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FORTY-FIVE

I walk home from Calliope, numb, disbelieving.

It’s impossible, and yet there it is. Fired.

Terminated. Gainfully unemployed. No job.

No benefits. No income. There’ll be a little money from selling my stock, but I’m not fully vested, so it won’t be much.

They’ll have to give me some kind of severance, won’t they?

I’ve never been fired before, and maybe the rules are different.

No unemployment in Massachusetts if you’re fired for cause, I know that, but does that mean no severance or CObrA either?

Will Tony even give me a recommendation?

How can you recommend a person you’ve sacked?

I don’t want to talk to anyone. Talking will make it true.

Or more true. I wander in circles around the apartment, but it’s too small for this to last long.

I’m too nauseous to eat. No escaping into work.

Can’t focus on a book, and I hate watching television during the day.

I could go to bed and pull the covers over my head, hide in sleep.

But I won’t be able to sleep. Too revved. Too angry. Too broke.

If I took Damien’s millions, all my financial problems would disappear. I’d be able to live a life of pure hedonism, everyone’s dream. But this is exactly why he got me fired—it had to be him—and I’m not about to hand him exactly what he wants, what he’s been trying to destroy my life for. Ever.

I flop on my bed and close my eyes. I could always sue Calliope for wrongful termination, make them reinstate me and maybe get back pay.

But that’s a plan I can’t afford even with the girlfriend discount.

And anyway, do I really want that job back?

I’ll find a new one, a better one. I could start my own consulting firm.

Or figure out what career #3 would look like.

I’m not without options. This makes me feel a little better, and, surprisingly, I fall asleep.

When I wake, it’s dark. I was supposed to meet Wyatt for dinner at seven. It’s eight. I run into the kitchen, retrieve my phone from my purse. There are three texts, three calls, three messages.

“I’m so sorry,” I say as soon as he answers. Seems like I’ve been saying sorry a lot today.

“Where are you?”

“I’m, I’m home. I fell asleep.”

“What’s wrong?”

I explain, and he says he’ll be right over.

“Damien wants me broke,” I tell him when he arrives. “No job. No money for rent or for lawyers. No way to fight him.”

Wyatt doesn’t contradict me, but he doesn’t agree with me either. Instead, he asks, “Have you eaten anything?”

“Breakfast.”

“Let’s go get some dinner—and a strong drink.”

I lean my head on the back of the couch. “I’m never leaving this apartment ever again.”

“How about I pick up some comfort food then? Italian? Or I could pop into Tatte and grab some decadent pastry?”

“I’m never eating ever again.”

“That’s what I like to hear. A positive attitude.”

“Just call me Pollyanna.”

“A movie, Ms. Pollyanna? A silly rom-com?”

I open my eyes and give him a dour smile. “All I want to do right now is wallow in self-pity—and for you to say ‘poor baby’ lots of times.”

“Poor baby lots of times.” He laughs. “Fair enough. If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll stick around for the pity party.”

WHEN WYATT CHECKS his phone the next morning, he whistles. “Fucker.”

I’ve barely slept all night, and I look up at him groggily. “Huh?”

He hands me the phone. It’s an email from Delphine, the Manet Foundation’s lawyer, reiterating that the twenty-nine mil is still on the table.

I jerk awake. “And when I refuse, what else is he going to do to mess up my life?”

“I don’t know what else he’s got, but the man is clearly on a mission. And willing to go in for the kill.” He forces a smile. “Poor baby.”

“Wah, wah, wah.”

“I’ll go into the office and see what I can find out. Whether he was behind the firing or just taking advantage of it—or maybe it was just a coincidence.”

“No coincidence,” I mutter.

He climbs out of bed and kisses my forehead. “Will you be all right alone, poor baby?”

“Okay, okay, enough with the ‘poor baby.’ I’m fine—or will be. Go.” It’s six thirty, the time I usually start my day. But I have no reason to start my day. I have no day. “I’ll try to get some sleep. Tough night.”

“I’m sure,” he says, pulling on his pants. “I’ll check in with you later.”

As soon as he leaves, exhaustion overwhelms me and tugs me down into a fragmented sleep.

I dream of an old house, lovely but tired.

I’m in a shadowy room with a towering ceiling and large mullioned windows bordered by billowing old-fashioned velvet curtains.

Berthe’s paintings cover the walls: Two Sisters on a Couch , The Mother and Sister of the Artist , The Cradle , Young Woman with a Parrot .

Then I’m on the street, staring up at it from outside. It’s ornate, four or five stories tall, with intricately carved wrought-iron balconies climbing the limestone facade across three of the floors. Window boxes filled with flowers. A grand, rounded entry door.

I’m back inside again, frantically trying to find a child, and growing more desperate, filled with fear.

I call for her as I run along hallways. Up and down a wide stairway, up and down the narrow back stairs.

Across a broad foyer with a mosaic floor that looks like one of Berthe’s paintings.

In and out of rooms streaked with sunlight.

But she’s not here. The house is dead, empty. Then I remember there’s a basement.

I stumble down rickety stairs. A basement with a dirt floor, a ceiling so low I can barely stand.

I push cobwebs from my face, from my mouth.

Shout again. Barrels everywhere. A maze of barrels.

Maybe she’s hiding behind one. “Where are you?” I call over and over until my voice is a reedy rasp.

“If I can’t find you, we’ll lose everything.

” But the basement is as dead and empty as the floors above.

When I wake, I’m covered in sweat. I roll over to the dry side of the bed and admonish myself again for my lack of creativity. Searching feverishly for something I’ve lost? Something I want to regain more than anything? Gee. My job. My life. My sense of self.

I take a shower, then go to the kitchen to make coffee.

Just like any other morning: wash up, breakfast, off to work.

After I choke down half a bagel, I go into the living room and flip open the box of pastels.

As I sketch the flirty girl, I lose myself in my strokes, become only present in the moment, everything else gone. A gift.

When I resurface from my immersion, I blink.

It’s ten o’clock on a Wednesday morning, and I’m scratching pastel sticks on a pad of paper like a bored child home from school with a cold.

I gaze at my exquisite Party . What if Damien succeeds?

What if he takes her away from me? As I study her, it occurs to me that maybe I misinterpreted my dream.

That it wasn’t about me searching for myself—it was me searching for what I need to best Damien.

In a house full of Berthe’s paintings. Berthe’s house?

If I can’t find you, we’ll lose everything.

I LOOK UP Berthe Morisot’s residences. Immediately, the screen is filled with a photograph of an opulent five-story house clinging tightly to a Parisian sidewalk: 40 Rue de Villejust. It has wrought-iron balconies and window boxes on three levels.

Beneath the photo, it says that Berthe Morisot lived there for most of her life, passing it on to her daughter Aimée Manet Deniaus, who passed it on to her daughter, Colette Deniaus Bernheim.

I call Jonathan and tell him what I found, but not what led me to it.

Dreams aren’t hallucinations, so I suppose there’s nothing to hide, but it’s difficult to deny the supernatural undertones.

Berthe’s house, Aimée and Colette’s too.

The same house I ran through in a dream before I knew any of this.

I try to keep my voice from giving away my turmoil.

“We know the Nazis stole the artwork, so, so, do you think they could they have taken the house too?”

“Sure. They grabbed property, businesses, whatever had value—especially from Jews. Give me the address again. There might be some information on it in our archives.”

“Thanks, pal. Appreciate it.”

When I get off the phone, I look at the photograph on my screen, my heart hammering.

It’s all too weird. Impossible. And yet there it is.

Party probably hung in that very house, maybe was even painted there.

But, no, in order for everyone to believe it was a Manet, it would have been in his house.

Berthe worked with the other Impressionists at édouard’s studio, so maybe she painted it there.

But if that’s the case, wouldn’t the other artists have seen her working on it?

So does that mean it is a Manet? And that I’m having a psychotic break?

“What’s going on?” I ask Berthe.

No response. I’m losing it. Certifiably mad. Please help me, Berthe. Someone please help me.

The sound of my cell startles me. Jonathan.

“You working from home?” he asks. “Called your office, and your assistant said to try your cell.”

I close my eyes. Another whack. Too much. I give him a quick account of yesterday’s events.

“Well, that sucks,” he says. “How about I come by after work and bring you a consolation dinner? I’ve found something that might cheer you up—but don’t get too excited. Very preliminary, but at the least it’ll distract you a little. What do you say?”

He arrives with a large pot and a loaf of French bread. Turns out he’s made jambalaya, which he claims is the best antidote to melancholy. “Not chicken soup?” I ask.

“Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” He frowns. “Chicken soup is for illness. Jambalaya is for stress.”

I take the pot from him and place it on the stovetop. Then I pour us each a glass of wine, and we sit on the couch facing Party . “So what did you find out?” I ask, without giving him time to look at the painting.

“Not all that much. Just that 40 Rue de Villejust did belong to the Bernheims until they ‘sold’ it to a Heinrich Achenbach in 1940.”

“No selling involved?”

“Turns out Achenbach was SS. A colonel or something like that—and although there are documents verifying the property changed hands, there are no records of money being transferred.”

“Bastards.”

Jonathan nods in agreement. “Achenbach disappeared right before Hitler committed suicide. Never seen again. Probably escaped to Brazil, where so many of his Nazi brethren were welcomed—and hidden.”

“He just abandoned the house?”

“Probably figured his life was more important than a house he hadn’t paid a penny for.

” Jonathan sighs. “There was a major housing shortage after the war in Paris—so many buildings had been bombed and ransacked during the fighting—and the city used anything that was still standing for people to live in. That’s probably what happened to 40 Rue de Villejust, but any specifics about your house are nonexistent until the mid-’60s. ”

I wait as he scrolls through his phone. Your house.

“It was purchased from the government in 1967 and upgraded into nice flats by the Fournier family. They held on to it until the ’90s, sold it, and then it was sold again a couple more times. Now it’s owned by an étienne Beaumont and has something like eight rental apartments.”

“I can’t believe you found all this out so fast.”

He shrugs. “That’s the Conference’s mission. Been at it for decades, and the databases have grown quite extensive over time.”

“So just another pilfered property to enter into the databases more than eighty years later.”

“But it’s property that might belong to you.” He pauses. “And this is the part I thought would cheer you up—it’s now my job to find out if it is.”

“The Conference is going to investigate? You’re going to investigate?”

“And if the house is yours, as I suspect, figure out how to get it back.”

My mind is racing. Could I own a beautiful old building in Paris?

What would I do with a beautiful old building in Paris?

Sell it, undoubtably, but not before I search it.

Granted, it’s unlikely any family belongings would still be there after this long, but it’s not impossible.

And I need to follow every lead. Clutch at every crumb.

The trial is less than three weeks away.

“Will they send you to Paris?” I demand.

Then I add, more levelly, “To check it out, I mean.” Calm down, Tamara. Pull yourself together.

He throws me a questioning look. “Maybe, especially if the current owner is resistant—something that’s common and makes perfect sense. This Mr. Beaumont bought a property he believed was legitimately available for sale—which it technically was—and now he’s going to be told he has to give it up.”

“Doesn’t the German government pay for what’s confiscated?”

“They do, but it can be a long negotiation. Sometimes decades. Especially when there’s rental income involved.”

“If you went over there,” I say, straining to sound noncommittal, “would you have access to the building?”

“Probably. It’s all part of the investigation process. Why?”

“Oh, I was just thinking, you know, that, that maybe I’d like to see the house where my ancestors lived.” I wave my hand to show it’s no big deal. “Now that I’ve got all this free time.”