Chapter 7
The first appraiser cooperated.
His name was Malcolm Reid.
He had valued the vase three years earlier.
Claire met with him under counsel.
Malcolm brought his working file.
The provenance package provided by Lucinda’s office contained photographs, estate inventories, a nineteenth-century family receipt, and restoration descriptions.
One document was conspicuously absent.
The 1988 reproduction invoice.
“Would that have changed your valuation?” Claire asked.
“Completely.”
“Would you have called the object authentic?”
“No.”
“Could somebody reasonably call a commissioned replica an original with restoration?”
“Not if they had that invoice.”
Sebastian sat back.
“Did Lucinda know you needed all restoration files?”
“Of course.”
“Did Preston?”
“Yes.”
Malcolm looked uncomfortable.
“Preston specifically asked whether gaps in twentieth-century restoration records would prevent lending.”
“What did you say?”
“I said gaps are common in private collections but material contradictory records would matter.”
Sebastian looked at Claire.
Clue.
Preston had asked the exact question that mattered.
Malcolm continued.
“He also asked me to value the collection under an orderly-sale scenario rather than a distressed one.”
That was normal for lending.
Still, everything pointed toward borrowing capacity.
Then Malcolm showed them an email from Lucinda.
Family continuity depends on preserving the highest supportable values without introducing unnecessary historical uncertainty.
Claire read it twice.
“That is careful.”
“Very.”
No instruction to lie.
No explicit request to hide anything.
Just pressure toward the highest possible valuation.
The forensic provenance audit expanded.
Two more items were materially overstated because older records had been excluded.
One painting had a disputed attribution.
One desk had replacement components affecting value.
The total collateral value likely needed to fall by $11 to $15 million.
That did not automatically make the credit facility insolvent.
It did mean the lender had been relying on inaccurate information.
Sebastian called Lucinda again.
This time she refused to meet.
Her attorney sent a letter instead.
Lucinda denied intentional misrepresentation and accused Sebastian of using Elisa’s accident as an excuse to seize sole control over family heritage assets.
The accusation irritated him because it was clever.
If he responded by taking more control, he looked like exactly what Lucinda described.
Claire saw that too.
“Then don’t.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“What?”
“Do not take more authority.”
He understood.
“Independent administrator.”
“For the collection and the credit review.”
That would limit Sebastian too.
He considered it.
Not yet.
The family deserved one more internal chance.
Sebastian called a meeting of the heritage committee without Lucinda chairing it.
Three members attended.
One refused.
The most important testimony came from eighty-year-old cousin Anthony Caradonna.
He had no debt and owed Lucinda nothing.
“She thinks you’re selling us piece by piece,” Anthony said.
“I’ve sold nonperforming real estate.”
“You sold the old warehouse.”
“It was empty.”
“She sees history.”
“I saw asbestos.”
Anthony almost smiled.
Then became serious.
“Lucinda believes once the art is independently managed, the family loses another center of gravity.”
Sebastian understood the emotion.
The collection was not merely money.
It was identity.
Portraits.
Wedding silver.
Objects from old homes.
Church donations returned after renovations.
Things grandparents touched.
Lucinda believed Sebastian’s professionalization of family assets was turning inheritance into inventory.
That motive was plausible.
It did not excuse false records.
Anthony continued.
“She told me if the vote goes her way, she’ll stop you from moving the heritage collection into an outside trust.”
Sebastian looked up.
“I haven’t proposed that.”
“I know.”
Another clue.
May you like
Lucinda was fighting a plan that did not exist.
Or pretending it existed because fear made people easier to organize.
