Page 48 of The Picasso Heist

I WAKE UP the next morning to a text from Skip. He wishes me luck and attaches a screenshot from the New York State Department of Labor website. It’s a form to file for unemployment benefits.

Funny guy, my brother.

I get out of bed, shower, and go to my closet to pick out just the right outfit. I stand in front of my entire wardrobe with my arms crossed and wonder what says I’m outta here the best.

I opt for a simple black skirt and white blouse as if to make clear that there’s no gray area in what I’m doing. I’m giving Echelon my two weeks’ notice.

Ha. By quitting, I won’t even be eligible for unemployment.

“Good morning, Jacinda,” I say, standing at the door of her corner office in the HR department. “How was your weekend?”

I don’t really listen to her answer. At least, not to the words. This is simply about gauging the moment. I need her to be somewhat distracted, a bit preoccupied, perhaps, with the start of a new week and what’s on her plate.

Jacinda says, “It was fine,” or something to that effect. What she doesn’t do is elaborate. There are no details or anecdotes, and she does not ask how my weekend was. She barely even gives me a glance. Her head’s buried in a file on her desk.

The timing is perfect.

“I know you must be super-busy, but do you have a moment?” I ask, then quickly add the two words that will guarantee she won’t say no. “It’s important.”

Telling people something’s important almost always gets their attention. But in the wake of the Picasso theft, with the entire House of Echelon on edge, saying it to the head of HR is a showstopper. Jacinda closes the file, motions to the chair in front of her desk. She asks me to close the door.

“Before you say a word,” she says the second I sit down, “does this have anything to do with your statement to the police? Because if it does, I’ve been instructed by in-house counsel to refer that to them.”

She sounds like she’s reading off a cue card.

The police took statements from every person who was on the scene when the painting was stolen or who had advance knowledge of the day and time the painting was leaving the building.

Add them all up and you get about fifty Echelon employees.

In other words, it wasn’t exactly a closely guarded secret.

“No. This isn’t about anything I said to the police,” I say. “But it does have to do with what happened.”

Jacinda blinks as if I’ve just short-circuited her brain. She has no cue cards for this scenario. Should she stop me or should she let me keep talking?

“Maybe you should run this by the lawyers first,” she says.

“No,” I tell her.

“No?”

“You’re the one I need to talk to.” I cross my legs, settling into the chair. “Over the weekend, I got approached by a reporter from the Post.”

“Approached as in the reporter called you?”

“Approached as in he stalked me. He literally came up to me in a Starbucks.”

“Shit,” says Jacinda. “What’d you tell him?”

“Nothing. But he knew I was the one who ran after the thief.”

“How?”

“I asked but he wouldn’t tell me. Probably because I wasn’t giving him anything in return. I wouldn’t even confirm that I worked here.”

“Good.”

“For now, maybe,” I say. “Which is why we’re having this conver-sation.”

“Listen, if you’re worried for your safety, then—”

“No, that’s not what I’m worried about…”

I watch as it clicks for Jacinda. She suddenly connects the dots the same way that imaginary reporter might.

“Oh,” she says with a sigh. “I get it.”

It might have been no secret within Echelon as to when Bergamo was picking up his Picasso, but once it was stolen and destroyed, this place, as I knew it would, switched into a communications lockdown.

Smarmy Waxman gathered every Echelon employee on the auction floor and laid down the law: No talking to the press.

No talking to your family. No talking, period.

Well, except to the police. If you were asked, you answered their questions.

Other than that, it should be as if the Picasso had never existed.

“The House of Echelon lives or dies based on how we conduct ourselves from this moment forward,” Waxman declared.

The line was overly dramatic, perhaps, but it got the job done. Collective amnesia set in. Especially when Waxman tacked on “Anyone caught betraying my trust will be terminated immediately.”

“As you said yourself, Jacinda, it would be a bad look for Echelon if it was known that you hired the daughter of Conrad Greer. When you confronted me about it, I didn’t think anyone would ever find out.

But things have obviously changed. Echelon’s now under a microscope. You don’t disagree, do you?”

She can’t. She doesn’t. “I don’t,” she says.

Mission accomplished. Sayonara, House of Echelon.

It’s a clean break; I’m leaving without a whiff of suspicion. If anything, I’m taking one for the team. All that’s left for me to do is say the words out loud and make it official. It couldn’t be any easier.

“Knock, knock!” someone says, barging in. Even before I turn my head, I know there’s only one person at Echelon who can open a closed door anytime he wants. “Am I interrupting?”

“No,” a startled Jacinda tells her boss. “Halston was just—”

“Halston, indeed,” says Waxman, only there’s no smarm this time. There’s no anything. His face is expressionless. He points at me. “You and I need to talk.”