by Dale Mayer
It seemed like every stroke he did was careless, even though he was fine-tuned in his efforts to place it exactly as he wanted to. But it never quite looked the way he envisioned it in his mind.
Maybe it wasn’t about working on these paintings. Maybe he should try a new medium. Maybe he should be trying a new life. He groaned to himself. Frustration ate at him. He would have to go out, get away from here, and rethink what he was doing. Because, if there was one thing he did know, it was that he couldn’t continue this way. It was driving him crazy.
He sat back down with a second cup of coffee and stared around the small apartment and then back out to the dreary, rainy, cloudy day outside. He’d never been a big proponent of everyone saying Seattle had coastal weather and how it was rarely sunny, because he’d seen lots of sun in his life here, but this last week? Man, the dismal days had really gotten to him. He was depressed, uncertain, and frustrated.
Finishing his coffee, he got up, checked that he wasn’t covered in paint, grabbed his light jacket, and headed outside. Anything was better than sitting here, hating who he was, while he admired everybody else around him. Surely there had to be a better way to get what it was he needed from each of these paintings. He knew what he was doing and why he was doing it. He just didn’t want to express it. He’d rather run from it than acknowledge that he felt empty inside. Some things were just too hard to refill, and, without these paintings in his world, in his life, this artistic bent, what did he have? And the only answer that would come to mind is nothing. And that was unacceptable. He needed to refill his own well to be something, to be someone. But it just wasn’t working.
*
“Halo,” Hildie said with a happy smile. “I haven’t seen you around lately.” She handed him the hot take-out cup. “It’s the last of the pot, so it’s on the house.’
Gingerly he took the cup and sniffed the aroma. She said the same thing every time he was here. She was a good person. Some people were. Until life dished them something they hadn’t seen before, … that was bigger than them, … then they let all the bad out.
Sometimes the bad stayed out.
He eyed her carefully, looking for signs of the bad. But she looked the same as she always did. Then so had his mother. Good boy. Bad boy. Good boy. Bad boy.
The litany continued in his head, long after he’d finished his coffee.
Chapter 10
Cayce sat on the floor, glaring at the four white cans, each a different shade, different color, different temperature, and not one of them was right.
Frankie walked in just then and said, “I’m not sure what it is you’re looking for,” his tone helpful, in a calm and relaxed way.
She looked up at him with that glare still in place. “Not these. This isn’t what I ordered.”
He pulled out the manifest and checked. Bending down, he checked the numbers from the lids of the cans to his manifest. “Well, these are the numbers that you ordered,” he said slowly, as if dealing with a child, afraid she would blow up and throw a temper tantrum.
She reached over, checked the numbers, then tapped the manifest. “No. See? This one is off by a number.”
He looked at it in surprise. “You’re right. So what color was this one supposed to be?”
“Winter white,” she said instantly. “I need a blued white for that permafrost look.”
He nodded, looked up at the large brick wall that they were doing. “How much of it do you need?”
She glanced at the manifest and said, “Well, if they’ve got four gallons there, that might work.”
He said with carefully hidden relief, “Okay. Do you want me to run and get them?”
“Take these back or get somebody else to do it,” she said, “because we’re short on time again.” She put a heavy emphasis on those last words. “I can’t keep up with my usual speed since …” Her voice trailed off.
It was hard to even sleep at night anymore. The loss of her friend, someone she kept close to her heart, was eating away at her insides. It just was so unfair that a beautiful light like Elena should be snuffed out without a care, tossed into a dumpster, like human garbage. That Thorne had joined her in a different dumpster by the same hand was so unacceptable. Cayce didn’t even know how to operate. So, she focused on her work, tried hard to keep the momentum going.
She groaned, as she stood. “I’m not sleeping well,” she said. “Sorry if I’m short-tempered.”
He looked at her warmly. “You have reason to be,” he said quietly. “You’ve lost a close friend. But we do have to keep going.”
She nodded as she glanced down and said, “Get me four cans of the right paint, and I’ll start in the top-right corner with the clouds.”
“You’ll have to blue under them though.”
“I can probably blend it at that corner,” she said.
He shook his head. “Why not just give me a chance to get the paint? You probably haven’t even had food today, have you?”
She looked at him and groaned. “I don’t even know when I last ate.”
He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling to have something brought to you. Go sit over there, have a cup of coffee, and relax.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he said immediately. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes with the right paint.”
She stared at him. “Surely somebody else can do that.”
“This is what happens when somebody else does it,” he said, tapping the manifest in his hand. “We can’t afford any more screwups.”
“No, you’re right,” she said. “Thank you.”
He gave her a brief smile, touched the back of her hand, and said, “Go sit. I’ll get coffee and food to you in about ten minutes.”
She started to protest, then realized it wouldn’t do any good. She got up, walked away from the paint that was driving her crazy, and flopped down onto a large settee that sat in front of one of the big floor-to-ceiling windows. She loved this space and loved this area in it. It was classy and cold, which was why the art piece would be a reflection of that same space. It was a winter scene—snowflakes, frosty trees, and shiny crystal-clear snowdrops. But she had to have the correct whites.
As she sat here, musing over her designs, she was startled to hear, “Good morning.”
She looked up to see the detective, and her hopes sank once again. “I was sitting here,” she said tiredly, “trying to regain some of my verve for the day. And look who I see instead. Somebody to take away all my spirit and wreck me emotionally again.”
He sat down at the end of the settee with a hard thump. “I’m sorry,” he said.
For the first time she could hear the empathy and the pain in his voice, and she realized how much of her own frustration she’d attributed to the man, when he was just doing his job. A job that she desperately wanted him to succeed at. Tears once again formed in the corner of her eyes, and impatiently she rubbed them away.
“It’s not your fault,” she said, hating the fatigue in her voice, “but this is a never-ending nightmare. I’m a creative person, and it’s hard for me to look at a huge painting I have to do and to get in the mood, where I get to paint what’s on my design, when instead all I want to do is throw up blacks and reds and pour out my pain and my anger and rail against my loss.” He stared at her, and such an odd look came into his eyes that she realized she probably came across as completely crazy. “I am not going nuts,” she said crossly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to feel that way at all. Grief is something that we all have to process in our own way. And, if throwing blacks and reds on a canvas does it for you, then maybe that’s what you need to do.”
She studied him thoughtfully for a long moment. “You know something? That may not be a bad idea. Maybe when I get home, I’ll give it a try.”
“You have a studio at home?”
The corner of her mouth tilted up. “Detective, this is what I do. I live for my art,” she said. “I have a room
that doesn’t get to be cleaned because it’s got paint on the floor and paint on the walls. It’s a studio, my studio. I own the space, and, if I ever want to sell my apartment, I’ll have to get the entire place repainted. But it’s my creative chaos, and I need that as much as my soul needs it.” She watched his own energy contract and bend at her words, yet it still leaned toward her. She studied him curiously. “Every time I say soul, it bothers you. Why is that? Have you any energy experiences? Psychic experiences? Strong religious leanings you feel I’m stepping on?”
“No religious leanings, and no,” he said, “I’ve never had a psychic experience. Not personally,” he clarified quickly, “but—” He took a deep breath. “A couple odd occurrences in my life made me wonder if more was out there than I knew about.”
She leaned forward. “I’ve wondered that too, and Elena did as well. It was our connection that came from one of those. So, if you can imagine what it’s like to lose something that has been inside your space for a long time, that’s how the loss of Elena is for me.”
His gaze was steady. “Have you ever worked with psychics?”
“I know of a few energy workers,” she clarified. “And I’ve had readings done a couple times,” she admitted. “Dr. Maddy was not my first venture into woo-woo land.”
He nodded slowly.
“What about you?”
He shrugged. “In the world I’m in, we do have some psychics we work with every once in a while.”
Her gaze lit up. “That’s Maddy’s friend, isn’t it? Stefan?”
“Stefan Kronos, yes. I’ve heard their names linked a couple times.”
“But not romantically,” she said. “They both have partners.” She stared absently out at the world, wondering what it would take for her to have a partner. Or did she just not give a shit anymore.
“Have you seen any of his paintings?”
“I haven’t gone looking,” she said, “but I do know a couple other people in his sphere that paint.”
“Right. Isn’t that Ronin?” he said thoughtfully. “I thought I saw an installation or a huge painting like yours.”
She nodded and smiled. “Absolutely. And his artwork is really incredible.”
“And always uses his wife as his model, I believe.”
Her smile lit up. “Isn’t that something?”
“Does that make you feel good or bad?”
“Good.” Her joy dimmed somewhat, and she glared at him. “That’s the problem with your mind,” she said, “you have to analyze everything.”
“It’s a problem that comes with being a detective,” he said, “because think about it. We have to do what we have to do in order to solve problems, and one of those is to ask a million questions that upset people. I don’t mean to upset people, but I have no other option.”
She nodded and smiled. “What do those two people have to do with me?”
“Because I suspect something is slightly different about your work,” he said. “Something … special. It’s as if lit from inside …”
Inside her something froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said smoothly, so not ready for the discussion as to why her work lit up.
“See? You just changed right there,” he said. “You’re not a liar. You’re somebody who believes firmly in the truth in your own hand, but that hand is through the expression of your art. You don’t want to explain how you do it though.”
“Very perceptive,” she said, sounding slightly sarcastic, hoping she could throw him off.
He shook his head and smiled at her gently. “But something is very luminescent about your art. A light that others can’t quite copy, and I don’t know why.”
She just smiled at him and stayed silent. No way she could explain how she touched on souls with her work. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you find that you use anything like that yourself? Psychics or any kind of energy work?”
He shrugged. “I see energy around people and objects. I’m told it’s auras, but I have never put it to any good use.”
“I’ve heard that from a lot of people. If you look just to the side, out of the corner of your eye, people can see things that we wouldn’t have expected, like the energy around an object.”
“But what good does it do us?” he asked, with a smile.
“Well, if you see something different than the normal white energy,” she said impulsively, “it’s supposed to tell you something.”
“Well, if I look at you,” he said, “I do see the white border around you. But I also know that, before I come, it’s usually wider, and then, when you see me, it shrinks.”
She looked at him, smiled, and said, “Well, yours changes too. It does that when you approach people.” Of course she didn’t add in what happened when he approached her. The trouble was, she loved that his energy was all over her. There wasn’t anything threatening about it. It was almost protective.
He looked at her in astonishment. “Why would it happen with me?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It happens with a lot of people when they come toward me. I figure it’s because they don’t like me. Maybe it’s the same way how people view you.”
He settled back on the bench and shook his head. “I don’t have any reason to not like you,” he said, “so that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Nothing makes sense in a lot of ways,” she said tiredly. “Like a beautiful light such as Elena being snuffed out before her time.”
“What was her aura like?”
“Calm, beautiful, soothing. I felt at peace when I was near her,” she said abruptly, not sure how to explain how special Elena’s energy was.
“As if somebody had been through the shit and had come out okay on the other side?”
Again she felt that start of surprise at his perceptiveness. “Somebody who’d been through the worst in life, found herself, made it to the other side, and was comfortable, regardless of what accusations, criticism, or jealousy was thrown at her. She was centered. And nothing seemed to faze her.”
“If she was in the room right now with us,” he said, “what would her reaction to you be?”
“She would tell me, C’est la vie,” she said instantly. “She never expected to live long, and she always said that the good went early. She’d lost several friends throughout the years and found it easier to almost ignore their deaths than deal with it.”
“Interesting,” he said. He glanced around. “Have you ever considered going to a medium to see if they can contact her?”
She leaned forward and asked, “Have you?”
He frowned at her.
“If you’ve got connections in the police department, why don’t you bring Stefan in on the case?”
“Because we don’t have budget money for it because it’s not yet high profile,” he said, emphasizing the yet, “and it’s hard to get permission for things like that. Stefan does a few pro bono cases, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt, but … all his cases for us can’t be free of charge.”
“Right,” she said with a smile. Just then her phone rang. She put it down on the bench between them and said, “I’m not answering that.”
“You might want to see who it is,” he said.
She tapped the top of her phone, letting her in, and they both stared when they saw Stefan Kronos’s name show up on her phone.
He gave her a hard glare. “I thought you didn’t know him.”
“I don’t,” she said, puzzled.
“If his name is showing up, it means he’s in your Contacts.”
She shook her head mutely.
He tapped the Answer button, putting it on Speaker. “Go ahead and answer.”
“Yes, do answer, please,” Stefan said, his humorous tone coming through the phone. “It’s already a trick to do this. I could reach you in other ways, but it takes more energy than I have to spare right now.” And, indeed, fatigue was evident in his voice, but it was mingled with humor.
“Hello, Stefan,” s
he said. “I know of you from Dr. Maddy, but I’ve never spoken to you before.”
“No, you haven’t, and of course you have Detective Henderson sitting there with you, right?”
Shocked, the two looked at each other.
Henderson, his voice hard, snapped, “How did you know that?”
“Because of energy,” Stefan said. “I don’t really have a ton of time or my own energy to expend trying to convince you of this. I do not know Cayce and haven’t spoken with her before, but it’s important that both of you realize a darkness is around you, around both of you.”
“What kind of darkness, and why do I care?” she asked in confusion. “This makes no sense.” She studied her phone, wondering how the hell that trick worked and what the specific energy was that he spoke about.
“There’s a killer, not targeting you but targeting your work, your life, your soul,” he said.
“This makes no sense,” she murmured. She stared down at her phone in shock. When she raised her gaze, she saw the doubt and disbelief in the detective’s gaze as he stared at her. She glared at him. “I had nothing to do with this.”
“No, she didn’t,” Stefan said, his voice quiet. “Henderson, you need to check into my files if you don’t understand that.”
“I know of you,” Richard said, “but I don’t know you. I’ve never worked with you.”
“Well, you can talk to a couple people,” and he named off a few names.
She didn’t know either of them, but, based on the look on Richard’s face, he did.
He nodded. “Okay, fine. So you have some woo-woo magic trick that has you showing up in her phone. Even though she supposedly has never spoken to you, and you’re giving us this vague warning about some darkness. Obviously somebody is targeting her or her work because we’ve got two people dead who are linked to her.”