Page 73 of The Grave Artist

“Really.” Heron’s face showed his own reaction. Guarded but pleased.

One thing was curious, though. She had not received a call or text from her sister. She supposed Selina was still angry that she hadn’t dropped everything to pursue their father’s killer.

Siblings, she reflected with a sigh and couldn’t help but think of their father’s message about the money-laundering goddesses from mythology.

Heron caught her expression and lifted an eyebrow.

Not in the mood to elaborate, she said nothing.

Los Angeles is the definition of ambient light and usually even on the clearest of evenings stars are nearly invisible. Here, though, because of the tropical vegetation and towering trees, you could see thousands of bright-white pinpricks overhead. She noticed Heron was also looking skyward.

Her thoughts moved from her sister to a very different memory: the near kiss an hour earlier, as they sat outside the honeymoon suite.

And what, she wondered, was going through his mind just now?

She turned to him.

To see Heron tuck his tablet into his backpack and give her a businesslike, almost formal nod as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll look for that report.”

“I’ll get it to you ASAP.”

And she watched him slam the door, throw the vehicle into gear and speed from the lot, leaving behind a trail of mist that soon vanished into the timeless vegetation.

Chapter 35

War.

Damon Garr had officially declared war.

Somehow the pair of investigators—the woman cop and the man probably-not-a-cop from Cedar Hills Cemetery—had struck again.

And this time it wasn’t a question of spoiling his enjoyment watching the mourners at the cemetery or tormenting a teenager to tears, but actually preventing the murder in the first place. On the special day, no less. The Fourth Day.

Not acceptable.

Damon was taking his typical circuitous route home, keeping an eye out for that mysterious—and probably unthreatening—car from earlier. But now, no tail. He’d gotten away from the Chinampas Grand Resort safely, thanks to the precaution of sending that employee out in a boat to, literally and figuratively, test the waters.

And the cops had moved in.

Hands kneading the steering wheel compulsively, he realized that they were a threat to not only his life and freedom but to Serial Killing 2.0 itself. He thought of the great rivalries in the art world. Da Vinci hated Michelangelo. Lucian Freud versus Francis Bacon. Van Gogh versus Gauguin. There had once been an exhibition about these famous rivalries. The show was entitledYou Were Shit in the 80s.

Now he had his rivals too. The pair were practicing their own art, you could say. While rivalries like Picasso and Matisse and most of the others were simply verbal, with the occasional absinthe- or wine-fueled brawl thrown in, some were lethal. The sixteenth-century craftsman Cellini, in Italy, murdered a competitor ... and thought about dispatching another man, a sculptor, simply because he’d “gotten on my nerves.”

Damon would be ensconced in his small enclave in thirty minutes.

He thought briefly of Her.

In his special room. His den.

And of the box of precious razor blades.

Tonight? No. He was too upset to enjoy the cutting.

In the morning.

His thoughts returned to the pair who had defeated him. He had resolved to fight back—hence, the knife attack on the man he thought was the woman cop’s partner, though, according to the news, it had not been him, but an LAPD detective named Frank Tandy. And the photo did not match the image of his intended target, although there was a distinct resemblance.

So his rivals remained alive.