White Collar: An unofficial novel - part 11

Sundial

While Peter was chewing, he wondered how much he had eaten without saying a word to his wife about why they had lunch. He pushed his full attention to the woman he loved.

"How'd it go at the gallery?"

"Mm. Good," she nodded.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, they're looking for a consultant. So, I don't know. I was thinking..."

Peter's eyes fell beside his place on the phone.

"Wow."

"'Wow'?" El wondered. With every right.

"No. I-I was wowing your news," Peter lied and removed the message. "I don't need to answer that."

"Sweetie, if it's work..."

"It's nothing," Peter assured her. "So... could you..." Peter fought to find the question she had had before Neal's message. "Could you consult at the gallery and still do Burke events?"

"Yeah, I think I could do both," she said, confident. He loved that about her. "And, besides, I could do my own openings. I don't know."

"You should do this," he beamed at her. "You should do this. Yeah. I know how much you've been wanting to get back in the art world."

"I have." Peter's focus moved to his phone buzzing on the table. "Honey, what does Neal want?"

"Nothing." He turned it off and put it away. "Nothing. He's on this... treasure hunt."

"A real treasure hunt?"

"Yeah," Peter grinned all over his face. "An eccentric millionaire left coded wills to his kids." She chuckled. "Boring."

She chuckled even more. Then her phone pinged, and she glanced at it.

"It's from Neal."

"It is?"

"Yeah. All right, he said he's 'found nothing obvious in the times, but the sun won't shine on the gnomon for four more hours. Thoughts?'" Peter had already pulled the copies of the two wills from his back pocket. He unfolded them to El's amusement. "You just happen to have the will in your back pocket?"

"Yeah. 'Be prepared.' Eagle scout."

"Of course."

"All right, see, there's this little flower right next to the first time on the will." He pointed at the bottom. "What do you think it means?"

"Well, it's a tulip, which is symbolic for rebirth... springtime—"

"That's it! The angle of the sun is gonna be different in the spring rather than the winter or the summer, so the shadow on the sundial is gonna be different. They could re-create it using a couple of mirrors!" Peter could see it, in his mind. Then he returned to reality. "But that doesn't matter. Doesn't matter."

"Honey."

"What?"

"Do you want to grab some mirrors and go play with Neal?"

"Yes!" He loved El.

"Remember when I said that things were getting back to normal between me and Peter?" Neal asked Moz. He was running out of ideas and needed to do something else.

"Yeah, that's sweet," Moz said, hands in his pocket, watching the sundial as if would transform before his eyes. "You know, one sentence in, and I already hate this conversation."

"Well, this morning, he met with someone from D.C. Art Crimes."

"Specialty suits?" Moz's focus has shifted. "Why?"