Page 128

I recognize the painting before I reach the second page.

Woman at the Window

-Elsa Reinhardt.

The work has been in the Kensington collection for decades, and I have seen it often enough to know exactly where it hangs when it is not on loan. The request itself is uncomplicated. Charlotte Falkenrath Whitcombe is seeking a private reacquisition based on documented family ownership before her relatives fled Berlin in 1938.

I read the summary once. There is no hostile claim. No threatened litigation. No press strategy. Whitcombe wants to purchase the painting privately if the trust is willing to sell, and she has included a related inquiry concerning a sapphire-and-diamond brooch from the same family history.

Manageable.

The collection team wants permission to begin reviewing the historical documentation and determine whether a private treaty transaction is worth pursuing.

I turn the page. The client representation appears beneath the engagement summary.

Lead Advisor: Blaire Wilson.

My hand stops.

I read the name again.

Blaire Wilson.

For a few seconds, I do nothing. The reaction is immediate enough to irritate me.

I have spent years seeing her name only when circumstance puts it in front of me. An article. A professional biography. An industry reference I had no reason to avoid and no right to follow any farther.

This is different.

Her name is sitting inside a Kensington file on my desk.

I lean back in the chair and read the engagement summary again, slower this time.

San Francisco advisory firm. Private client representation. Provenance review. Proposed London archive access.

London.

I reach for the phone and call my assistant before I can decide whether I should. She answers almost immediately.

“Yes?” she says.

“Who is handling the Whitcombe matter on our side?” I ask.

“Collections and family office counsel,” she replies.

“I can get you the names.”

“I don’t need the names yet. Where are the discussions taking place?”

There is a brief pause while I hear her tapping through something.

“London,” she says.

“The advisor requested archive access here, and Whitcombe is expected in person for part of the negotiation.”

“When?”

“Initial review starts next week.”