Page 171 of Portrait of an Unknown Woman

“How did the situation resolve itself?”

“Regrettably, Hamilton and his wife died in a single-engine plane crash off the coast of Maine.”

“How many others were there?”

“Fewer than you might imagine. Leonard handled most of them with an envelope filled with naughty photographs or incriminating financial information. And not just buyers. Investors, too. Why do you think Max van Egan still has a quarter-billion in the fund?” Phillip took up the phone and refreshed the web browser. “How long before the story appears?”

“I’m surprised it hasn’t already. When it does, Masterpiece will go up in flames.”

“You’re as guilty as I am, you know.”

“Somehow I don’t think your lenders and investors are going to see it that way.”

Phillip tossed aside the phone in anger. “Why did you do it?” he asked.

“I was arrested an hour after I purchased the Gentileschi. It was an elaborate sting operation by Gabriel Allon and the Italians. They gave me a choice. I could spend the next several years in an Italian prison, or I could give them your head on a platter.”

“You should have asked for a lawyer and kept your mouth shut.”

“You wired ten million euros into a Carabinieri-controlled bank account. They would have eventually traced the money back to you, with or without my help.”

“I suppose the redemptions were Allon’s doing, too. He baited me into committing an act of bank fraud over a compromised phone.”

“I told you to put the painting on ice,” said Magdalena. “But you wouldn’t listen.”

“You put a rope around my neck and walked me to the gallows.”

“I had no other choice.”

“You were a drug dealer when I found you. And this is how you repay me?”

“But they were real drugs, weren’t they, Phillip?” Magdalena tooka long look over her shoulder. “I don’t suppose Lindsay is in one of those suitcases.”

“It’s just the two of us.”

“How romantic. Where are we off to?”

Phillip looked down at the phone; Magdalena, at her Cartier wristwatch.

It was half past nine.