His Masterpiece Read Online Free Page B

the vase.
    That's the thing. It was actually there. At least, I was pretty sure it was the vase, even though there were several key differences in the vase I found and the vase I had expected to find. For one thing, it wasn't broken. For another, it was so dark in the bathroom that I could barely make it out and it didn't quite look like the vase that I had broken—a weird, random pattern seemed to be painted onto it—but when I reached into the closet, my heart hammering a mile a minute, cool porcelain met my fingers. Then I lifted it, tipping it toward me, and something inside it made a clunk sound.
    Swallowing around my suddenly dry tongue, I turned it over. A small dark object slid out and fell to my feet, hitting the tiled floor with the flat slap of plastic.
    He had left something for me. Somehow. It was like a plot twist out of a movie, which, now that I knew Malcolm, was completely predictable. Replacing the vase on the shelf, I knelt down and retrieved the object that had been hidden in it.
    It was a thumb drive.
    My heart started to beat faster.
    Calm down, I told myself. Don't freak out yet. Anything could be on this drive. Anything at all. It could be the photos of me, it could be old love letters, anything. Getting my hopes up would be stupid.
    Clutching the drive so tightly in my hand that the sharp plastic edges bit into the bones of my fingers, I sprinted out of the bathroom, wove my way through the maze of the third floor, and pounded up the stairs, hoping Malcolm had left his bedroom intact.
    He had. The computer still sat at the far wall, the screen dark but the lights still on. I prayed he hadn't left it password protected as I hurried over to it, uncapping the drive before I reached out and wiggled the mouse. To my immense relief the monitor flared to life, showing his desktop. The picture on it was one of the pictures of me that he had managed to capture—a beautiful still image of my mouth and chin, the curve of my throat, the swell of my shoulder—but I forced myself to ignore it. My fingers shook as I found a USB slot on the tower and shoved the drive in.
    I waited, hopping from foot to foot until the computer dinged, recognizing the drive, and I clicked on it, opening up the directory.
    A password dialog popped up.
    I nearly shrieked with frustration, but I took a deep breath and tried to think like a dumb motherfucker.
    If I were a dumb motherfucker, I postulated, who thought life should be like a movie and this was a great romantic plot twist, what password would I put on the critical information that would keep me out of prison?
    I leaned forward and typed in “Sadie.”
    The dialog box disappeared and the directory filled out.
    Of course.
    I began to click around.
    With each file opened, I felt my mouth drop wider and wider. It was all here: offshore bank accounts, spreadsheets with discrepancies highlighted, huge documents detailing the history of this or that chunk of money and Don's exact role in making it disappear... Malcolm hadn't been kidding when he'd said he had proof. He not only had proof, but he had built a whole case, as though he were an expert in corporate law. Actually, he probably thought he was, given his self-assessment of all his other talents. But mostly I was just shocked that Felicia's farfetched theory had been right. He'd left the evidence of his innocence for me in the vase, and now I held his future in my hands.
    Huh, I thought. Somehow, I wasn't shocked that her thoughts and Malcolm's had lined up so neatly. They both liked life to be like a movie, chasing that Oscar-winning scene. They both had artistic souls.
    ...Still, the question remained: how had he done it? I'd broken the vase on a Friday night, and we had left on a Monday. There was no way the vase could have been repaired before we departed New York...
    Then I remembered. Malcolm on the phone in the cafe in Dubrovnik, speaking in Japanese. The note left in French for the man whose life he had changed,