To Steal a Weeping Widow

Chapter Eleven: Down My Shirt and Behind My Back

"Portrait of a Young Man" by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino or 'Raphael' (1513-1514), stolen by the Gestapo 1939, current location unknown - estimated value >$100 million

Chapter Eleven

"What happened yesterday, Ellie? I know what the press is saying, what mom and dad are saying... hell, I tried calling August this morning to talk to him, too. But I want to hear it from you. What happened?"

"Well, you know about the media," I started half-heartedly, already shying from the seriousness. "The articles, tweets, videos, news segments—"

"I get it," she interrupted. "Lots of people talking. Go on."

"They think I did it. There's no evidence, but everyone thinks it was me." My shoulders tipped and sagged with a shrug. "They cornered me yesterday to confirm and ask how."

Carrie's eyes gleamed as she leaned in.

"And did you?" she dared. "Did you do it?"

For that moment, as she challenged me in the restored living room of my apartment, as a slow, wide smile unfurled on her cheeks, my tangible worries turned into another momentary strike of reflection. The happenings were unreal, but they were happening and true. They were something to laugh at in their factual, enormous absurdity. And a timid smile grew on my face, too. A smile that both summarized and hid the paralyzing speechlessness of it all.

How did I get here?

"Never mind," Carrie said dismissively after a moment, blinking with a careless flick of her wrist. She swished the tension off our shoulders with a manicured hand. "I know the answer already."

Carrie laughed, a throaty giggle to follow her rhetorical questioning that was never intended for an answer. She hadn't actually been asking, and I'd known that, so had obliged with silence and patience. Carrie was the queen of reminders through tested limits or callouts, and having renewed her reign, she slung her legs back into my lap with bemused ease. "Now, go on. What did August say after everything? Was he there?"

"He didn't see what happened. It was in the parking lot when I was coming back from lunch. I went to find him after."

Carrie nodded, but I was still reaching for the right words to explain the awry events of the day before. I continued, "But he'd already heard about it from Simon, the head of the new security company we hired, so it wasn't a surprise when I got to him."

"Simon..." Carrie mused, thinking. "Oh, right, Simon Gatz? I read about him when I was reading about your supposed great escape with the Widow."

I snorted, a mocking, unbelieving laugh that burned my sinuses. "Great escape? What do they think happened, I got caught so I stuffed it down my shirt or some shit? That I just waltzed out with it behind my back after the police arrived?"

"God, who the hell knows. But go on, we'll talk about Simon in a minute. I mean, we have to, I saw a picture, he's hot as—"

I shushed her, feeling a burn coil up my cheeks and spread like spilled oil down my neck. Simon was attractive, but gossiping about the head of security, especially when he was hired after such a distasteful blight on the museum's history, felt... dirty.

It felt unrefined, unbecoming, un-something.

Something that would make it very hard to look Mr. Simon Gatz in the eye again. But that was silly, because my sister and I had spilled more than our fair share of scandal between the two of us, and never batted an eye after. We'd never flinched or cracked in the midst of those discussed. It was only after, when we were alone, that we rehashed details, dissected faux pas, and reveled in other's errors. It was our silent, stubborn, scarlet soaked oath of sisters. So, it shouldn't be any different. Simon Gatz shouldn't be any different. But I wasn't ready to discuss Simon's tenebrous eyes, his carefully stoic demeanor, or the Herculean heroism in my time of need. So I shushed her again, louder and disrupted with laughter when she continued on.