She was afraid now, her heart pumping, bile rising in her throat. “Put the knife away. I’ll give you all my money. I don’t have much, but I’ll give you all I’ve got.”
He didn’t answer because he saw that the bus was slowing for the next stop. He said, low, “Sorry, no time for the money.”
He was going to kill her. The knife was coming right at her chest. She tightened, felt the stitches straining, but it didn’t matter.
“You fool,” she said. She drove her elbow right into his Adam’s apple, then right under his chin, knocking his head back, cutting off his breath. Still he held the knife, not four inches from her chest.
She turned, then did a right forearm hammer, thumb down smashing the inside of his right forearm.
She grabbed his wrist with her left hand and did a right back forearm hammer to his throat. He grabbed his throat, gagging and wheezing for breath, and she slammed her fist into his chest, right over his heart. She grabbed his wrist and felt the knife slide out of his fingers, heard it thunk hard on the floor of the bus and slide beneath the seat in front of them.
The guy was in big trouble, couldn’t breathe, and she said, “Don’t you ever come near me again, you bastard.” And she smashed the flat of her palm against his ear.
He yelled, but it only came out as a gurgle since he still couldn’t draw a decent breath.
The bus had stopped right in front of The Mermaid’s Tail. The driver waved to her in the rearview mirror, still listening to his music, still chair-dancing. She didn’t know what to do. Call the cops? Then it was taken out of her hands. The young man lurched up, knowing he was in deep trouble, scooped up his knife, waved it toward the bus driver, who was now staring back at the two of them wide-eyed, no longer dancing. He waved the knife at her once, then ran to the front of the bus, jumped to the ground, and was running fast down the street, turning quickly into an alley.
The bus driver yelled.
“It’s okay,” Lily said, gathering her bags together. “He was a mugger. I’m all right.”
“We need to get the cops.”
The last thing Lily wanted was to have to deal with the cops. The guy was gone. She felt suddenly very weak; her heart was pounding hard and loud. But her shoulders were straight. She was taller than she’d been just five minutes before. It hadn’t been much more than five minutes when she’d first gotten onto that empty bus, and then the young guy had come on and sat down beside her.
It didn’t matter that she felt like all her stitches were pulling, that her ribs ached and there were jabs of pain. She’d done it. She’d saved herself. She’d flattened the guy with the knife. She hadn’t forgotten all the moves her brother had taught her after she’d finally told him about Jack and what he’d done.
Dillon had said, squeezing her so hard she thought her ribs would cave in, “Dammit, Lily, I’m not about to let you ever be helpless again. No more victim, ever.” And he’d taught her how to fight, with two-year-old Beth shrieking and clapping as she looked on, swinging her teddy bear by its leg.
But he hadn’t been able to teach her for real-how to handle the bubbling fear that pulsed through her body when that knife was just a finger-length away. But she’d dealt with the fear, the brain-numbing shutdown. She’d done it.
She walked, straight and tall, her stitches pulling just a bit now, into The Mermaid’s Tail.
“Hello,” she called out, smiling at Mrs. Blade, who was working a crossword puzzle behind the counter.
“You look like you won the lottery, Mrs. Frasier. Hey, do you know a five-letter word for a monster assassin?”
“Hmmm. It could be me, you know, but Lily is only four letters. Sorry, Mrs. Blade.” Lily laughed and hauled her packages up the stairs.
“I’ve got it,” Mrs. Blade called out. “The monster assassin is a ‘slayer.’ You know, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ ”
“That’s six letters, Mrs. Blade.”
“Well, drat.”
Upstairs in her room, Lily arranged the small Victorian table at just the right angle to the bright sun. She carefully unwrapped all her supplies and arranged them. She knew she was on an adrenaline high, but it didn’t matter. She felt wonderful. Then she stopped cold.
Her Sarah Elliott paintings. She had to go right now to the Eureka Art Museum and make sure the paintings, all eight of them, were still there. How could she have thought only of drawing Remus?
No, she was being ridiculous. She could simply call Mr. Monk, ask him about her paintings. But what if he wasn’t trustworthy-no one else had proved the least trustworthy to date-he could lie to her.
Tennyson or his father could have stolen them last night after they’d left the house. Mr. Monk could have helped them.
No, someone would have notified her if the paintings were gone. Or maybe they would just call Elcott Frasier or Tennyson. No, they were her paintings, but she was sick, wasn’t she? Another suicide attempt. Incapable of dealing with something so stressful.
She was out the door again in three minutes.
9
The Eureka Art Museum took up an entire block on West Clayton Street. It was a splendid old Victorian mansion surrounded by scores of ancient, fat oak trees madly dropping their fall leaves in the chilly morning breeze. What with all the budget cuts, the leaves rested undisturbed, a thick red, yellow, and gold blanket spread all around the museum and sidewalks.
Lily paid the taxi driver five dollars including a good tip because the guy had frayed cuffs on his shirt, hoping she had enough cash left for admission. The old gentleman at the entrance told her they didn’t charge anything, but any contributions would be gracefully accepted. “Not gratefully?”
“Maybe both,” he said and gave her a big grin. All she had to give him in return was a grin to match and a request that he tell Mr. Monk that Mrs. Frasier was here.
She’d seen the paintings here only once, during a brief visit, before the special room was built, right after she’d married Tennyson. She’d met Mr. Monk, the curator, who had gorgeous, black eyes and looked intense and hungry, and two young staffers, both with Ph.D.s, who’d just shrugged and said there were no jobs in any of the prestigious museums, so what could you do but move to Eureka? At least, they said, big smiles on their faces, the Sarah Elliott paintings gave the place class and respectability.
It wasn’t a large museum, but nonetheless, they had fashioned an entirely separate room for Sarah Elliott’s eight paintings, and they’d done it well. White walls, perfect lighting, highly polished oak floor, cushion-covered benches in the center of the room to sit on and appreciate.
Lily just stood there for a very long time in the middle of the room, turning slowly to look at each painting. She’d been overwhelmed when her grandmother’s executor had sent them to her where she was waiting for them in the office of the director of the Chicago Art Institute. Finally, she’d actually touched each one, held each one in her hands. Every one of them was special to her, each a painting she’d mentioned to her grandmother that she loved especially, and her grandmother hadn’t forgotten. Her favorite, she discovered, was still
Dear God, she loved this painting. She knew it belonged in a museum, but she also knew that it was hers- hers-and she decided in that moment that she wanted to see it every day of her life, to be reminded of the endless pulse of life with its sorrowful endings, its joyous beginnings, the joining of the two. This one would stay with her, if she could make that happen. The value of each of the paintings still overwhelmed her.
