Ch 11
After class, Amy savored her walk across Harvard Yard. The Campus was classical New England and one of the most iconic institutions the world over. The neo-classical brick buildings and the colorful leaves and buzzing intellectual feel surrounding campus gave Amy a high. She also loved that she got to have lunch with Jake every Tuesday and Thursday. She made her way to the student union and found him already sitting at a small table against the windows overlooking Harvard Square. His head was bent over a book, a pencil in his right hand being flipped between each finger with extreme agility. The sun from the October sky slanting across his features, highlighting his gorgeous face, strong jawline and full lips. Just then, he used his left hand to rake through his hair, disheveling it just so. He didn't notice as Amy approached, so she slowed her walk, just absorbing her view. A smile crept across her face as she thought of all they had been through together. It had taken her a long time to accept that he was really in her corner. He was ready to trust her far sooner than she was him. But, in the end, love was all about trust. He had asked her to believe him and so, she did. It was so freeing to fully and completely trust another person.
He must have sensed something because he looked up and spotted her watching him. A smile spread across his face, he rose and took her backpack from her while giving her a kiss.
"Hello gorgeous," Jake said with a smile.
"Right back at you," Amy said returning the smile.
They both sat and Amy was surprised to see lunch already waiting for her. "You ordered?"
"I figured you'd eat just about anything, so I got you a sandwich. More time with you, less time in line." Jake said winking at her.
"You know me so well," she said taking a bite.
"Actually, I was thinking, we've been through hell and back, but there are still a lot of things I don't know about you." He said sinking into his sandwich too.
Amy thought about this, he was right. She and he had not had a traditional courtship. They had fallen in love under duress and extreme conditions, first traveling the globe to stop Vesper One, then to stop Pierce and his goons. Jake had literally saved Amy's life on more than one occasion, but it didn't leave a lot of time for the intimate details of a relationship.
"What do you want to know?" she said smiling.
Jake leaned across the table, "everything."
Amy smiled and shook her head. Did everything he do have to be sizzling?
"Ok, shoot, but then it's my turn," she said raising one eyebrow toward him.
Jake took another bite, thinking, after a moment, he said, "Ok, where were you born?"
Amy's forehead wrinkled, "That's what you want to start with?"
Jake slowly nodded, "at the beginning."
Amy sighed, "Ok, I was born at Mass General. Right here in Boston, so was Dan," Amy added for extra measure.
Jake nodded, "Ok, your turn."
Amy thought, then said, "Tell me something about yourself that I don't know, but I should."
Jake took a deep breath, leaned back in his seat and gave her a searching look, clearly thinking.
She loved the way he looked at her. His deep brown eyes sent a thrill up her spine every time.
"I'm in a band. I play bass. We're called The Lawn Mowers." Jake said with a grin.
Amy sat up straight, "you do? I didn't know that!"
Jake lifted his can of soda in a mock toast, "See? This game is valuable."
"Jake," Amy started, then closed her eyes and shook her head, "what can't you do? You're a genius, you speak 7 languages, you're an athlete, you play in a band, and you're a total hottie!" Amy added with flourish.
"Don't forget piano, violin and salsa dancing," Jake added with his trademark smile that made Amy melt.
She blushed, "of course, how could I forget those. When did you have time to learn all of this?" She genuinely wanted to know.
"Well, let's just say I had a lot of time on my own as a kid and not a lot of video games. The Rosenbloom's are long on brains so there was no shortage of academia available to me. Plus, Atticus was a toddler, so, Astrid was pretty busy with him. She managed to carve out some time with just me though. She was a linguist. We played word games in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. She wanted me to have some link to my mother."
This comment confused Amy. "What do you mean by that?"
"My mother was Portuguese. Astrid thought I should know how to speak it."
"Your mother was Portuguese?" Amy asked.
Jake nodded, "She died when I was a baby. All I have are old photos of her with dad and me" Jake said.
"What do you know about her?" Amy asked
Jake shrugged, "not a lot. She met dad as an undergrad when he went to the University of Lisbon for a semester. She was an art history major, specializing in Renaissance art."
Amy studied his reaction to her question. He seemed to show little emotion; flat.
He continued, "she moved to the states and they got married before grad school. That's about all I know. He doesn't talk about her much."
"How did she die?" Amy asked tentatively.
"She got some sort of aggressive cancer when I was only a few months old and was dead by my first birthday," Jake shrugged. Their light mood around the table had turned somber.
"I'm sorry Jake, I didn't know."
"It's OK, Astrid was mom to me. Almost everything I know and who I am is credited to Astrid. She was phenomenal." Jake said with a sad smile.
"I wish I could have met her. I think I would have really liked her,"
"Astrid would have loved you. You remind me a lot of her. She was such a force to be reckoned with, just like you. She commanded a presence in any room she entered; you both have that in common.
The lunch crowd was thinning as students headed off to their afternoon classes. Amy rose to leave.
"Wait a minute, I'll walk with you." Jake said taking her hand and leading her across the square.
Amy kept looking around trying to shake the feeling she was being watched. There were so many people around that it was hopeless to spot anyone suspicious.
Jake must have sensed her unease, because he asked, "What's going on? You're somewhere else right now, aren't you?"
Amy looked up at him and explained about at the house this morning. He glanced around quickly, but with so many people out and about it was impossible to get a feeling on anyone.
"I have an idea, why don't we sit on that park bench and pretend to make out, you can look over my shoulder for repeats and I'll do the same for you. If we notice anything, we signal each other."
As it turned out, they didn't have to make out very long before they were approached by a middle-aged woman in a beige raincoat.
"Excuse me, but I believe you are both the people I need to find." She said quietly.
Jake pulled away slowly and he and Amy looked up at this woman. She had to be in her late 50's, if not older. What did she want with Amy and Jake? Nobody even knew who they were on campus.
She continued, "I'd like to speak with both of you privately. Come with me."
Before Amy could protest, the woman began walking away toward a low post-modern building a hundred yards from their spot. She looked at Jake, and he looked at her. He shrugged and stood. They began to follow the woman. She led Amy and Jake into the Pusey Library, part of the expansive Harvard Library system. This building Amy had never been to before. The low post-modern building looked out of place amongst the classical New England buildings comprising most of campus.
"This is the antiquities, classics and manuscripts library on campus. It's very famous and I figured right up your alley." She said to Amy. Jake had a frown on his face and she could tell he was about at his limit with this wild goose chase. "You'll have to excuse my informality with you, I will tell you more once we are safely inside with no listening ears," she continued, sensing Jake's growing frustration.
She led them past the entrance lobby and into the collections room. They walked along the South-side wall until they came to a bank of soundproof rooms used for studying. She slid the heavy door open and gestured for them to follow her inside.
"There now, time for proper introductions. My name is Anne Hawley and I am the director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. You are Amy Cahill, granddaughter of Grace Cahill who commissioned the very library we are speaking in and who's personal collection helped fill these walls and stacks."
She gestured outside the glass panel wall and Amy's gaze followed her. Her mouth dropped open. She couldn't be telling the truth. Grace never mentioned that she had a library commissioned at Harvard. Anne must have picked up on Amy's disbelief so she continued,
"As you leave today, stop off in the vestibule and look at the display case to your right. It will help explain a lot." Anne Hawley then turned to Jake and smiled. "You are Jake Rosenbloom, son of a very dear friend of mine and the one-time collections curator for the Gardner Museum, Bianca Rosenbloom. You look very much like her, especially your eyes."
Now it was Jake's jaw that was dropping. He was in disbelief. "Wait, you knew my mother?"
"Yes, I knew your mother very well. I started at the Gardner museum the same month as your mother. We became good friends and we relied on one another during the unfortunate events of March 1990. I was so saddened by her death. She deserved so much better. She had a new baby and an adoring husband." Anne was quiet for a moment. "Cancer is such a cruel disease."
Jake gave her a small smile. He had now officially doubled his knowledge of his mother.
"What do you mean, 'unfortunate events'?" Jake asked with a frown on his face.
"I know about this!" Amy said. She had read all about the largest art heist in modern history. "13 works of art were stolen at the museum in the wee hours of the morning by two thieves dressed as Boston police officers."
Anne Hawley nodded. "They've never been found, nor have the works been recovered. We have several empty frames on our walls saved as placeholders awaiting their return."
"I'm sorry for asking, but what do you want us for? Neither of us was even born when that heist took place!" Jake asked incredulously.
"Good question" Anne Hawley replied. "In the circles with whom I associate, your combined knowledge and ability to steal priceless works of art only to return them later, or appear as if they are effortless for you, have caught the attention of the art world."
"Us?" Jake said with a frown on his face. "I think you must have the wrong two people. We're just kids."
Anne Hawley smiled as she looked down at the table, clasping her hands in front of her, the way a school principal would do while breaking down detention for two wayward teens.
Amy felt uncomfortable, there was no way this woman could have any idea of half the things she and Jake had helped steal.
"Amy, you and your brother as well as your cousin stole the Medusa off the wall of the Uffizi Gallery in broad daylight. You and your brother managed to find the original Il Millione when the world didn't even know it was missing. You both tracked down the Divirga, Mapa Mundi though it also had been lost to the generations. Jake, Amy, you found a folio to the Voynich that the world didn't know existed." Anne Hawley said, "Shall I continue?"
Amy was trying hard not to let her face turn purple. How in the WORLD did this woman know so much? Nobody outside the four of them and the Vespers knew about folio 74?
Jake must have been feeling alarmed as well, because his defense mechanism came on hard, "Now wait just a minute! We had nothing to do with any of those! I've heard enough, let's go Amy."
"Please wait, I'm not here to accuse you." Anne Hawley said, "I want to hire you."