The Dali Deception by Adam Maxwell

Author:Adam Maxwell [Maxwell, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Lost Book Emporium
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Someone is always watching. The words echoed in Zoe’s ears and she had to stifle a grin as she adjusted the glasses. The glasses that were recording everything she saw and relaying it to the tablet computer in the holster strapped to her body. At that moment they were recording Miss Lester as she left the room and entered a different part of the underground mansion. It seemed odd that, until now, they had referred to this sprawling underground abode as Rollo Glass’ ‘flat’.

She waited until Miss Lester was out of her line of sight and then finally had the opportunity to do her single most important task. Zoe took a deep breath and moved towards the painting. Taking pride of place between the stuffed and mounted head of a confused looking gorilla and another more elaborate painting was a plain, silver frame containing the canvas. Even in her own head she struggled to call it a painting, and that was doubly true now.

Salvador Dali, the great surrealist, had produced this...

Blank canvas.

Except down in the bottom right hand corner where he had signed it. The signature reminded Zoe of a picture she had seen of the artist, his moustache crazily long. Surreally so, you might say. His signature looked like that, she thought.

It was disconcerting, though oddly compelling. A complete absence of art in the middle of this room of collectible crap. Zoe leaned in close, making sure the camera glasses captured every brush stroke of his signature. The canvas was a lot smaller than she had imagined.

She didn’t have long, but she didn’t need long. She moved in close, scanning the canvas inch by inch, looking for any other obvious marks or imperfection but there were none. It was, simply put, a blank canvas with a signature in the corner.

Once she was satisfied that she had captured enough additional images she turned her attention to the frame. Or, more importantly, how the frame was attached to the wall. With her head pressed against the cold wall and the smell of stuffed and dusty gorilla in her nostrils, Zoe made a careful inspection of how the painting connected to the security system. Her gaze followed the wiring around up the wall and into a junction box in the corner.

Happy that she had what she needed, Zoe looked at her watch. Three minutes left. Time to get herself lost.

Treading softly, Zoe made her way to the archway that led out of the room containing the painting. She stood for a moment, listening, and could hear Miss Lester had taken Zoe’s gift of communication and was currently using it to abuse one of her fellow employees.

“Do you have any idea how much a mistake like that could cost us?” she shouted into the telephone.

Zoe stepped into the main hallway. The place was positively palatial. Would she be able to map the whole thing in three minutes? She wasn’t sure, but she had to start somewhere and moved quickly off in the opposite direction to Miss Lester.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.