Stroke of Death

by Dale Mayer

“I know,” Stefan said, his voice growing stronger. “And I can’t tell you very much about it, but it’s connected to the art. It’s not so much about the victims. It’s about the art,” he said.

  “My art?

  Stefan’s voice was calm but crisp when he said, “No, his art.”

  “And what does my art have to do with his?”

  “He’s trying to get back to his art. He’s frustrated and angry. Those are the emotions I’m picking up. And it’s connected to you.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said curiously. “Is he jealous? Is he trying to imitate? To emulate?”

  “I don’t think so,” Stefan said. “It’s really all about getting his own art back, his own passion, his own sense of worth in the art world.”

  “Interesting,” Richard said. “You’re busy saying he and him, but you don’t have a name for us, right?”

  “I never have names,” Stefan said with a humorous note. “There’s a reason that the cops have their jobs. It’s not like I can give you all the details. You have to go out and do the work.”

  “You haven’t given us anything I can go on,” he said in exasperation. “I have two bodies in the morgue, and both of them have had their torsos skinned.”

  “Yes,” Stefan said. “I saw that.” There was a moment of disturbed silence as they absorbed that information. “It’s not the first time,” he said.

  Richard leaned forward. “Not the first time that he’s skinned somebody?”

  “No, it’s not. It’s not a perfect job though. So he could be just practicing and getting better as he goes along.”

  “Meaning he may have started with animals and moved over to people? I don’t understand the people part,” he said.

  “That’s why I’m not sure it was animals either,” he said. “But it’s very much connected to the body art.”

  “Meaning, he’s a body-painting artist?”

  “No. I don’t think so,” Stefan said. “I know I’m being extremely nebulous, and I’m sorry about that,” he said, “because I can’t pinpoint who or when or where. What I can tell you is anybody connected to one of your next pieces is in danger.”

  “You want to give us a little bit of proof here,” Richard demanded, “like what would her next piece even be?”

  “Ice,” Stefan said immediately. “It’s a huge winter scene, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s the one I’m sitting here looking at the start of right now,” she said. “And I just had an argument over one of the white paints this morning.”

  “Whites are definitely hard to do,” he said. “It has to be the right whites.”

  “And I created these colors on my own,” she said sadly, “and people still don’t follow instructions and make it up the way I need it.”

  “I’m surprised you even trust people to do it for you,” Stefan said curiously.

  “But consider the size of my canvas to your own,” she said with a smile.

  He chuckled. “Good point. You’re also utilizing something that somebody else wants,” he said abruptly. “You know it. The murderer thinks it. The detective is sure of it. The audience has no clue. But it gives your pieces that extra something. I admire that. In fact, I’m fascinated by it.”

  “Your pieces are pretty fantastic yourself,” she murmured. Why she was seeing flashes of his paintings, as if she had researched it, but she didn’t think she ever had. “Even though I’m seeing images right now, I have no clue when I may have seen them before.”

  “And you probably didn’t,” he said cheerfully. “The minute you open yourself up to energy work, other energy comes toward you.”

  “Of which you’re making no sense,” she said cautiously. She’d started energy work a long time ago without any effect before, so why now?

  He chuckled. “I’m making lots of sense. You’re just not understanding. But you will,” he said. “Now that you’ve opened up that energy channel, you need to be careful because of the connection with you and Elena. A connection that you both trusted and bonded, loved, nurtured, and now that that bond is gone, you’re hurting.”

  “Of course I’m hurting,” she cried out. “My best friend was murdered.”

  “On an energy level, you’ve slammed a door shut,” he said, “but that’s just a door to the pain, so you don’t have to feel the same agony that you did before. This is an entirely different thing. You had a line of energy between the two of you. That energy is what the killer wants because something special was between you, so, when you painted Elena, she became something special. When he stole part of Elena, he thought he was getting that something special for himself. That he could use it for his own work.”

  She shook her head, not even beginning to understand. Then the phone crackled. “Stefan?”

  “Have to go,” he said.

  *

  And, just like that, Stefan was gone.

  They stared down at the phone. Richard snatched it off the bench and first checked what the last number was, and it came up as a local number, different than he expected. He held it out and said, “Whose number is that?”

  She shook her head. “That’s Anita’s number. Where the hell is Stefan’s call?”

  Richard checked through, looking for recent calls, recent conversations. And then stared at her. In a hard voice, he said, “There isn’t any record of the call.”

  Shocked, she could only wonder, “So did he do that himself?”

  Richard sagged in place. “I’m not sure what the hell just happened.”

  “You at least have people you can go talk to,” she said, “to find out just what he’s like.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I can. I have lots of work to do.”

  She smiled. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  Somebody called out, “Delivering coffee and croissants. I’m looking for a Cayce Matlock.”

  She looked over, smiled, lifted her hand, and said, “That’s me.”

  The courier walked over and placed the box on the bench for her. “Breakfast,” he said cheerfully, and he disappeared.

  Richard looked over at her. “Did you not eat?”

  She looked at the croissants that her stomach already didn’t want and shook her head. “I’ve been struggling to eat since Elena.”

  “Not good,” he said. “You need to keep up your strength.” He motioned at the croissant. “Go ahead. Eat up.”

  She sighed and picked up the coffee instead.

  He shook his head. “No,” he said, “you don’t eat right now because you want to. You eat now because you have to.”

  She stared at him.

  He pointed at the wall and said, “You can’t do this, and you can’t do it to the level of what you want to do unless you immediately start eating. You’ve lost weight just in the last few days.”

  “That’s no surprise,” she said, sipping her coffee. “I often lose weight when I’m doing these big projects.”

  He leaned forward and said, “So, how do you think Elena would feel if her death caused you to lose focus and to stop taking care of yourself to the point that your art suffered?”

  She glared at him. “That’s a low blow,” she snapped.

  He nodded slowly. “It is, and, for that, I’m sorry. But you do need to remember to look after yourself.”

  “I thought you figured I was the killer,” she murmured, eyeing him steadily.

  He shook his head and smiled. “No, of course not.”

  She hated to feel the relief settle inside, but it was definitely a relief to hear that she wasn’t considered a suspect. She took a sip of the hot coffee, lifted her gaze to see him studying her with a note of amusement in his eyes, and she said, “At least tell me why.”

  “So, now you’re upset that you’re not on my suspect list?”

  Her lips quirked. “I know it’s perverse of me, but you have to consider the fact that I was, at least initially, and I don’t know what’s changed.”

  “It’s easy.” He leaned forward, touched her ha
nd, and said, “You painted the masterpiece on Elena, correct?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “It’s your artwork. It’s that piece of you that makes everything so special.”

  She shrugged at that but murmured, “Yes, it’s a piece that I cared about on a model who I cared about.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “And, if there’s one thing I’ve come to understand, it’s that you would never ruin your own artwork.”

  Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “Oh.”

  He chuckled. “Surprises you, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It does actually.”

  “It shouldn’t. One thing that you are through and through is an artist.”

  “What if she ruined the painting,” she said, “and then maybe I got angry.”

  “If that was the case,” he said, “you would have ordered her to take it off, using whatever means that you guys remove the paint from human skin. You never would have cut it off her.”

  She settled back, smiled, and said, “You do know me.”

  “Have you ever ordered somebody to take off the paint and never used the model again?” He watched as she made a tiny wincing motion and then nodded slowly. He leaned forward, “Who?”

  “Trish. She kept ruining the paint. On purpose. I stopped and ordered her to clean up and to not come back.”

  He stared at her in shock.

  She smiled and nodded. “Nothing is quite like having a model who believes she knows more than you.”

  “Wow,” he said. “That takes a lot of balls.”

  “Not sure that’s quite the right answer,” she said, “but I wouldn’t tolerate it. And I refused to paint over it, on a model that undeserving. So I fired Trish, brought in a new model, and started over.”

  “Do you always have a choice? If so, why do you use Naomi now?”

  “I wouldn’t if I had a choice in this case,” she said carefully, “but sometimes the people who pay for this work see or know the models, and they make the request for that model.”

  He studied her for a long time. “And why would somebody request her?”

  She stared at him in surprise. “She’s beautiful.”

  “A lot of beautiful woman are here. But why would one of these philanthropists request her?”

  A smile played at the corner of her lips as she said, “Maybe as a favor.”

  He sat back and said, “She sleeps with them, doesn’t she?”

  The beautiful woman across from him shrugged and said, “She might. I have no proof of that, but I’ve heard rumors.”

  “That’s a lot of sleeping around.”

  Her gaze twinkled back at him. “Naomi does love life, and she lives it to the hilt. That usually means she enjoys a lot of different partners. Particularly if they do something for her.”

  “Do you like her as a person?”

  “No,” she said, “but that has nothing to do with it. I have to live with what I live with, and that is all there is to it.”

  “Do you get to pick out any models yourself from now on?”

  “I’m working with four different ones over the next few weeks,” she said. “I’m hoping to find that I enjoy working with some of them.”

  “One or more?”

  “It’s a new era for me,” she said sadly. “So more. Definitely more.”

  *

  “New models?” He stared at the notice on the door. It was a call for models for Cayce’s projects. How he’d love to see the models. It was unusual for her to even advertise this much. Although a simple sheet on the entrance to her gallery was hardly advertising. He couldn’t contain the whisper of excitement deep in his belly. Was this the chance she’d find another Elena? He wanted to watch. To see whom she chose. To see the lineup and to pick his own. Surely it would be his time right now, wouldn’t it?

  When the best-of-the-best put out the call for new models, you could damn well be sure he would be there. Now he just had to make sure that he was on time and was prepared for his best performance.

  Chapter 11

  When Cayce got home that night, she could feel the throbbing in her gut and her temples. They were both pounding out a planet Earth drumbeat as old and primal as time itself. Tension had coiled deep within her veins, pulsing with the added pressure of everything going on in her world right now. When she finally unlocked the door to her penthouse and stepped inside, she sagged against the closed door. Even as she reached behind her and shut the bolt home, she stared at her absolutely wonderful, peaceful sanctuary and knew that tonight it might not be enough.

  She kicked off her shoes, gathered up her strength, and wandered slowly into the living room. If she collapsed on a couch, she’d never get back up again, and she desperately needed a shower. She looked down at the dried paint that she was inevitably covered in, but instead she veered off into the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine, and poured herself a decent-size glass. She wanted to immediately fill it to the brim, take a big gulp, and refill it but kept it at two-thirds full.

  She opened the fridge, looked inside to see if anything was even close to being edible. She sighed, shut the door.

  She walked over, pushed the button to turn on her gas fireplace, and sank onto the huge couch, sitting right in front of the fire. She took a sip of the wine, put it safely down on the coffee table, and then punched the pillow lightly to the side of her and curled up against it, resting her head.

  As she lay here, dozing, she knew she needed to get up to have that shower, but she needed this rest time first. The alcohol wouldn’t likely help with the headache, but it would help with the soul ache. Working on Naomi today had been heartbreaking—because every stroke reminded Cayce that Elena was never coming back.

  Naomi had been short-tempered, impatient, and bitchy. But then, when wasn’t she? As it was, Cayce herself had been off her strokes, a little less sure, her arms a little more awkward.

  Finally, even Naomi had said, “Why didn’t you just take the day off?”

  But how does one take the day off when she has back-to-back shows? What she needed was somebody who fed her energy, not rattled it like Naomi always did. Cayce wrote a mental note to contact Anita to see the photos of the new people, so she could pick one to work with the next time.

  For Naomi, this was the last project she was contracted for, so it wasn’t a good day to be bitchy. Regardless Cayce couldn’t afford to be with people who upset her or unsettled her. When her creative juices were going, she needed to move with the flow, not get rattled. And Naomi was all about rattling. Cayce would cancel any job going forward if Naomi was the model. Cayce had to. It was twice the work to use Naomi. Cayce had to add so much light energy just to make today’s session passable. It wasn’t close to being her best work.

  But, without Elena, Cayce had no idea what that piece would look like now.

  One of Naomi’s last jabs of the day was, “I hope I don’t die like your other models.”

  Cayce hadn’t frozen at the time. But she had packed up her stuff, hearing Frankie’s hoarse, furious whisper behind her as he ripped into Naomi, and Cayce grabbed her jacket and left.

  Outside she’d taken several deep breaths and then forced her feet to head home. No doubt it was because of her that Elena was dead, and that was yet another heartbreak. Cayce was far too exhausted to handle the guilt on top of this ultimate loss in her life.

  She must have dozed off and on because, when she checked the clock next, an hour and a half had gone by. Her stomach rumbled, and she knew that she should eat; otherwise she’d wake up in the middle of the night, hungry. She managed to get herself upright, took another sip of the wine, carried it into the kitchen, and once again stood in front of the open fridge.

  Nothing seemed to be anything that she wanted or needed.

  When her doorbell rang, she froze, staring at the door like it were a viper about to explode, intent to let the demons of hell inside. The last thing she wanted was anyone in her space. Not now. Not ever. When it rang again
and again, she wondered how the hell the person had gotten past security. Then she knew. She could see the energy tendrils reaching for her.

  She walked to her door, took a look through her peephole, and confirmed it was Detective Henderson. Exhausted, but knowing he had no intention of going away until he got answers from her, she opened the door and stared at him. “Do you ever do anything but bother people?”

  He looked at her, frowned, and asked, “Are you ill?”

  “Sick of life, yes,” she snapped back.

  “Good, get angry,” he said, as he glared back at her. “It’s putting some color in your cheeks. You look like death warmed over.”

  She gave a broken laugh. “Of course I do,” she said. “Trust you to remind me of it.”

  He pushed his way inside, closed the door and bolted it, grabbed her gently by the elbow, and walked her to the nearest kitchen stool, right beside her glass of wine, and sat her down there. “Have you eaten?”

  “No,” she said. “What are you doing in here? I didn’t exactly invite you in.”

  “Given a choice,” he said, “you wouldn’t invite me anywhere but to the grave.” At that, tears welled up in her eyes. He made a strangled exclamation, spun her around on the stool, wrapped his arms around her, and said, “Do you ever break down? Do you ever just give in and let the soul release?” And he wrapped her up tight and held her close.

  Maybe it was the unexpected shock of his actions. Maybe it was just being held by somebody who understood. Or maybe it was just the sharing of human comfort, but her tears broke loose, and the deluge she’d been holding back ran free.

  He didn’t say anything; he just held her close, murmuring something against her ear, gentle soothings amid the silent sobs. When she finally exhausted her supply of tears, her eyes burning hot against his chest, she wasn’t even surprised or shocked anymore. It was like something inside her had broken. She didn’t think she could ever put it back together again. She tried to push away, but he wouldn’t let her. She wasn’t sure he could, with the way their energy had wrapped around the two of them.

  “Just stay here for a minute,” he said, his own voice thick.