As I took deeper breaths and began to feel my limbs tingle back to life, I looked around for the first time. Really looked around.
And holy graffiti, had I ever done it this time.
Somehow, I’d gotten my hands on some paintbrushes and paint and I’d created a mural on the dining room wall.
As Quigley’s voice faded, I struggled to stand until Coop helped me up. Still in her thermal pink pajamas, she planted her hands on her hips and looked at me. “I know this is probably the wrong thing to say in this moment, but you’re an amazing artist, Trixie. You aren’t just a sketch artist, either. You can paint.”
Yeah, I thought as my mouth fell open, I sure could paint. But what in all of Heaven and Earth had I painted?
Moving toward the wall, my hand outstretched, I noted the can of paint on the floor. A can of black paint I’d used to coat some planters out on our small deck over the summer—which meant I’d had to go out to the shed to get it.
My eyes flew to the sliders that opened to the deck, and I noted muddy footprints on our wood flooring. Obviously, I had, indeed, gone to the shed. I shook my head as I looked at what I’d done to the wall—and then I also decided I was going to give Artur hell for going outside without shoes on. It had been quite chilly last night and those footprints were definitely of the bare variety.
Looking over the wall, I shook my head. To my eye, it appeared as though I’d sketched a scene, just using a paintbrush instead of a pencil. But what had I sketched? Right now, I wasn’t able to process the entirety of it.
But as I grew closer, I gasped.
Clearly, it was a picture of a hospital. A hospital with only four stories and revolving doors to the entrance.
Once I recognized it, the rest of it instantly fell into place. There was an ambulance parked in front of the building on the circular drive, with a scribble of a name across it that was unidentifiable.
However, the number “2000” written under the scrawl on the ambulance door was quite clear—it just didn’t make any sense. I’d also scribbled the letters “ER” above an entrance to the right, where someone on a gurney waited to be wheeled inside by a paramedic. The detail, especially considering the brush I’d used, was uncanny.
The hospital didn’t have a name, but it was surrounded by what I thought—from the shape of them—were red maples. Benches were beneath them and people sat upon them, eating their lunches. There was even a small paper bag with some additional crumpled paper next to one man.
“I don’t understand…” I mumbled, running my hand through my hair. “Why would I draw a picture of a hospital?”
“Correction. Why would Artur draw a picture of a hospital?” Coop said, fighting a yawn by covering her mouth. “This is the work of Artur.”
Dawn was just breaking over the horizon, purples and blues streaked the foggy sky when I looked outside of our sliders, making me wonder something.
How long had I been painting? The last thing I remembered, it was one-thirty in the morning and I’d curled up by the fire to look up this business with Mitzy and Kelly Leigh that Margot had told me about the night before. The plan had been to find Kelly on Facebook, with the hope no one had deleted her page after she’d passed. I’d also planned to look up family members.
But a glance at the clock told me it was almost six now.
“Must be a clue, Trixie. Isn’t it always a clue when he paints through you?” Livingston asked, still settled on my shoulder.
“Did you see me do this, Livingston?” I squeaked out the question, my eyes still roaming over the landscape of the wall, mystified by the detail.
I was an okay sketch artist, but I was nowhere near this good. And I’m not being humble. It’s the truth.
“You were quiet as a church mouse. Didn’t hear a ting until about ten minutes ago, when you started howlin’ like a banshee at a séance,” he offered softly.
Scrubbing my hands over my grainy eyes, I sighed. I couldn’t leave the wall like this. I’d have to paint it over and cover it up so Knuckles wouldn’t see what I’d done.
He’d think I’d lost my mind.
Coop, who clearly read my thoughts, squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll take care of it, Trixie. I don’t have any clients today, and I need something to distract me. It won’t take me but maybe an hour. But first, we should take pictures.”
“And look at my laptop,” I muttered with a shiver.
“Is that what you were doing before you woke up? Researching something?” Coop asked, crossing the room to grab my laptop from the chair by the fire.
“Yes. I was preparing to search some stuff about…about Mitzy.”
She handed me the laptop. “What stuff?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to see her fall back into the doldrums. She sounded more like herself today than she had since this whole thing started.
“Nothing that’s all that big of a deal.”
Coop’s eyes glittered in the early morning gloom. “I think you’re not telling me the truth, Trixie Lavender. It’s wrong to lie. You said so yourself. I know you’re doing it for my own good, because you know how sad I am, but I read in an article about losing someone you admired but don’t necessarily know, and it said this, too, shall pass. It’s a phase. I’m an adult, and I’m going to try to behave like one from now on. So, I’ll make you some coffee and squeeze myself some orange juice while you shower and dress. Then we’ll meet back here at the table so you can tell me everything you learned last night. Agreed?”
Coop’s insight to herself and what she was going through astounded me. She was so intuitive.
“Are you makin’
