The Curator's Cipher

by Miss Liz

When art restorer Emma Sato lifts a centuries-old varnish from a portrait in the Marchetti Museum, she uncovers a second signature beneath the first: the mark of a painter who supposedly died a hundred years before the canvas was ever stretched. Hours later, the museum's owner is found dead in front of the painting, posed to match the figure on the canvas exactly. Homicide detective Ryan Ostrowski wants to close the case as a heart attack. Emma wants to know why every layer she strips reveals evidence of a murder that hasn't happened yet. The deeper she cleans, the clearer it becomes that the Marchetti collection is not a museum at all. It is a confession, painted in oil, waiting two hundred years for someone with her particular gift for ruining perfect surfaces.