The Cruel Ever After by Ellen Hart Page A

trying to be helpful,” said Chess. “Where should we meet?”
    He hesitated. “If I agree, it has to be someplace public.”
    “The Witch’s Hat.” It popped out of his mouth before he’d even thought about it, probably because he knew the university better than any other part of town. The tower was in a park, high on a hill. Nobody could sneak up on him there. “You know where it is”
    “You mean the water tower in Prospect Park? Over by the U?”
    “That’s the one.”
    More hesitation. “I suppose I could meet you.”
    “At eleven. Today. Eleven on the dot.”
    “Don’t push me. I’m the one in charge here, not you.”
    “I’m aware of that,” said Chess, working a little meekness into his voice. “So? Do we have a deal?”
    The guy didn’t respond right away. “Okay,” he said finally, sounding less than sure of himself. “Eleven. I’ll be there. But no funny business. Remember, I got those pictures.”

7
    Irina was running late. She’d managed to pull herself together after the fight with Steve, although it had left her stomach churning. At least her sister had arrived on time to take care of Dusty—one worry off her plate.
    The Morgana Beck Gallery of Antiquities was located on a tree-lined street in the heart of St. Paul. Grand Avenue was thirty blocks long and ran from the Mississippi River all the way downtown. Irina described the area to customers as a mixture of the trendy and the historic, with neighborhood ethnic and big-city urbane tossed in for good measure. In fact, Grand Avenue boasted some of the best shopping and the best restaurants in town. Unlike the malls, most of the businesses were independent, one of a kind. Irina hated the burbs. Apple Valley had been Steve’s idea. She much preferred the inner city, having grown up in a house not far from here—the place that Misty currently called home, thanks to the generosity of their mother.
    The gallery was a restored redbrick Queen Anne duplex. Her mother’s office was on the second floor in an octagonal turret. A duplex, as it turned out, was the perfect arrangement for them. The first floor held the galleries. The second floor had a fully stocked kitchen so they could grab meals on the run. Two of the three upstairs bedrooms were used for storage, and the third had been made into a shipping office. Much of their business these days came from online sales.
    Irina parked her Saab in the small lot behind the gallery. As she slid out, she noticed that a planter on the back deck had been knocked over, spilling dirt across the wood planks and dislodging a huge hibiscus. Because of the wrought-iron bars on all the windows, they’d never had a break-in. She approached the rear door cautiously, righting the planter and kicking the excess dirt onto a small patch of grass that grew between the house and the blacktop. The door was locked, which Irina took as a good sign. Grand Avenue ran through a mostly residential area, so it could have been kids running around after dark.
    Before Dustin was born, Irina worked four days a week. Now, because her mother thought she needed the time to take care of her child, she was down to two. Tuesdays and Thursdays were her days to open the gallery. Majid Farrow, a man she disliked intensely, mainly because her mother thought the sun rose and set on his abilities as an appraiser and a salesman, opened the other days.
    Majid was from Texas—specifically, River Oaks, a suburb of Houston. His mother was Iranian born, a professor of Egyptian archaeology and philology, his father an American heart surgeon with a practice in downtown Houston. Irina’s mother had hired Majid the day after he graduated from Macalester with an interdepartmental master’s in Middle Eastern studies, Islamic civilization, and art history. That was seven years ago. He was a good fit for a gallery that specialized in Middle Eastern art and antiquities, but Irina felt that he enjoyed displaying his knowledge at her expense. Her