The Call Boy I Met in Paris – Episode 50
Sophie carried the canvas toward the light. The painting possessed a confidence no casual hobbyist could imitate: layered color, disciplined perspective, and an ache hidden beneath its elegance.
“Did you paint this?” she asked.
Justin looked up from the plans. Surprise crossed his face before he could conceal it. “Yes. Back in college.”
“You never told me you painted.”
“There are many things we have not told each other.”
Sophie accepted the quiet rebuke. She studied the lower corner, where an old signature had faded beneath the varnish. “Was it ever shown?”
“Once. At my graduation exhibition at the University of Paris.”
A memory surfaced: Stella standing before cameras with the painting submitted for the Monet Award, accepting praise for the originality of her work.
Sophie rotated the canvas, checking whether exhaustion had created the resemblance. It had not. Stella’s composition repeated the same figures, light, and emotional center with only superficial changes.
“Why does this look so much like Stella’s award submission?”
Justin’s expression hardened. “Because she saw it at the exhibition.”
The implication was immediate. Stella had not merely lied about Sophie or stolen Derek’s attention. She had built public acclaim on someone else’s art.
Sophie photographed the canvas and its signature. “This could prove she copied you.”
“If she has not already found a way to bury the exhibition records.”
Her phone rang. Stella’s name appeared as if their discovery had summoned her.
Sophie answered without taking her eyes from the painting. “What do you want?”
“Meet me at the café on Third,” Stella said. Her voice was unusually calm. “Unless you are afraid to hear what I know.”
The line went dead. Justin told Sophie not to go alone, but she was already thinking about her mother, the stolen painting, and all the truths Stella might destroy if given warning.
Sophie slipped the photograph into a protected folder and reached for her coat, unaware that Stella had prepared something more dangerous than another lie.