Art is the Lie (A Vanderbie Novel)

by Courtney Cook Hopp

  I watched the heated silent film of angry gestures play out in front of me. Time felt infinite. The unknown pounded through my body like a jackhammer.

  In the blink of an eye, chaos erupted as Quentin threw a punch, causing the man to stumble in pain. He took off at a sprint, heading in the direction of the car. Without thinking, I leaned over and pushed open his door. He slid in, revved the engine to life and tore off down the street, leaving the two men running out of the park after us.

  Quentin kept the accelerator pressed to the floor, whipping us around corners, expertly maneuvering through the narrow neighborhood streets, taking one back road after another.

  “Quentin,” I finally spoke having found my voice. “What just happened back there? Who were they? What did they want?”

  “I don’t know who they were,” he answered evasively, his head a constant swivel.

  I gripped the dashboard as he yanked the car hard to the left. “He had a badge. Don’t you think they were with the police? What if something happened to someone in your family?”

  “Then someone from my family would have called me.” The answer made me feel stupid and naive. His eyes were constantly scanning. The windows. The mirrors. Watching. For them. For someone who was watching us.

  “Are we being followed? Did someone follow us to the park?” I couldn’t stop the vomit of questions that poured out of my mouth.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did we run? I don’t understand. Couldn’t we have just . . .”

  “Cee, I can’t explain. I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “What do you mean you can’t explain?” My voice jumped an octave. “Are we or are we not being followed?"

  His features darkened as he let out a string of frustrated curses. “I don’t know.”

  “Then what happened back there?” My tone emphatic, unwilling to back down.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s complicated, that it’s too confusing, that it’s none of my business.” Hysteria was threatening to unleash. “One minute all was calm and the next we’re flying through,” I scan the street, trying to get my bearings, “I don’t know where. Where the hell are we?”

  “Cee, just let me get you home.” His knuckles were white on the wheel. His eyes everywhere at once as he muttered, “I just need to get you away from this fuckin’ mess.”

  I clamped my jaw closed, sealing the rest of my questions behind my lips. I had no idea who I was sitting next to, or what mess he was in, or what he was capable of.

  Our surroundings turned familiar. We eventually found our way under the viaduct, vaulting from one parking lot to the other along the waterfront, slowly moving toward the ferry. Quentin stopped five blocks shy of the terminal and jammed his car into a dark corner of the lot.

  “We’re going to walk on the ferry. I’ll call ahead and see if I can get a taxi to meet us on the other side.” He shut off the engine and stepped out his door.

  “I can call Grace,” I said across the seats.

  “Bad idea. Never involve someone unless you have to. We don’t want them to have another person to follow.”

  “Who is ‘them’?” I yelled before he slammed his door closed. He hurried to my door and pulled it open. Flustered, I tripped out of the car. “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”

  He didn’t answer. He reached for my hand, but I side-stepped his touch. Unsure.

  The denial stopped him cold. He grabbed my shoulders, his eyes boring into mine. “You know me. I’m not going to hurt you. You have to trust me. Remember?”

  “You’ve said that to me before, but I don’t think you know what it means. If you want me to trust you, then you have to trust me.”

  “CeeCee,” he pleaded. “Please. Let me get you home safe, because if I don’t . . .”

  Something crashed down from the viaduct above us, locking my breath in my throat. We both jumped and spied a rolling hubcap that came to a stop ten feet in front of us.

  He grabbed my hand. I didn’t pull back again. Shadow to shadow we traversed cautiously, the surreal evening morphing into a nightmare I couldn’t possibly have dreamt up. Our pace was fast. Quentin’s constant over the shoulder looking putting me on edge.

  The eerie stillness under the viaduct felt off, leaving too much space in my head to imagine the worst. I was full steam ahead, when Quentin veered off course and pulled us up to First Street, away from the ferry.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, regaining my footing as I tried to keep up with his pace.

  “Through the people on First.”

  I assumed he would take the footbridge back across to the terminal, but we skated by it and moved swiftly through the bodies milling around Pioneer Square. They clustered in groups, laughing, completely oblivious of our plight.

  We stopped briefly under the glass-covered pergola, but with a quick glance in both directions, he charged us through the red light and across the street. Clips of sound slipped into my ears, but none to alert me if someone knew where we were at this moment.

  Abruptly changing course again, he glanced over his shoulder and pulled us up a side street. The horns of a blues band bled through the doors of a nightclub, lamenting our troubles but offering no assistance. He looked over his shoulder again before we cleared the corner. Uneasiness rippled through my chest.

  “Where are we going?” I sputtered through the breath I was trying to catch. I was too scared to look back. “Is someone following us?”

  “We need to loop around.” He pushed his hair back, the movement somehow unsettling. We came to the end of the block. Quentin let go of my hand and grabbed my upper arm, guiding me into another brick paved park.

  Not fifteen feet into the park, a vagrant sprung out from behind a tree. My stomach vaulted into my throat from the surge of adrenaline as he sneered directly at me. “Got anything for me little missy?”

  I recoiled.

  Quentin was the poster boy of calm as he stepped in front of me and held up his hands. “We’re just passing through.”

  “Too bad,” the vagrant slurred, his stench burning my nose. “We could’ve had some fun.” Rapidly bored with us, he returned to his tree.

  “Maybe . . . we should . . . go back to the car.” I was skittish. Out of breath. And not a hundred percent sure of who I was with.

  I took a step forward, and another, but they were the wrong steps in the wrong direction, sending me careening into Quentin. I lost my balance, my right foot hung up on his left. I was going down. Quentin’s reflexes were quick, catching me in his grip before I hit the ground. He spun me to him and put me back on my feet. My arms flew around his neck for balance. Assurance. I wanted this to end, but I didn’t know what this was.

  As I steadied myself, I glanced over his shoulder. I saw him. The man in the raincoat. My body froze uncooperatively as I watched the vagrant mumble something to him for having crossed his path.

  Intuitively, Quentin said, “Cee, we have to keep moving.” He put his arm around my shoulders and quickly moved us to the other side of the park.

  “Quentin, he’s here. He’s following us.”

  “I know.” He made a quick glance back before propelling us forward across the street to an alley on the far side. My nose wrinkled. The rotting garbage strewn about the cobblestones assaulted every sense in my head.

  “Quentin, why is he following us? What does he want?” I tried to keep up with him.

  The old cobblestone alley was filled with deep puddles, forcing us to walk close to the buildings. Then they hit. Tingles at the base of my neck. I didn’t know what to do, but knew what was coming. I heard Quentin mumble something about “everything Tony touches turning to . . .”

  “Quentin.” Dread rang in my voice. “My neck . . . I think . . .” Before I could say anything else, color flooded over my eyes and images ransacked my mind. Fire was all around me. The shadow reached in and out of the flames. Rain pelted down, piercing my legs. They pl
ayed over and over. I could hear Quentin urgently call my name, but I couldn’t lift myself out of the horror I was seeing.

  Fire.

  The shadow.

  The glassy rain.

  “CeeCee!” I heard Quentin’s persistent whisper in my ear. “Cee, you’ve got to find me . . . come on!” My body, which had been in motion, came to an abrupt halt, sending the motion of the images off-balanced. They pitched sideways and backward. Reversing order and spinning around again.

  My nose fought a new musty smell as the images competed for my attention, my mind at a loss. But it was too late. They faded to black before I could ask to see more. My eyes fluttered open, barely able to make out Quentin’s face. It was inches from my own as he carried me through the darkness.

  Afraid he’d trip in the dark and drop me, my arms flew around his neck. He peered down at me and asked, “Can you walk?”

  “Yes.” Not completely sure if I could. He set me down, but his arm remained firmly around my side. “Where are we?”

  “The Underground.” He guided us down a narrow wooden path.

  My eyes strained to see through the murky air. “Underground? You mean below the street? How did we get in here?”

  “I picked the lock.”

  “Of course you did,” sarcasm slipping from my lips.

  The path was a complicated maze of hallways. Quentin moved with ease, never hesitating over direction. At the end of a long stretch, a defused glow of light highlighted the outlines of a door. Or rather a makeshift door. It looked to have been created with a sledgehammer through a brick wall, the jagged sides waiting to snag the arm of a negligent passerbyer. Focused on the protruding bricks, I didn’t notice the eight inches of remaining wall along the floor. My foot snagged, sending me down face first. I threw my arms out to brace my fall, but not before my knee struck something sharp, zinging pain up my body. “Arrrhg!”

  “Cee!” Quentin was quick to pull me back up. The sudden movement released a threatening wave of nauseousness. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

  “Um, I don’t know.” The pain was excruciating. I sucked in a sharp breath and forced myself to work through the ache. We hobbled along until we reached the glow of light. A grid of foggy, purple glass on the ceiling emitted the above streetlight into the underground.

  Quentin sat me down on a pile of bricks gathered in a small alcove. He took off his coat and laid it over my legs. “Wait here. I’ll be back for you.”

  “WHAT!” I tried to stand but the pain ruled my movements. “What do you mean wait here? You are not leaving me down here by myself!”

  “I need to figure out what’s going on.” He pulled his tie loose, his voice all business.

  “You can’t leave me,” I pleaded. I sounded pathetic, but I didn’t care.

  “I’m not leaving you. I’ll be back.” His hands clamped down on my face as he leaned over, planting a chaste kiss on my lips. Before I could protest further, he stood and I watched the outline of his form disappear into the darkness.

  A shadow becoming part of the shadows.

  It was quiet, eerily quiet, raising the hair on the back of my neck as shadows stretched long and dark along the wooden path. I looked up. Above, people walked over the grid of glass, unaware that I was trapped below them with no clue of how I got here, or how I was going to get out. I had no phone, no nothing, as I had left my bag in Quentin’s car. I lifted his coat and flexed my knee back and forth. Slowly, I slid my body forward until I found a sturdy place on the pile of bricks to plant my feet and test my knee.

  I would not be left down here to rot.

  I adjusted my weight, leaned forward, and pushed my hands on the brick. The roar of a bus rumbled down the street above, violently shaking the walls around me. I dropped back down and held completely still, waiting to see if I would become a casualty twelve feet below.

  My energy was being zapped by my overly strained nerves. I needed to move. I needed adrenaline on my side. I stood gingerly, holding onto the wall for support. Where was he? I took a couple of tentative steps as tears of pain escaped my eyes. How could he just leave me down here? Tears of frustration rolled down my cheek. He left me. Tears of loss landed on the floor at my feet.

  I followed the line of shadows Quentin had vanished into. The light from the grid of glass began to fade behind me, leaving only darkness ahead of me. Instinctively, I reached out, my fingers walking over the rough lines of the wall, feeling my way through the dark. Bit by bit, my fear morphed and turned into outrage. How dare he leave me! Alone! In the dark! My heart was hammering a marathon, but I was determined to find my way out.

  Something skittered across the floor in front of me. I froze and sucked down a ragged breath, thankful I couldn’t see what it was. Or how big. My baby steps were agonizingly slow along the rough path as my hands continued their brail walk along the bricks until I felt a ninety-degree bend in the wall. I reached for the other side. A door. Which way?

  I lifted my foot and kicked around to be sure there wasn’t another ledge for me to trip on. My foot hung in the air, about to step, when an arm snaked around my middle and pulled me backward, upsetting my balance. A blood-curdling scream fell from my lips before they were stifled by a second hand that clamped over my mouth.

  I sunk my teeth down hard into the flesh. “Ow! CeeCee, it’s just me.”

  I whipped around and pummeled Quentin’s chest. “You left me!” Tears of frustration poured down my cheeks. Low “umphs” whooshed from Quentin’s mouth as I continued my assault, his body flinching with each of my blows.

  His fingers clamped tightly on my wrists and he said, “We need to go.”

  “What happened? Where did you go?” I demanded.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled me back in the direction I’d just come from.

  Like a petulant child, I stopped under the grid of glass and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not budging from this spot until you tell me what’s going on.”

  He spun around and walked back to me. “We need to get you cleaned up and back home. That is the only thing that matters right now. I have to get you home safe.” It was then I noticed a diagonal cut through a puffy, dark shadow under his eye. I touched the misshapen patch of skin with the tips of my fingers. He winced.

  Lowering my hand, I said even more adamantly, “I’m not budging.”

  He stared at me long and hard with a look meant to scare me. But I was more afraid of what was above ground than I was of Quentin’s anger. “I went back up to First Avenue and circled around, looking for the guy following us.”

  “You went looking for him?” I interrupted, my eyes wide in disbelief. “No one goes looking for . . .”

  He held his hand up to silence me. “I found him. Tried to pin him to the wall to find out what he wanted, but the other guy he was with came at me from behind.”

  I don’t know why I did it, but I reached for his hands and held them up, his coat slipping to the floor. Both sets of knuckles were scraped and bloodied. “Your hands . . .” He quickly pulled them from my view.

  “They’re fine.”

  “Who were they?” my voice demanded. “What did they want?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know what they wanted.”

  “You have to have some idea.” My irritation was mounting by the lack of information.

  He stared at me, his face set like stone, except for the muscles that rippled his scar in and out of place. After a heavy sigh, he said, “I never should have approached you that night of the SAM. I should have kept to myself and walked out of the room. But you just stood there, staring at those running women, your pain as obvious as the colors in the painting.” His voice faded off as he bent down and grabbed his coat. Angrily, he shoved his arms into the armholes. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be involved in this. You should be home . . . painting. Or hanging out with your friends. I have no idea who those men were. My best guess is that it has to do with my brothe
r and the man who barged in on dinner.”

  “Why would they follow you?”

  “To get to my brother.”

  We stood perfectly still, staring at each other. Somewhere in the distance, the faint cawing of seagulls took me back to the lighthouse. To the picture of peace Quentin snapped of me. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” I finally said.

  “What wouldn’t have mattered?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d walked away the night of the Picasso show.” I took a step closer to him.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if it wasn’t the SAM, it would have been another place. And if it wasn’t there, then it would have been someplace else,” I said, my body inches from his. “Eventually, you wouldn’t have been able to walk away.” I rested my head against him, my arms looping around his chest.

  A hiss of air escaped his lips. “Cee, you have to let me go.”

  My arms dropped limply to my side. I couldn’t look at him. My heart ached as I registered his words. Words that lanced deep in the pit of my stomach and turned it cold.

  “Cee, I meant you literally needed to let go of me. I think I broke a rib.” He cupped my face, his thumbs pressing lightly on my cheekbones. “I said I ‘should have’ walked away, not that I could have.”

  It was a soft kiss he brushed across my lips. Enough to get me home. “Let’s get you cleaned up and home before anything else can happen.”

  “Won’t they be waiting?”

  “Maybe, but they won’t find us.”

  How does he know this? Why is he always so confident? “You will explain, right? Someday. Soon. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  The “yes” was enough for me to follow him out of the Underground and return to street level. Quentin carefully closed the door, setting the lock back in place. Cautiously, he scanned the alley before guiding us across the cobblestones and back onto public streets. My knee ached with every step, but was functional.

  We zig-zagged our way to a four-way intersection. Across the street was the iron pergola, its shimmering glass canopy a beacon. A sign that the ferry was near. Home just beyond that.