The Wives of Beverly Row 3: Lust Has a New Address by Abby Weeks Page B

we were married.”
    “What can I say? After sixteen years of marriage, people sort of become blind to what’s right in front of them. It was like I got so used to looking at you that it was like looking at myself. I couldn’t see your beauty after being together that long.”
    “Maybe it’s my new clothes and hair and makeup,” Ariel said. “It’s amazing what you can do when you have a little extra money.”
    Gabe nodded. She knew he felt bad about stealing from her and Becky but she couldn’t help bringing it up. The waitress came and took their orders. Gabe ordered steak. Ariel asked for the salmon. They looked at each other across the table. It was strange. Ariel had been married to Gabe for so many years, she’d gone through so much pain and difficulty to get away from him, and now here she was sitting across from him and she felt as if she was on a date. It was as if the entire sixteen years of their marriage had never even happened.
    “So tell me about the deal,” she said.
    “Okay,” Gabe said, clearing his throat. “ Storm on the Sea of Galilee.”
    Ariel looked at him. He had to be kidding. He’d finally lost his marbles. “You’re kidding,” she said, flatly.
    “Just hear me out,” Gabe said.
    Ariel didn’t even want to hear him out. It was a waste of time. There was no way on God’s earth she was going to try and forge a Rembrandt. That painting had to be worth over a hundred-million dollars. Every art expert in the world would be on it.
    “So, you remember that painting was stolen?”
    “Of course I remember,” Ariel said. It was one of the most famous art thefts in history. “The Isabella Stewart Gardner theft. It was taken along with a Vermeer and eleven other pieces. Total value estimated at what? Three-hundred million?”
    “And do you know what the reward is for information leading to their recovery?”
    Ariel looked up at him. He was insane. “I don’t have a clue, Gabe. A million dollars?”
    “Five million, Ariel. Five million dollars.” He held up his hand, five fingers spread out to illustrate.
    “And what do you propose? That I paint the Rembrandt and we just walk into the museum with it? Hey, we’ve got your painting. Now can we have our check?”
    Gabe lifted his eyebrows. “Something like that,” he said.
    Ariel shook her head. “Gabe, you’re crazier than I thought.”
    “You look so sexy when you argue,” Gabe said.
    Ariel took a sip of her wine. She rolled her eyes. What did he think? That he could flatter her into going to jail for him? Their food arrived and it looked delicious. Ariel tasted the salmon and it melted like butter in her mouth.
    “Fifty-fifty partners after my expenses,” Gabe said. “That’s almost two-and-a-half-million apiece.”
    Ariel was still shaking her head. “Let’s just assume for one minute that I actually could forge that painting.”
    “I know you can.”
    “It’s one of the most complex pieces of art you could have come up with, Gabe. The sky tones in that painting. The detail in the waves.”
    “I know you can do it, Ariel.”
    “That painting has been archived. They’ve got high resolution imagery of every square inch of the canvas, including what’s behind the frame. There’s no way you could reproduce it. There’s no way of even knowing the hidden markings on the original.”
    “What if I told you there was.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve got the archival imagery.”
    “Front and back?”
    Gabe pulled a laptop from his briefcase and opened it on the table. The restaurant was pretty expensive, not the kind of place you could usually pull out a computer, but Gabe never cared about things like that. He opened an image file. It was a high resolution archival image of the entire canvas of Storm on the Sea of Galilee , including the markings on the edge of the canvas, the part that was usually covered by the frame. Those parts of the canvas were kept secret precisely to prevent forgers from reproducing