Part 12:
It wasn’t arrogance, it was armor. She’d greeted James with a handshake and exchanged the kind of brief efficient pleasantries that people exchanged when they both understood the pleasantries were a formality and the real conversation was elsewhere. Then she’d positioned herself slightly apart from both of them and waited. When Dr. Voss arrived.
She came with a large case of equipment, conservation tools, lighting, a camera setup more professional than anything Ethan had brought previously, and a graduate student named Tobias, who was apparently trusted enough to be here and smart enough to stay quiet and do what he was told. Voss greeted everyone with brisk efficiency, assessed the storage building’s conditions with a few minutes of quiet observation, and then asked that the space be cleared except for herself, Tobias, and Ethan.
James didn’t argue, which meant he understood. Isabella started to, then stopped, which meant she was learning. They waited outside in the November cold, James and Isabella, while the work happened inside. Ethan stayed near Tobias, watching Voss worked with the specific patience of someone who knew that impatience cost more than time.
It cost integrity. She photographed the notebook in place before anything was touched. She documented the exact position, the surrounding structure, the way it had been wedged against the instrument cluster housing. Then she removed it with gloved hands and placed it on a folding conservation table that Tobias had set up under the primary lights.
The leather was dark brown, almost black with age and moisture. It was approximately 6 in x 4, the kind of notebook you could put in a jacket pocket. A simple brass clasp on the side, tarnished to near black, held it shut. The paper is going to be fragile, Voss said quietly, more to herself than to Ethan.
The moisture damage at the edges. Some pages may be fused. We need to go slowly. Understood. She worked the clasp open with a conservation tool, gently without forcing it. The leather resisted briefly, then released. She opened the cover. The handwriting on the inside front page was in black ink, faded, but legible.
A name, and below it, an address. An address in Connecticut that Ethan didn’t recognize. Below the address, a date written in European format. The 14th of March, 1971. Ethan looked at Voss. She looked at him. 1971. the year the 1968 Stellarini Commission had disappeared from any documented record. Voss turned the page carefully.
The second page held a sketch, wait, rendered in pencil, detailed and confident, the hand of someone who understood what they were drawing. It showed the car not as it existed now in its corroded state, but as it had been, or rather as someone had envisioned it completed. The proportions were precise. The details of the bodywork, the wheels, the glass house, they mapped exactly to the vehicle sitting 6 ft from where they were standing.
Below the sketch, a single line of handwriting. Stellarini B-04. The only one. Keep it safe. Voss set the page down and straightened up. She looked at Ethan for a long moment. Get them, she said. Isabella came through the door of the storage building and stopped when she saw the notebook open on the conservation table.
James came in behind her and positioned himself to the side, out of the way, reading the room correctly. “The name on the inside cover,” Ethan said. “Do you recognize it?” She crossed to the table and looked. Her expression changed in a way that was impossible to misread. Not dramatically, not the sharp intake of breath of a movie moment, something quieter and more real.
A kind of stillness that came over her face like a held breath. That’s my grandfather’s name, she said. Nobody spoke for a moment. Your father’s father? Ethan asked. “Yes.” Her voice was careful, controlled, but working harder than usual. He died before I was born. My father didn’t talk about him much. Their relationship was complicated.
She paused. He was a collector, mostly European art and antiques. My father inherited some of it when he died. Sold most of it. Another pause. He kept some things. This car, James said quietly. Isabella looked at the sketch on the second page. The careful drawing of the car, the proportions exact, the handwriting below it. The only one.
Keep it safe. He knew what it was. She said he knew exactly what it was. Ethan said he had it in 1971 and he documented it. But my father, she stopped. My father bought it at auction. At least that’s what George told me. He went to Europe. He bought things at estate sales and auctions.
Your grandfather died in what year? Ethan asked. She thought 1992. I think I was I wasn’t born yet, but I think my mother mentioned, “If the car was in your grandfather’s possession from 1971, and your father was going to estate sales in Europe in the early 2000s.” Ethan left the sentence unfinished. Isabella looked at the notebook again at her grandfather’s name in faded ink.
“He bought his own family’s car back,” she said slowly, without knowing that’s what he was doing. The room was very quiet. Or knowing partially, Ethan said, “Your father had that print in his office. The Stellarini drawing with the B04 designation. He might have known there was a connection without knowing what it was.
