This wasn’t a masterpiece, like the ones I had seen protected under thick museum glass. It was simple but beautiful, with gold vines and flourishes decorating the edges. The first page was an explosion of leaves and berries, with, at the bottom center, two skulls. Immortal Love, it read in French, and the next page was illustrated with a colorful, naively painted image of a man and a woman in medieval clothing holding hands. And even though the painting was simple, I could tell that the woman was elderly—she was depicted with white hair—and that the man was very young: a teenager.
The image had been painted many centuries ago. Maybe even a millennium. I inspected it carefully, taking in every detail. The woman was old, her posture a little bent. And the man was gleaming with youth and health. I would have thought it was an old lady with her grandson, except for the way they stood hand in hand, their heads slightly inclined toward each other in a gesture of solidarity and affection.
I turned back to the title page. L’amur immortel, I read again, and then saw a subtitle written in spidery letters below. I could hardly make it out; the ink had worn with the centuries, and the old French was difficult to decipher. “A tale . . . love and tragedy . . . a bar . . . and . . . human . . .” My heart caught in my throat. Could the word be bardia? There was just enough space for it to be. And a human?
Oh my God, I had found something. My head spun and then cleared abruptly as the gallery’s doorbell buzzed. I got up, a bit wobbly, and raced into the gallery space. A familiar figure stood behind the glass door, tall enough to take up the whole windowpane. He cupped his eyes with his hands so he could see inside. I pressed the door release under the front desk.
“Vincent!” I exclaimed, feeling a twinge of guilt. “How did you know I was here?”
He strode into the gallery, hands in his pockets and an amused look on his face. After giving me a soft kiss, he released me and glanced curiously around the space. “I have my ways,” he said. Doing a Vincent Price voice and raising an eyebrow, he quipped, “I always know where you are.”
“No, really,” I prodded, laughing.
“Well, you see, there’s this thing called a text message,” he said, deadpan. “And I got one from your phone during your lunch break that told me you were gallery-sitting this afternoon.” A hint of a smile curved the corners of his lips.
“Oh, right,” I said, lamely shaking my head. This whole situation with Vincent’s undercover operations was messing with my mind. It was making me paranoid.
“So what are you doing here?” Vincent asked. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in the midst of gainful employ. Not that homework isn’t gainful.”
I was about to open my mouth to tell him the whole thing—to excitedly whip out the book and show it to him—when all of a sudden I hesitated. I didn’t want him to see it . . . yet. Not until I had actually figured out what it meant. Maybe it was my pride holding me back, but I wanted to see his face when I set the finished puzzle in front of him, complete with valuable information he couldn’t have found somewhere else.
“I was just feeling bored. Thought it would be fun to do something different for a change.”
“Bored?” Vincent looked astounded. “In the past week and a half you’ve gone to a total of four movies with Violette, and you and I have hung out . . . well, not as much as I’d have liked.” A flash of guilt crossed his face before he forced it to disappear.
“So what are you up to tonight?” I asked.
“The usual boring revenant stuff,” he replied, visibly squirming, and then he sighed and looked me in the eye. “Kate, you know what I’m doing.”
“Not exactly.” I couldn’t help the trace of bitterness in my voice.
Vincent pulled me close and said, “You want to call it off? You say the word.”
“No.” I shook my head, and Vincent wrapped his arms around me. “I love you, Kate,” he whispered. I closed my eyes and nestled in closer to him.
“We’re still on for tomorrow night, aren’t we?” he murmured.
I pulled back from him and smiled. “Pizza and a movie in our own private cinema? I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
“Yeah, I try to go out in style. Can’t have you forgetting about me for the three days I’m dormant.”
“As if!” Pulling him to the door, I said, “Papy’s due back in a few minutes, and I wouldn’t want him to think I was slacking on the job.”
“Hey, your Papy loves me,” Vincent said.
“He’s not the only one,” I said, and opening the door, I pretended to push him out onto the street. Closing it securely behind him, I blew a saucy air-kiss through the glass. Laughing, he turned and headed up the avenue toward our neighborhood.
I sped back to the office, slipped the small book into my purse, and then carefully put the boxes back into their places in the storage closet. As I locked it, I heard the key turn in the front door and Papy’s voice calling to tell me he had returned.