Chapter 4 - The Rat in the Corner
The rain began around noon, drumming violently against the frosted glass windows of an underground dive bar near the South Boston fish piers.
Trevor Baines sat in a battered leather booth in the darkest corner of the room, cradling his right arm. His wrist was bound in a stiff white fiberglass cast, courtesy of a humiliating two-hour visit to Massachusetts General Hospital’s emergency room. Every time the door opened, letting in a gust of wet, fish-scented air, Trevor flinched, terrified that Declan Shaw or one of Roman Kessler’s harbor enforcers would step out of the fog.
His phone buzzed on the sticky tabletop.
Trevor grabbed it with his left hand. The screen showed an unknown number. He hesitated, swallow-spitting his cheap scotch, before swiping the screen.
“Hello?” he whispered hoarsely.
“You’re pathetic, Trevor,” a woman’s voice sneered through the speaker.
Trevor sat up straight. “Celeste?”
“Don’t say my name on an open line, you idiot,” Celeste Harrow snapped. “I’m sitting in my office listening to my father scream at the legal department. Grace Halbrook walked out this morning. And ten minutes ago, Roman Kessler’s corporate attorneys sent formal notice of breach of contract, demanding the return of his seven-million-dollar deposit and threatening a federal fraud investigation over the Cabot charts.”
Trevor felt a cold sweat break out across his neck. “I told you! I warned you she was planning to leave! She told me last night she was taking her mother’s money and opening her own shop!”
“She didn't just take her mother’s money,” Celeste hissed, her voice vibrating with venom. “Kessler set her up. He bought her the Commercial Wharf building. *Commercial Wharf!* That bitch is opening an independent provenance firm fifty yards from my father’s yacht club!”
Trevor’s mind raced. The humiliation of the previous night flared back into his veins like battery acid. Grace had broken his arm. Roman Kessler had treated him like a stray dog. And now Grace was being crowned queen of the waterfront by the most feared billionaire in Massachusetts?
“She has to pay,” Trevor snarled into the receiver. “Celeste, listen to me. I lived with her for three years. I know how she works. I know where she keeps her archives, her backup hard drives, her personal notes.”
“I don’t care about her notes, Trevor! I care about destroying her before she testifies to the Antiquities Board about the Cabot ink! If she goes public with that spectral analysis, Northlight’s stock will crater, and the federal prosecutors will start digging into our foreign acquisitions!”
Trevor leaned closer to the phone, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper.
“What if Grace didn't just authenticate the fake chart?” he said, a sick grin twisting his bruised mouth. “What if she was the one who *forged* it?”
Silence fell on the other end of the line.
“Go on,” Celeste said, her tone suddenly chillingly attentive.
“Grace has the equipment,” Trevor explained rapidly. “Her grandfather taught her historical chemistry. In our apartment, she had jars of antique lampblack, historical bookcloth, seventeenth-century parchment scrapings. She spent weeks experimenting with oak gall ink recipes. I have photos of her home laboratory. I have text messages from two years ago where she complained about how easy it would be to slip a reproduction past your father.”
“Are those texts real?” Celeste asked.
“Does it matter?” Trevor countered. “If the police find seventeenth-century parchment fragments and 1850s synthetic aniline dye in her personal belongings, combined with an anonymous tip from her former domestic partner... who do you think the media will believe? The prestigious Harrow family who was ‘deceived’ by an unscrupulous rogue conservator, or a disgruntled employee who suddenly came into millions of dollars from Roman Kessler?”
On the other end of the line, Celeste let out a low, purring laugh.
“You’re smarter than you look, Trevor,” she murmured. “Can you get those materials planted in her new wharf office before the grand opening next week?”
“I can’t get near her,” Trevor admitted bitterly, glancing down at his cast. “Kessler put two shadows on me. If I take three steps toward Commercial Wharf, his men will throw me off a pier.”
“Leave the logistics to me,” Celeste said smoothly. “I have friends in the Boston Police Department who owe my father favors. And I have private investigators who know how to bypass civilian security systems. All I need from you is an official signed affidavit detailing Grace’s ‘forgery operation’ and the photos of her home lab.”
“That will cost you,” Trevor said, his greed instantly overcoming his terror. “I owe eight hundred thousand to some very dangerous people. I need one million in an offshore account by tomorrow.”
“You’ll get five hundred thousand upfront,” Celeste countered ruthlessly. “And the rest when Grace Halbrook is carried out of Commercial Wharf in handcuffs. Deal?”
Trevor looked at his broken arm. The pain throbbed with every beat of his heart, fueling an intoxicating wave of vindictive rage.
May you like
“Deal,” Trevor spat. “Make sure the handcuffs are tight.”
***