Chapter 8 - THE AUCTION
Six months after the encounter at Port Alder, the final physical remains of the Sinclair-Vale estate were put up for liquidation at the City Art Auction House four hours south.
Harlon sat in the back row of the dimly lit auditorium. His suit was brushed, but his face remained thin and hollow. He had sold his car to pay off his remaining debt, arriving at the auction by bus.
Beside him sat Marisol.
She had returned from London three weeks prior, broke, exhausted, and bitter. Her dark hair was cut short, her expensive makeup failing to hide the tired lines around her eyes. They did not speak to each other. They sat side by side like two ghosts who shared a cemetery plot but had long since run out of things to say.
On the auction stage, the auctioneer raised his wooden gavel.
"Lot 142," the auctioneer announced. "Eighteenth-century painted timber panel featuring swallows in flight, restored by master conservator Corin Morrison Vance."
Harlon’s breath hitched.
The panel was brought onto the stage by two uniformed handlers. It was the central piece from the east conservatory of Larkspur House—the swallow panel beneath which Harlon had kissed Marisol five years ago.
When Larkspur House was liquidated, the bank had seized the panel, recognizing its immense commercial value due to Corin’s rising international reputation.
"Starting bid at twenty thousand dollars," the auctioneer called out.
"Twenty-five!" a buyer in the front row shouted.
"Thirty!"
"Forty!"
"Fifty thousand dollars!"
Harlon watched the numbers climb frantically. The panel he had tried to steal, the work he had dismissed as a 'family formality,' was now being fought over by the city’s wealthiest art collectors.
"One hundred thousand dollars!" a representative on the phone line called out.
The room fell into a brief silence.
"One hundred thousand dollars to the phone bidder," the auctioneer repeated. "Going once... going twice..."
BANG.
"Sold for one hundred thousand dollars to the Morrison Vance Foundation."
Harlon’s head snapped up.
The Morrison Vance Foundation.
Corin had bought her own restored work back through her charitable foundation. She had owned it all along.
Marisol let out a bitter, weeping scoff beside him. "She bought it back," Marisol whispered, her voice trembling with jealous rage. "She bought back the panel with the money from her new life. She has everything, Harlon. Everything."
Harlon didn't answer her. He stood up slowly, walked out of the auction house, and stepped out into the cold rain falling over the city streets.
May you like
He looked down at his empty hands.
He had wanted the archive. He had wanted the reputation. He had wanted the glory of Larkspur House. And in his greedy pursuit of those hollow things, he had traded away the only real masterpiece he would ever have had a hand in creating: two silver-eyed boys who were now growing up beneath another man’s name.
