Page 97 of The Grave Artist

Miss Spalding beautiful. In the old photographs, of course.

“They’re all so sad,” she whispered. She glanced his way. “And appealing. No, more than that. Seductive. Does that sound weird?”

“No, not at all.”

Just the opposite. Damon was thrilled at her reaction.

“I love them!”

As she continued to study the pictures, he was thinking:

Have you found it? Your medium?

Yes, he had.

As he’d been reflecting when Tristan Kane interrupted him, the loss of Felicia, and the ensuing grief, was the very source of Serial Killing 2.0.

The reason for the innovation came, as often happens, in a disappointment. An absence. A hollowness that was supposed to be filled but was not.

Sarah Anne Taylor.

Victim Number One.

A death so perfectly planned and executed that he should have been in what Miss Spalding called seventh heaven.

Damon Garr, born to kill, had killed.

And, yet, he felt virtually nothing.

A bit of professional pride. But euphoria? None.

He knew that Ted Bundy and BTK must have felt nearly orgasmic pleasure when they killed. Not so for Damon.

But silver linings come in all shapes and sizes (another Miss Spaldingism), and it was the failure to launch after Sarah’s death that led him to try a “normal” life with Felicity.

Which in turn led to her death.

And his discovery of grief as a weapon.

And hence was born Serial Killing 2.0. Get the murder out of the way and revel in the sorrow of the mourners clustering around the deceased’s grave.

The study of art had given Damon a deeper understanding of that sentiment, and he’d begun to create his own art form: the Tableaux.

And, like any artist, once he’d mastered his craft, he was compelled to share it with the world. But his form of art hardly lent itself to a museum display. No, his was an interactive and fully immersive experience. As such, it could not be merely seen. It had to be experienced.

To accomplish that, he did not need art critics. He needed mourners.

And so his campaign had begun.

His first Tableau was in the US, at a wedding in Santa Fe, where the bride died in one of the hot springs in the mountains. Then a trip to Europe, Italy specifically, where mourning was a common theme in art. One victim in Verona—the honeymoon capital of the country (thank you, Romeo and Juliet). Another in Florence, ground zero of Renaissance painting and sculpture.

Then back here.

To the Hollywood Crest and poor Anthony Brock.

The memories filled him with comfort, even to the point where he could forget the disaster at the floating island inn.

His eyes now slipped to Maddie as she walked from frame to frame like one of his students trying to decide which artist to write her final paper on.