Chapter 11: What Philippa Wants

Philippa sat down in a leather chair under the fourth Lantern and rapped her cane on the floor.

"Now," she said. "I want to hear what you want."

"I want them back," I said.

"They're yours. I'll sign them over tonight."

"I don't want you to give them back. You paid for them."

"I paid a thief."

"You paid a thief and you loved them," I said. "That's not nothing. I want you to keep loving them."

Her mouth trembled and firmed again.

"What do you want to do about Blair?"

I looked at Scott.

He stood by the bookcase with his hands in his pockets, quiet, waiting.

I had expected him to take over.

Every other man I had known would have.

"Tell me what you'd do," I said to him.

"Call my lawyers in the morning. File suit against Crane and Kingsley for fraud. Freeze every sale he's made on her name."

"And?"

"It would take two years and end in a settlement."

"And she'd walk away rich."

"Probably."

"What do you want to do, Siobhan?" he said.

It was the first time anyone had asked me that in seven years.

I took a long breath.

"I want them to see it," I said.

"See what?"

"All of it. In public. At her own gala."

I walked to the first canvas and put my hand flat in the air in front of it.

"Rupert has told people for seven years that Blair paints like this."

"She's about to stand in front of three hundred people and swear she still can."

"Yes," Philippa said slowly. "The tenth Lantern."

"Let her."

"Let her what?"

"Let her try. Hang these nine on the wall behind her." I turned. "And hand me a brush."

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