“I know. I mean it pissed him off so much when Neely acquired the Creature Notebook that he went to a hell of a lot of trouble to commission a copy.”
“True enough,” Evan said, but there was something in his voice that made me think that he wasn’t talking to me so much as acknowledging a private joke. Or maybe he was just trying to hide his irritation. Under the circumstances, it was probably indelicate of me to mention the notebook.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
As always, he understood what I meant. “Why do you think he changed his will? He knew I wanted it. And the time we spoke of it, he was very clear that he wanted me to have it.”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “He never mentioned it to me at all. Not as a bequest, anyway. But he knew I loved it and that it was my favorite of all his pieces. And I think—” I hesitated, then rushed recklessly on. “I think he wanted me to know that he trusted me and that he loved me.”
Evan was watching me intently. “Something happened. Something about the time that he changed his will. What?”
I glanced down at the table. “I fucked up. Jahn helped me out.” I lifted my head to look at Evan, and realized he was a little blurry. I blinked, and was mortified when I felt a tear snake down my cheek. “Shit,” I said as I brushed it away. “I just—I felt bad. I think the notebook was Jahn’s way of telling me it was all okay.”
“Angie—”
He was reaching for me, but I pushed back from the table and stood up, determined to get this conversation back on track. As in, not about me or my secrets. “So why you?” I said brightly.
“What do you mean?”
“Why was he going to leave it to you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave it to Cole?” I’d turned to the coffeepot as I spoke, but I caught a sharp movement in my peripheral vision, as if my words had jolted him.
“Why do you say that?” His voice was low and measured, and I had absolutely no idea what button I had pushed.
“Just because art is Cole’s thing. I mean, he did that whole internship in Rome, and he teaches classes at that community center.” I shrugged. “I dunno. It just made sense.”
“I suppose it does,” Evan said.
“So why did you want it?”
He focused on spreading cream cheese on the second half of his bagel, and for a moment I wasn’t sure he was going to answer. Then he said, “Because the notebook means something. It represents something huge.”
“The missing dragon shield, you mean? Or something more?” The story was that as a youth, Da Vinci had painted a fabulous dragon on a shield. It was so incredible that his father had not sold it to the original buyer, and it had disappeared into history. But I didn’t think that Evan was talking about a lost artifact.
“It’s a reflection of how Da Vinci looked at the world. He saw things that weren’t there. He looked beneath the surface. He looked at the world the way it really was, and it didn’t scare him.”
I stared at him in unabashed amazement.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s just—I can’t believe you said that. It’s exactly what I love about that notebook. About most of Da Vinci’s work, actually.”
The corner of his mouth curved up for just a moment before his features settled back into an expression of bland indifference.
I frowned. “Evan?”
“I want to buy the notebook from you, Angie.”
“You what?” Surely I hadn’t heard him right.
“I want the notebook. I need it. To be honest, I need it more than you do.” His voice was calm, like a businessman in the midst of negotiations.
I wasn’t calm at all. “Are you fucking kidding me? I just told you how much it means to me.”
“And it’s served its purpose. Whatever message Jahn was sending you, he delivered it. Giving me the notebook doesn’t change a thing.”