Page 47 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)

Damon had an odd thought: Did Maddie Willis look like Miss Spalding?

Maybe a little.

In a certain light.

He held the notion rather like one of the too-hot-to-eat toasted marshmallows his former governess made for him. Then put it away as he watched Maddie stride into the living room, where he sat on the sofa, waiting for her, as the embers of what had been the crimson sweater glowed in the fireplace.

She’d taken him up on his offer to use the guest room shower, and her long dark hair was half dry.

Years ago, Felicia had told him it was an act of intimacy for a woman to greet a man with hair that was not completely dried after she’d bathed or showered.

He hadn’t thought about her comment until just now.

But he could add a new element to the mix, because Maddie was also wearing the spare collared business shirt he’d given her in the car.

He realized with mind-numbing clarity that she would not have put on dirty lingerie after taking a shower, which meant his shirt was the only thing between them.

A message even more blatant than damp hair.

She’d rolled up the sleeves and the hem skimmed her thighs. He could barely resist the impulse to lift it a few inches. “Sexy” was not an adequate word.

They had the house to themselves. Tristan Kane was back in the bed and breakfast he had rented, anonymously of course, after arriving in LA to help Damon eliminate his pursuers, Jacoby Heron and Carmen Sanchez.

Kane had set up some kind of computer workstation there to monitor the pair’s whereabouts as best he could, and prowl through the law enforcement systems in Southern California.

Damon was curious how he was progressing.

But, at the moment, other matters intruded.

He rose. “I want to show you something.”

As he stood, he noticed Maddie giving him a slow perusal, her gaze lingering just below his belt.

He was certain she’d noticed his reaction to her.

In that moment, he couldn’t resist joking to himself, if she’d asked him whether there was a pack of razor blades in his pocket or if he was happy to see her, he could honestly answer yes to both.

She looked back up at his face. “Lead the way.”

He considered taking her hand but did not. Instead, he walked to the mirror that was the secret door to his den, then turned to watch her reaction when he pushed the side to open the hidden entrance and gestured for her to go inside.

She hesitated on the threshold—the room he was ushering her into was completely black.

He felt that power thing again, tipping in his direction. Then he flicked on the light.

She scanned the walls. “Well.” A step farther inside, studying the frames. “I recognize some, but the others, did you paint those?”

He said, “I appreciate art, I know art, I teach art. I can’t paint or draw. I tried. I don’t have the talent.”

Her eyes went to Hopper’s Automat , the print that had caught Tristan Kane’s attention as well. Did the solitary woman remind Maddie of herself?

Urban alienation . . .

She asked, “Was that a disappointment? Deciding you couldn’t paint?”

He considered the question. “I had a governess. She raised me after my mother and father were gone.”

“You’re an orphan. I’m sorry.”

“Well, in a way. My mother died when I was a kid. My father assholed his way out of my life. He died when I was older.”

She blinked. A smile followed. “I shouldn’t laugh, but that’s a good expression, about your father.

I lost my parents too. An accident. I was twelve.

” This seemed to be something she didn’t want to discuss, and she nodded briskly when he said he was sorry.

Then she was moving on. “You had a governess? For real?”

“I did.”

“Cool. I didn’t know they made them anymore. I mean, not after, like, 1900 or whenever.”

“Miss Spalding ... she said I was good at everything, including drawing and painting. She was afraid to make me feel bad, afraid to, you know, alienate me. But finally a teacher told me I simply wasn’t talented. I was fighting the sheets and canvas. A real artist doesn’t have to.”

“You must have been mad.”

She’d moved on to Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth. Some people thought it was a painting of peace of mind. Damon found it one of the most sorrowful works ever created.

“I was,” he said. “But then he told me I was an artist. One of the best he had ever seen.”

Maddie frowned.

“He explained that there are those who can paint and draw and sculpt brilliantly. But they’re not artists.

They have technical trade skills. There are millions of them.

But only a few people were like me. I understood what art was—it was giving voice to those with profound feelings they couldn’t express.

That’s the value of art. It gives us understanding that science and religion and education can’t.

It completes us. Without art, we would exist with gaps. ”

“In what?”

“Everything. Our daily existence, our faith, our souls, our purposes, love. You can’t be an artist if you don’t understand that.”

“But—” Maddie was truly curious. “How can you be an artist and not draw or paint?”

“The teacher said I just hadn’t found my medium. It would only take a little time. But one day I would.”

“Have you found it? Your medium?”

He didn’t answer but redirected her. “What do you think of the art?”

As she looked at each wall in turn, he gazed at her, thinking that she was even more beautiful than he’d initially believed.

She was Felicia beautiful.

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.

She was fascinating and unique. A part of her was wild and uninhibited. Her beauty, her decisiveness, her intensity ... Everything about her pushed him to share the truth about himself. About his brilliant creation.

Ah, but the impulse control told him no. Not yet.

He needed to know more. He had to know more. He’d seen the surface.

What was beneath?

She had returned to the Hopper. He joined her, standing close. “So. Your story?”

“My story?”

“In the space of two hours, we’ve advanced from near murder to fine art. I’d like to know a little bit about the person I’ve shared that experience with.”

“Not unreasonable.”

She turned those electric-blue eyes on him and for a moment he had absolutely no idea what was going on in her mind behind them.

It was disconcerting, true.

But Damon Garr was not overly concerned.

If worse came to worst, and her dark side erupted again, well, he was the one with the imported razor blades in his pocket.