Chapter 1 — The Daughter

Nadia Vane was not what Priya had expected.The daughter of Conrad Vane — fifty-eight, founder of Vane Hartwell Gallery, a figure whose name appeared in the same sentence as Christie's and Sotheby's and occasionally, in certain circles, as a verb meaning to price something beyond what its merit justified — could have been many things. Priya had interviewed enough children of powerful men to know the range: the acolyte, the rebel, the hollow diplomat who had learned to perform whatever the room required.Nadia Vane was none of these. She was thin and dark-haired with her father's strong jaw and her own steady eyes, and she sat across from Priya in the interview room without fidgeting, without performance, without the theatrical grief that sometimes meant genuine grief and sometimes meant something else."I know what it says," Nadia said. She had not been offered condolences yet, and Priya had learned to wait on those. "Cardiac arrest. He was fifty-eight and he worked constantly and he ate badly and all of that is true. But my father had a full cardiology workup eight weeks ago. I made him go. I drove him there. His heart was" — she paused, and the pause was not for effect — "his cardiologist said, and I am quoting, 'the most boring heart I have seen in a man your age.' Those were her exact words. My father was insufferable about it for two weeks afterward."Priya wrote this down. Not because she needed to remember it — she would remember it — but because writing things down during interviews changed the quality of what people said next. They became more precise."You have documentation of the workup?""I brought it." Nadia set a folder on the table. Clean, organized, tabbed. The folder of someone who had been building a case before she'd walked in the door. "The cardiologist's summary is on top. Her number is on the last page. She's expecting your call."Priya looked at the folder without opening it. "What do you think happened?""I think someone killed him in a way that looked like his heart stopped on its own." Nadia was very still. "I know how that sounds. I know I'm a grieving daughter who doesn't want her father's death to be ordinary. I have considered that possibility extensively." A pause. "And I still think someone killed him.""Why?""Because three days before the gala, my father came to see me. He was — not frightened. Conrad Vane was not a man who frightened easily. But he was careful. He told me there was a situation at the gallery that had become serious. He didn't specify. He said if anything happened to him, I should look at the Hartwell partnership agreement." She looked at Priya steadily. "He said 'if anything happens.' He wasn't talking about a heart attack. He was talking about something specific."Priya opened the folder. She read the cardiology summary. She read it a second time."The Hartwell partnership," she said. "Elise Hartwell.""His co-founder. His business partner for twenty-two years." Nadia paused. "I don't know that she did anything. I'm not here to accuse her. I'm here to tell you that my father was worried about something involving that partnership, and three days later he was dead."Priya looked at the cardiology report. The cardiologist's phrase, in formal medical language, translated to: this man's heart had no reason to stop."Tell me about the gala," Priya said. "Everything you remember. From the beginning."— ◆ —