by Alex P. Berg
“No. What I need to do is show you what I found. Maybe then you’ll be able to help me figure this mess out.”
Shay didn’t look particularly hopeful in that regard, but she nodded anyway, and I hoped I’d made the right decision. I’d escaped once, but could I do it again?
39
I crept into Angela’s studio, my hand drifting to my jacket to make sure Daisy and her new dragon-shaped companion were still getting along amiably. I half expected to have to rip the former from her home and put her to use beating a sixteen-year-old girl into submission, but the workshop lay cold and empty, much like the morgue underneath the 5th Street Precinct.
“You know, I wish you’d come out and tell me what’s going on,” said Shay. “As much as I like to take in crime scenes and clues myself when given the opportunity, I’m perfectly amenable to recaps when appropriate. Honestly, this cloak and dagger stuff is getting ridiculous. You could at least tell me why we snuck up to the third floor and propped open the door to the attic before coming here.”
“You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”
We reached the clearing in the middle of the studio. Angela’s palette sat over the stool in front of the huge painting of the grounds, but of the young woman herself, not even the barest whisper remained. Most notably, her brush was missing.
“When was the last time you saw Angela?” I asked.
“Yesterday, when we chanced across her together. Why? Did you spend part of the afternoon with her?”
“Some of it. Take a look for her brush. The one shaped like a dragon.”
“Okay…”
I worked my way among the stacks of paintings, over to the area where in the art world I’d found the cabinet with the supplies and the backup brush. Though I found the real-world equivalent of the cabinet, its bottom drawer didn’t feature a lock as its replica counterpart did, and when I opened said drawer, I found nothing but a selection of mundane, paint-stained horsehair brushes of varying sizes.
I worked my way back to Shay, who’d stuck in the clearing. “Any luck?”
She looked at me as if I’d finally lost it. “In this mess? Of course not. And I don’t have the foggiest idea where it might be, besides. Seriously, Daggers, out with it. I’ve played your game long enough. Tell me where you were and what happened earlier today, and if you’re lucky and the story is convincing, I might forgive you for being such a secretive ass.”
I glanced at the painting on the easel and sighed. “I’m sorry, Shay. I wasn’t trying to be opaque. You deserve the truth. It’s just that this truth? It might shatter your worldview. The gods know I have no idea how to explain it.”
Shay took a step toward me, the frustration on her face melting to concern. “Daggers, are you alright? I mean, really alright? What happened to you?”
I reached a hand into my jacket and pulled out the brush.
Shay’s face darkened. “You had it? Why in the world did you ask me to look for—”
“No. This isn’t that brush. It’s a different one. A perfect replica, in every way. Shay? Shay.” I reached a hand out and grasped her by the shoulder. She glared at my hand, a smolder in her eyes. “Shay? Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do, Daggers, but—”
I shook my head. “No ifs or buts. Yes or no. Do you trust me?”
She sighed. “I do.”
“Take my hand.”
Shay gave me an odd look, but she did.
“Now, don’t freak out.”
Her look narrowed. “I’ll try.”
With the brush held tightly in one hand and Steele’s hand in another, I stepped forward, reached out, and dove through the painting.
I heard Steele’s cry behind me, muffled as my ears rang with the slick pop of passing through the surface. I tumbled to the ground, pulling Steele along with me as the miasma of colors split around us, avoiding the touch of the dragon brush as if it were a hot stove.
I stood and ventured forth, pulling Steele with me and out of the colorful fog. Her mouth hung open, her eyes wide as she took in her surroundings.
She blinked, once, twice, thrice, trying to get her jaw moving. “I…but… Where? How…?”
Having freed us from the protective fog, I tucked the dragon brush safely back into my jacket. “We’re in the painting, Steele, or at least a universe fashioned to look like it. This is where I spent my afternoon.”
She pierced me with her gaze, frightened and unbelieving. “That’s impossible.”
“Because magic is innate? Intrinsic? Contained within the self? I know. But apparently you and everyone else at your school for the magically gifted were wrong. We’re in the painting. An art world. A dream world. I’m still not sure what to call it. And the brush? It’s the key to getting in and out.”
Shay swallowed hard, her eyes flicking from the trees to the portal to the white horizon off in the distance. “You were here? So when you said you’d found a lead on Nell’s disappearance…?”
I nodded. “She’s been here, Shay. The whole time. Seven years. And I’ll save you the shock before you meet her. She hasn’t aged a day.”
Shay’s brow’s furrowed. “What?”
“Not physically, anyway, though her mind isn’t what it used to be, or so I assume. She has trouble remembering things, and her cognitive capacity is more than I’d expect from a seven-year-old. Still, this place? It’s a stasis of sorts. A realm hidden from time. Don’t ask me how it works.”
“I wasn’t about to.”
“Good. Come with me. I’m going to need help moving the body.”
“Body?”
I nodded. “Clarice. She’s here, and quite dead I’m afraid. That’s why no one was able to find her. Because the killer stored her body here, same as they did with Nell before her disappearance seven years ago.”
I set out toward the within-world portal in the forest cleaning. Though Shay still hadn’t retaken control of her facial muscles, she’d managed to wrangle her legs into line. She sputtered, starting several sentences before eventually completing one.
“So…that’s what you were going on about? Nell, and Angela, and Sydney—though I don’t understand what she has to do with any of this. But Angela? You’re saying she created this place. Somehow. I’ll tackle the impossibility of it later, but as you’ve said on more than one occasion, don’t question reality when the fist is flying toward your face.”
“I’ve said that?”
“More or less. So Angela’s the killer? Not Bertrand?”
“The extreme nature of her art based magical ability would imply so, and yet I’m not so sure. I’m certain she was behind Nell’s disappearance, but I actually think she wasn’t the one who killed her mother.”
We arrived at the painting that led to the manor. I climbed through. Steele followed, eying the floating frame with severe distrust.
“And why do you say that?”
“From what I’ve gathered, Angela put Nell in here to protect her, or at least in her mind that was the intention. Protect her from what, I don’t know. But Nell said Angela occasionally visits her. In fact, those are the only visits she receives. For Angela to come by, dump a body, not tell Nell, and race off? It doesn’t fit the profile of Angela as a captor, unless Clarice discovered the art world and threatened to remove Nell from it. Anyway, here we are.”
I rounded the corner of the long hallway and gazed down on Clarice’s still form. I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Part of me half-expected her to be gone. I couldn’t explain why, but a sense of foreboding hung over the dream world.
Then it hit me. Nell hadn’t made contact. Was she in hiding because I’d threatened to come back for her, to steal her away from the only home she remembered? Or had some other fate prevented her from showing her face?
Steele knelt next to the body. “Well, it’s definitely Clarice. Though I expected more of a smell after four or five days.”
“It’s the dream w
orld. Remember, time doesn’t pass normally. She must’ve been brought here shortly after death.”
Shay nodded, starting to accept the impossible. “Method of death looks to be blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”
“A brass titan statue, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.” Shay stood and regarded me carefully. “So…if not Angela, we’re back to Bertrand?”
“I’d be glad to theorize, but I’d rather not do it here. Even with the dragon talisman tucked in my pocket, I worry we could be stranded here with a daub of paint and a wayward brushstroke. Or worse yet, I can’t help wonder what might happen should the painting that served as our portal meet a more unpleasant demise.”
“While I’d love to spend time here as an intellectual curiosity, my sense of self-preservation is wholly in line with yours.” Shay nodded toward Clarice. “I assume you want to bring her with us. Back the way we came?”
I shook my head. “I’d rather steer clear of Angela’s studio. Besides, I didn’t set up our escape route for nothing.”
Shay snorted and nodded. “The attic. Right. Where to?”
“Follow me. You take her feet.”
I snuck my arms underneath Clarice’s armpits, and we lifted on three. Following Nell’s path from earlier, I led Shay on a tour of the dream world, which turned out to be rather more laborious than it had the first time thanks to the body. As we struggled moving Clarice through portal after portal, I began to question my irrational fear of traversing back through the portal in Angela’s real-life study. Of course, it also occurred to me I might have ulterior motives for taking the long way out. The path we found ourselves on meandered through all the additional worlds, and though I hadn’t seen Nell yet, I’d made a promise to her that I intended to keep.
We grunted as we lifted Clarice through the last frame and into the art world version of Angela’s studio. I motioned for Shay to set the woman down.
Shay breathed heavily despite Clarice’s slight build. “What’s wrong? Is that the portal to the outside?” She shot a thumb at the painting of the attic space, which now only partially showed the back of another painting thanks to my hasty cleanup job.
“Yeah.”
“So? What’s the hold up? Do you need to hold the brush rather than have it in your pocket for the portal to work?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never tried the latter.”
“So let’s try it.”
I shook my head.
“What’s the problem, then? I know you’re not that out of shape.”
I met my partner’s gaze. “It’s Nell.”
Shay’s eyes softened. “Daggers…”
“Don’t give me that. She’s real, I swear. She was here.”
“You mistake my look. After falling through a painting via a system of magic that by all reasoned accounts doesn’t exist? I wouldn’t be surprised if you introduced me to your friend Briney the talking shark who can turn fish into candy. I believe you about Nell. But Daggers, if she’s been in here for years, she knows this place like the back of her hand. If she doesn’t want to be seen, she won’t be.”
“I made her a promise, Shay. To bring her back. To see justice done.”
“And I’ll help you keep that promise. We’ll come back for her. As soon as we deal with Clarice’s murder and track down Angela.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to admit it, but Steele was right. There was nothing for us to do, not now, not with the resources we commanded. But as I bent down and gathered Clarice back into my arms, I made myself a promise.
I’d be back, and I wouldn’t let Nell come to any more harm. Not from anyone.
40
We settled Clarice onto the attic subflooring, the two of us having made less of a mess of the paintings than I had the first time around. As it turned out, keeping the dragon brush in my pocket totally worked.
Despite having questioned my level of fitness, it was Shay who took a seat upon an upturned crate and blew out a labored breath. “Well. We made it.”
“Is that a commentary on the general difficulty of moving a corpse or us having survived a foray into a mystical realm governed by unfathomable magic and physics?”
Shay smiled, her teeth shining bright in the low moonlight that snuck through the attic windows. “Can’t it be both?”
I snorted. “You’d think it would get easier over time, but it never does.”
“Well, you’re not getting any younger, and despite our renewed commitment to physical fitness, the calisthenics we take part in on a weekly basis don’t translate directly to our job. Maybe we should add a bi-weekly body bag fun run for good measure.”
“Actually, I was referring to the emotional impact of moving a dead person, but I’m glad to see your sense of gallows humor has finally sunk to my level.” I took a seat next to Shay on the crate.
She gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Don’t be so glum. You managed to solve a seven-year-old cold case the same day you broke open a murder investigation and lived to tell the tale. Two cold cases, if you can prove Clarice was the arsonist behind the fire.”
“Solved the cold case, maybe. Closed it, no.”
“We’ll get Nell. You know that.”
“Of course. I made a promise.” I stood and shook out my arms. “Enough with Nell, though. The captain sent us here to solve Clarice’s disappearance, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. Tonight. We finally know for a fact she was murdered. It’s high time to figure out who did it.”
Shay rubbed her hands together. “Brainstorming time. I love it. Where do you want to start?”
“Are we in agreement Clarice’s murderer must’ve been someone close to her? Someone from within the circle of her family and staff?”
Shay nodded. “Given her reclusive nature, the relative isolation of the estate, and the lack of clues pointing elsewhere, I’d say it’s a good assumption.”
My feet thudded against the subflooring as I paced. “Good. And are we also in agreement that because of Clarice’s isolation, virtually anyone in said circle could’ve created the opportunity to murder her?”
“Again, agreed. It’s a mystery to me how, exactly, she came to be in Marcus’s study when she was murdered, but if the deed was executed at night while most of the household was asleep? And now that we know of the presence of the secret passageways that traverse the walls? Yes, I’d say anyone could’ve killed her, though the security twins might’ve had a hard time dragging her through the secret corridors.”
I waved that bit off. “Immaterial. They could’ve worked with an accomplice, but I don’t think they’re involved. What I was getting at is that if anyone could’ve murdered Clarice, we need to focus on who might’ve.”
“Focus on motive.”
“Exactly. I’ll start with the obvious candidate. Bertrand, who I tracked down this morning but whom you only met recently. We know for certain now he’s Marcus’s bastard. If Clarice did murder his mother via the servants’ quarters fire seven years ago, then that provides him with a clear motive for her murder. Heck, it isn’t even necessary to prove her arson. We simply need to show that Bertrand believed it to be true, which he already admitted is the case, albeit somewhat hesitantly.
“And though I’ve already discounted opportunity, it’s worth mentioning he’s the only person we definitively know knew about the existence of the hidden passage system inside the manor. He used it to spy on me during our tenure here, he used it to approach his father a mere hour ago, and he might’ve used it to transport Clarice’s body to one of the painting portals. It’s also how he might’ve learned about Angela’s magical art and Clarice’s role in the fire, because that’s the obvious flaw in Bertrand as the killer. Why murder Clarice now, seven years after the fact, unless he only learned of the truth recently?”
“But that’s merely kicking the can down the road,” said Shay. “If we’re to assume Bertrand learned of Clarice’s role in the fire by
spying on people through walls, that begs the question of who was discussing the matter, and again, why seven years after the fact?”
“Correct. Which is more or less the same problem I have with the assumption of Angela as the murderer.”
Shay’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure I follow.”
I kept pacing. “Angela’s motive for murder would necessarily be that Clarice discovered her power, and beyond that, that she discovered Angela had been harboring Nell in her paintings. But we have the same problem with that theory that we do with Bertrand’s sudden knowledge gain. How would Clarice, who’d become such a recluse that she rarely left her room, suddenly gain the knowledge that Angela possessed the power to craft art worlds, never mind that Nell was in them? And I feel I should note Nell never mentioned having seen her mother—while living—in her environs.”
“You’d floated the idea Clarice wasn’t the recluse she seemed to be,” said Shay. “That was before we knew about the secret passageways. She could’ve spied on people, same as Bertrand. Her spotting Angela moving through one of her paintings seems plausible, more so than overhearing a conversation about a seven-year-old event between unknown parties.”
I frowned. “It’s possible, but Angela also clearly suspected me of being onto her. That’s why she kicked me through her painting. She followed me through the cemetery the other night and rifled through my things, including the old missing persons case file for her sister. She must’ve suspected I was on the verge of discovering the truth about Nell, but she didn’t kill me. She merely tried to banish me to her art.”
“Perhaps it was a delay tactic,” offered Steele. “You’re not as easy to murder as a frail, hundred and ten pound middle-aged woman. Perhaps she thought to kill you later, after she’d developed a plan.”
I sucked on my teeth.
Shay noted my pessimism. “Well, if not her, who?”
“Sydney, maybe. If she controls the family finances, she’d be the one to benefit from her mother’s passing, especially if her father were to kick the bucket in the near future from natural causes. Hell, maybe not so natural. Are we sure his ulcer isn’t something more sinister? A slow poison, eating him from the inside?”