artistic merit. Just energy.”

“But why didn’t they take the dancing lady, then?”

“El Jaleo.”

“That’s what I said. Dancing lady with her arm on backward.”

Declan resented the somewhat accurate description of the painting but let it pass. “I don’t know. Maybe they ran out of time. Maybe it was too big. Maybe they had been told not to.”

“By who?”

“Powerful people are interested in these things,” Declan said. “Powerful people control a lot of them. It’s why we’re working very carefully.”