The Courbet Connection (Book 5) (Genevieve Lenard) by Estelle Ryan

had chosen to look into the cause of his unease. I had become so focussed on this task that I had lost myself in it and had not heard Phillip enter my viewing room.
    I untucked my legs and winced as I straightened them. Whenever I became hyper-focussed, I often sat on my folded legs. Painful pins and needles accompanied the much-needed return of normal circulation and I groaned softly.
    “Oh, Genevieve.” Phillip sat down in the chair next to mine. “How long have you been at this?”
    I glanced at one of the computer screens. “Four hours.”
    “Since Colin left?”
    I nodded.
    “I suppose you haven’t stopped for lunch either, right?”
    “I’ll eat later. I had a large breakfast.”
    Phillip raised an eyebrow. “I’ll ask Vinnie to get you something. But tell me first why you are looking into Nazi-looted art.”
    “I want to expand my knowledge on this topic.”
    When I didn’t say anything else, Phillip sighed. “Please give me context. Did you suddenly develop an interest in this topic? Did you find something you haven’t told me yet? Has Colin found an attic full of paintings?”
    “No to all of your questions. Colin did, however, come across a few paintings in the last fifteen months that are causing him some concern.” I told Phillip what Colin had said earlier. “And that is why I thought to inform myself on this topic.”
    “What have you found so far?”
    “Are you sure you want to talk about this?”
    “Why wouldn’t I?” Phillip’s head tilted slightly to the left.
    “You’ll become agitated.” I knew my answer wasn’t clear when his head tilted even more and his eyes narrowed. I sighed. “Whenever you talk about anything related to art looted during the Second World War, you become extremely agitated.”
    He nodded slowly. “So many wrongs were done to far too many people in that time. I suppose it is a trigger for me.”
    “Were you affected by this?”
    “I’m not that old, Genevieve.” His frown indicated he’d taken offence.
    “I know. You were born shortly after the Second World War, but your parents must have been affected by the war.”
    “They were,” he said softly after a few seconds. “They never suffered any of the atrocities so many other people did, but knowing what was going on around them and not being able to do anything killed them.”
    “Metaphorically?”
    “Yes, it killed them metaphorically. They watched neighbours and friends they’d loved taken away to never be heard from again. My parents were newlyweds, my mom pregnant with my older sister. They were terrified of saying or doing anything that would’ve brought them into the sights of any of the authorities. And they hated themselves for being weak.”
    “That was not being weak. It was doing what they needed to in order to survive.”
    “They never saw it like that. From the first day I can remember, my parents carried that guilt with them.” Phillip seldom shared personal information. I realised the importance of this moment and waited for him to continue. “Needless to say, it had an ugly effect on us as a family. My sister left home when she was seventeen.”
    “She died.” I could see the grief on his face.
    “Drug overdose. It was the sixties, the hippie era. Many other youngsters pursuing their freedom met with the same fate. My sister’s death broke my parents.” He fell quiet.
    How was one expected to act in a situation like this? I was at a loss, so I tried to stay on topic. “And this is the reason for your strong feelings about Nazi-looted art?”
    “I suppose it is.” He shook his head and straightened. “So tell me what you’ve learned so far.”
    I turned to my monitors. “There are no specific numbers, only speculation that between six and seven hundred thousand works of art were looted from Europe by the Nazis. Many of those works have not been recovered. I’m finding it irritating that there are no exact lists of works not yet recovered.”
    “People didn’t