Ch 12

This stopped Jake in mid step. Amy turned and looked at Ms. Hawley. "You want to hire us?" Amy asked questioningly.

"Please sit. I have a lot to say. I wish to retire next year and I desperately want those pieces returned before I do."

Amy looked at Jake, he looked right back, unsure of what to think.

"Jake, you are of special importance in this quest of mine, for you see, I believe your mother was trying to track down the thieves right up to her death. I have a strong suspicion she left notes and theories somewhere. We in the art community have very little faith in the authority's ability to help. Police and FBI have a history of being paid off easily for such crimes as these. I believe, as do many, that a 'false flag' was raised by authorities after the theft to throw off the scent of the real criminals. Crime bosses' in New Haven and Philadelphia were tagged as the buyers, but it doesn't fit. They aren't the art crowd. I believe, as did your mother, that these works were preordained purchases by a master dealer, or dealers, on the black market. That's why specific pieces were taken and other, much more valuable pieces, were skipped over."

Amy's wheels in her mind where spinning. "If we agree to help you, we would need access to the museum after hours and no questions asked. We would bring in our own team, no outsiders and we would work on our schedule, not one imposed by anyone else. We would also require complete anonymity and no press of any kind. Even, if we were lucky enough to find one or more these and return them, there would be no mention of our names or photos. Complete media blackout regarding us."

"Done," said Anne Hawley without even giving it a second thought.

All three of them sat around the small table staring at each other. Jake and Amy, a unified force across from a desperate curator of a well-respected museum.

Jake squeezed Amy's hand under the table as if to say, "let's do this."

"Then we have a deal," Amy said.

"We haven't discussed your fee," Anne said raising her eyebrows.

"There will be no fee," Amy said with a steely determination. "consider it a gift from Grace Cahill. However, I won't give you any guarantees. If these works of art have been scattered around the globe, our success rate will most likely be very low."

Anne nodded, "I know that, but you are my best hope." She slid two keycards imprinted with the museum's name and logo across the table to them. "These will give you unrestricted access to the museum, day or night. My guards have been alerted to your presence and are under the pretense that you are students studying our museum's history. You certainly wouldn't be the first. They will leave you alone." Ms. Hawley then slid a flip phone across the table to Amy, "this is a burner phone programmed with my number. This is the only way you will contact me, and I you. Do you have questions for me?"

"How often do you want us to check in?" Jake asked.

"Only if something comes up," Anne responded.

Amy sighed, at least this time they were taking on a challenge willingly and not under force. They could do this on their own time and not some breakneck insane pace.

A question occurred to Amy, "Who else knows about us and this quest of yours?"

"No one" Anne Hawley said.

"Not even your husband, or family?" Jake asked.

"My husband is an architect and grew tired of my obsession with recovering these years ago. I haven't mentioned you to him at all. My children are grown and gone and have lives of their own. This is my last best hope and the people who know of your quest are sitting around this table."

Amy and Jake were quiet as they made their way out of the Pusey library. Anne Hawley had left 10 minutes earlier. Anne's words floated back to Amy about Grace's involvement in the foundation of this library and she glanced to the display case in the vestibule. Amy's eyes roved over the lit shelves until she came across a plaque,

The Cahill Collection

donated to the Pusey library,

1974

by Grace Cahill

with an endowment for further study and collection of antiquities so that all the world's masterpieces may be preserved.

Amy's breath caught in her throat. She had no idea Grace had donated anything to Harvard. Her own mother, Hope, had gone to Harvard, but no mention of any collaboration between Grace and Harvard had ever reached Amy's ears. Tears filled her eyes, she had no idea Grace had done this. In light of everything she had learned from Nathaniel Hawthorne, her image of Grace had been tainted; this helped to restore her Grandmother's memory to her. It wasn't always terrible to be a Cahill.

"She was telling the truth," Jake said quietly.

"I had no idea," Amy said equally quietly. "What I don't about Cahills could fill volumes," Amy said sadly with a tinge of hardness in her voice.

She had felt supremely ill prepared when the hunt for the 39 clues had begun and it soon became apparent the other teams knew much more about the Cahill family than she and her brother did. It had been maddening. Now, as the head of the family, things like finding a forgotten plaque on a wall at Harvard shouldn't have upset her, but it did. Grace had not told Amy and Dan so many things that they needed to know. What else was Grace hiding from them?

"Don't beat yourself up, Harvard is full of plaques by legacy families that the current generation has no idea about. My own father has contributed to the Peabody so often that I would have no idea which were his pieces and which weren't. I probably should know that stuff, but I don't." Jake said helpfully.

Amy smiled at him, he always had a way of cheering her up.

Jake stepped outside the museum doors and looked up at the clear sky and sighed. "So where do we start?"

"We start by asking the cousins for their help." Amy already had her phone out sending a group text to the cousins, as well as Dan and Atticus. "We can pick up Atticus on the way there."

"Wait a minute, if this really does involve my mother, don't you think we ought to involve my dad? He may have valuable information. He would have been around her that entire time. If the heist happened in '90, and she died in '93, he may be our best lead for where she would have kept notes and such."

Amy hesitated. She knew Mark Rosenbloom hated her. She flashed back to their last encounter in Atlantis. He had come full force at her with such anger and malice, she had started crying. How could one man hate her so much? Amy wasn't sure how to begin to work on Mark Rosenbloom.

Jake sensed her unease, "It won't be as bad as last time you met him. Dad's…well, he lives with a certain amount of guilt over Atticus and me. I think he may have taken all of his worries out on you. He didn't like seeing my face on TV during that time. Att and I have been working on him about you guys."

"I think we will have to involve him, but I want to wait until all the other moving pieces have been put in place." Amy sighed and wrinkled her brow, how was she going to win over Jake's dad?

Amy reread the text she was about to send to the extended team: Hi everyone, I am calling a Cahill meeting at Attleboro tonight. Something has come up. If you're in Mass, come by the mansion, if you aren't, Skype in at 8:00 Eastern, sharp. See you all then.

She hit 'send'. "Ok, it's in motion. Let's get Atticus and try to make it over to the Gardner museum if we can."