Prologue

      The Courtauld Institute of Art

      The stillness of the Witt Library embraced me as I sat at a corner table, my breaths slow and steady, my thoughts wandering, slipping almost into a trance. I tried to see the events that had transpired through his perspective as though I’d been there with him.

      This faceless man who’d seized my every waking thought.

      Closing my eyes, my fingers traced the file. I’d combed through every detail of this three-week-old report, a precise translation from French to English by the Police Nationale. As an employee of Huntly Pierre, London’s most prestigious investigative art firm, I’d been permitted exclusive access.

      It wasn’t only that I’d been tasked with hunting him down, or his obvious passion for art that seemingly equaled mine, drew me to him. Rather there was an unfathomable connection to this stranger that now consumed my days and nights. Perhaps this was only the inevitable shakiness of a newbie forensic art specialist finding her way through the precarious underworld of corruption.

      Though that didn’t explain why he’d visited my dreams as though we shared a deeper connection.

      Forcing these nonsensical thoughts away, I tried to focus on the details in the file. I could see this theft had presented our suspect with a technical hitch like no other. There were so many irregularities to plan for when breaking into a private estate at three o’clock on a crisp Sunday morning. I imagined the kind of preparation it would have taken. More than requiring a disciplined mind to navigate through complex innovations in home defense, the job would also have demanded brute force. He’d abseiled into a privately owned, billion-dollar rotunda displaying some of the most priceless masterpieces in existence around its curved wall. The kind most people would never see. The estate was owned by the Burells, who had made their money through the family business. Their private contractor company used the guise of combat support to deploy well-trained mercenaries into war. Their impressive art collection was proof that business was booming.

      Resting my hand upon the small samples of evidence collected, I envisioned him wearing black khakis with a tight T-shirt pulled over a sculptured torso. After all, given that the climbing harness he wore would suspend him fifty feet in the air, he’d have to be fit. Peering through his night-vision goggles, without which he’d be in pitch blackness, that sheer drop beneath him was an exhilarating rush that was all part of the allure.

      The kind of bravery I coveted.

      That’s all this was, surely? A curiosity for the kind of recklessness I’d never dare experience. The kind that brought freedom. A life fully realized without societal constraints.

      Until we locked him away, irrevocably.

      The evidence proved he’d been on track with claiming his prize, namely a glorious 1566 self-portrait by Tiziano Vecelli, more commonly known as Titian.

      A print of the painting had been placed in the file, and I now marveled at Titian’s remarkable technique. He’d immortalized himself on that oil on canvas, masterfully capturing the charisma of an elegant seventy-eight-year-old and highlighting his sharp features in those rich deep shades. Should one look closer, there was a dash of melancholy too. Titian’s black-robed attire was an understated reflection of his modesty, despite his great wealth. That final touch of his right hand holding a paintbrush reflected his brilliance. Hailed by his contemporaries as “The sun amidst small stars.”

      I shared the thief’s exhilaration of being so close to such a treasure.

      I imagined what he’d felt as he surveyed the room and zeroed in on his target. Adrenaline fueling his descent until he’d paused to run through his options.

      Failure was out of the question. He’d come too far.

      The hole he’d drilled into the glass ceiling was altering the fine temperature control that protected the other paintings, and had there been any other way in he’d no doubt have used it. That breach had exposed the room to the humid French climate. Though luckily the weather forecast for Amboise had promised no rain.

      He wasn’t a complete bastard; because one downpour would have left nothing but ruin.

      A jolt of envy hit me that it had been him and not me experiencing all that inaccessible beauty.

      Our man was clearly arrogant, well educated based on his grasp of this advanced technology, and already wealthy from previous heists. I sensed he’d been touched by the kind of charm that forged a blunt sense of entitlement. A self-serving desire to own whatever he set his sights on.

      He’d not gone for the Saint Veronica by Robert Campin, a strange-looking baptism by Giovanni di Paolo or an overvalued Paul Cezanne. Trying to wrap my head around this fact there was also the consideration of his infamous MO.

      He only ever took one.

      Our man had researched this space until he knew it intimately and had