Lords of Misrule by Maggie Rawdon

Author:Maggie Rawdon [Rawdon, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

Charlotte

When we get to Colin’s house it’s surprisingly easy to get in, and all four of us slip in the same way they had the last time. The difference is that this time he is well and truly gone. I confirmed it on a phone call with him earlier in the evening when I wished him a Merry Christmas. The house is dark and completely silent, and we do our best to work with the ambient lighting in the room until we get to the paintings. The last thing we need to do is attract the attention of the neighbors.

Everyone disperses to their assignments just like we’ve practiced a million times before tonight. Hudson slips off to check that we’ve disarmed all the cameras in and around the house and make sure we haven’t been caught on any of them on the way in. Rowan and Finn work to pull the paintings down from their frames while I work on getting the fakes set up to go in.

I had a wild idea at the last second—one Finn and I were able to realize in the art department’s new lab. Late in the evening hours when the studio rooms are all still open for people to work on an honor system but are mostly a ghost town at that hour.

When Colin had shown us these paintings, and bragged about how he got them and their history, he shared photos in the slides. Ones he saved on a drive that he let students have access to in case they missed class or just wanted to revisit the lectures before a test. I clicked on one of the photos, praying that the man had been stupid enough to upload high-resolution photos. And he did—original scans he had done in incredibly high resolution that he’d then saved.

I remembered when he showed them in class that they took time to load, which had been odd. That memory paid off when the scans were large enough to create full-scale reproductions on the art lab’s oversized printer. One we logged into with his code. So if the man was ever smart enough to figure out the real paintings had been taken, and he filed for insurance, he’d look like the fraud if they did any real sort of investigation. It’s so poetic that I almost want to shed a tear at our handiwork.

We work fast having practiced with the copies in our living room at least four times the previous week to make sure we could get in and out fast. Hopefully, everyone is too busy with their Christmas celebrations to even notice anything outside their own homes, but just in case we need to be quick.

The copies go in easily, and Rowan and Finn get them back up on the wall just as Hudson returns from the other rooms.

“All clear,” Hudson whispers before he glances up at the paintings. “Fuck, those are good.”

“That’s the plan.” I smile at my handiwork.

“Good thing we have you.” He grins back at me, and Rowan flashes a look at both of us before they mount the final painting on the wall.

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