“Great,” she said, “thank you.”
Just then the front entrance doors opened, and Richard and Andy came flying through. Richard stopped when he saw her and gave her a good frown.
She in turn gave him a big smile. “I came down to chat with Lenny,” she said. “He delivers all kinds of stuff for me.”
“She’s a good client,” he said.
“Well, I need details,” Richard said. “Who gave it to you and why?”
Lenny went through the same conversation he’d already gone over with Cayce, and, in a few moments, the two detectives were running out the door to talk to the pizza man.
Lenny turned to look at her, shrugged, and said, “Man, you command all kinds of attention these days.” With that, he gave her a high five and took off.
The guard looked at her and asked, “Can we go back upstairs now?”
“I guess,” she said, “but I’d much rather stay and see the world.”
“Five minutes,” he said, “but that’s it.”
She laughed. “Do you always follow the rules?”
“Nope,” he said, “but you’re in the wide open, and I don’t like it.”
She looked at him, startled, and then looked at all the windows. “You mean that somebody could see me through the windows?”
“You can bet somebody is watching you right now,” he said.
She winced. “That is not what I want to think about.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “So, do us both a favor. Let’s go back up.”
She waved at the doorman and the desk clerk on the main floor. “Have a good afternoon, you two.”
They lifted a hand and smiled at her.
And she headed upstairs, determined to accomplish something, despite the unsettling drama her life had become. Once there, she locked herself in. She brought out her designs for upcoming installations and started working. She needed to meet Frankie’s model girlfriend after having to reschedule earlier but she wanted to get some work done first.
As she worked on one design, she remembered another. From long, long ago. She got up, walked over to the safe that held her old designs and pulled one out. As soon as she saw it, she took a photo and sent it to Richard. He called her just moments later.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a design I did a long time ago,” she said, still confused as she tried to work this out in her mind. “Like Elena as art, this was a similar idea I had way back when to body-paint models with my own paintings, not the masters. What struck me is how the cutout border of this design compared to the cuts that were done to Elena. From that autopsy picture of her torso that I saw. Which is burned into my brain. Except I can’t confirm these cuts truly match without seeing her body in person, which I cannot stomach.”
“Well, I can,” he said, “and I concur. That is exactly what happened to Elena’s body. Who would have seen those earlier designs of yours?”
“I’m not sure anyone has,” she said. “They’re in my safe here. I’ve had them for years.”
“Did you ever paint them?”
“Not this one,” she said, “it was a little too dark for the mood I was going for. But when I was depressed and tired and lonely, I used to draw these darker things.”
“So, when your stepfather abused your mother and when that guy, your fiancé, hurt you?” he said.
“The dark artwork was part of my recovery,” she said instantly. “I painted dark, designed dark, in order to purge all that turmoil inside.” Her smiled slipped. “It was very therapeutic.”
“What if they are models for the murderer?”
“Well, that would be pretty upsetting,” she said. She sat heavily in her chair, dropping her head into her hands. “Please tell me that it’s not.”
“Then you tell me who would have seen these designs because they’ll be my number one suspects.”
“Nobody,” she said instantly. “They couldn’t.”
“Who is they? And why not?”
“Because the designs were in the safe the whole time. No one has seen them,” she said.
*
Richard slammed down the phone, then scrubbed his face with both palms. Shit was hitting the fan, and they were close to figuring this out, but close only counted in horseshoes. And this was no game.
He packed up an overnight bag and walked out of his apartment. He stopped to pick up a coffee at the service truck he’d been at several times to see if the homeless man had returned.
Hildie looked up at him, smiled, handed him his cup of coffee wordlessly, then motioned around the side of her truck. In a low whisper, she said, “He’s there. But go easy. He’s really fragile.”
Surprised, but his heart slamming against his chest, Richard shifted to the picnic table close by, where he could see his quarry.
Sure enough, a disheveled-looking man in an oversize coat huddled on the ground, hugging a cup of coffee. His eyes were runny, as if he were fighting a cold. And a blank stare filled his gaze. Instinctively Richard knew this couldn’t be his killer. Not enough cognitive function was evident there to kill and then to skin his victims, like their killer had. But Richard had been wrong before.
“Look at his energy,” Stefan murmured at his side.
Richard turned to look, then realized he was alone. Using his peripheral vision, he could see the glowing gold at his shoulder.
“Now that you’ve seen my energy, look at his.”
Slowly, keeping his head lowered to not scare off the homeless man, Richard lifted his phone and used it as a distraction as he studied Halo’s energy.
It was dark, snaky, fragmented. Broken. Like the man inside. Richard took several photos of the man, who sat frozen in place, staring at something lost in time. Along with his coffee, he clutched what looked like a large cross—among many around his neck—muttering something to it, almost like a litany of prayer.
“Can he be fixed?” Richard muttered to Stefan.
“Maybe,” Stefan said. “But those bits and pieces of displaced energy? …
