Page 61 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)

“Some people have money but no sense of what art is,” Damon was saying absently as he gazed at the massive abstract, which was probably a naked woman.

Or naked man.

Or a seahorse.

“I mean, I personally have no time for renegade populism. Keith Haring and his dogs. Godard’s olives, Banksy’s everything. But there’s an inherent integrity to what they do. Or did. This? Crap. Are your ears still ringing?”

He turned back to Selina Sanchez, bound to the chair in Christopher Fisher’s opulent living room. She didn’t respond, but Damon guessed it wasn’t from temporary deafness resulting from his gunshot to the back of Sweeney’s head a few moments ago.

It would be the shock at the gore.

Maybe a bit of surprise too at Damon’s sudden appearance, which put an end to the execution Sweeney had planned.

Damon walked into the kitchen and—wearing latex gloves, of course—poured and drank a glass of 2 percent milk.

He was surprised to find the carton, replete with a smiling cow, in the massive Sub-Zero fridge.

He figured that Fisher—a Silicon Valley venture capitalist through and through—would be an oat milk kind of guy.

Or, maybe, almond. Or some esoteric grain or nut found only on a particular mountaintop in Bolivia.

Damon washed away his DNA and dried and put the glass in the cabinet.

Selina was returning to her center. Her eyes were focused, and she was calculating, he could tell.

Looking him over for vulnerabilities.

She was clearly her sister’s sister.

She scanned the floor, near Sweeney’s body, looking perhaps for the man’s pistol. She’d apparently missed Damon tucking it away in his own pocket.

On the subjects of art and of carefully scrubbed crime scenes, no one was more buttoned-up than Damon Garr.

Then she scanned Damon, pretty damn coldly for a man who had just saved her life.

“I know you’re thinking your sister will be coming to your rescue. And she will be. But, thanks to you, she didn’t even know about your little investigation.”

“How do you know that?” she asked bluntly.

Sharp, yes. He didn’t answer. “She’ll put it all together eventually.

She can use the same tricks that my associate did and figure out you ended up here, in Mr. Fisher’s clutches.

” A glance at her shattered phone. “And Verizon, or whoever, will have a record of where your pings stopped. But we’ll be long gone. ”

“And how did you find me?”

“My associate? For him, the word ‘firewall’ is merely a ‘welcome’ sign. He’s monitored traffic and private cams and the DMV Vehicle Tracking Service .

.. Don’t know about that? A lot of people don’t.

The state tries to keep it secret. I’m sure your sister’s partner, Jake Heron?

That would drive him absolutely nuts. Intrusionist .

.. there’s a concept for you. Are they a couple by the way, Jake and Carmen? I’ve observed them. It’s hard to tell.”

“Where’s Fisher?”

He cocked his head. “Interesting you’d ask that . Not ‘Please let me go.’ Or ‘No, no, don’t hurt me.’”

The predator still wanted her prey. And understandably in her case.

But Damon Garr could simply not comprehend how a child would want to avenge their parent’s death.

“We should go.”

“Where?”

“For me to know and you to find out.”

He walked to the chair and, pressing the muzzle of the gun against her head with his right hand, used one of the flea market knives to cut the tape binding her hands.

She didn’t resist when he pulled her from the chair and, slipping his gun away, retaped her wrists behind her back.

“You never answered my question. Where’s Fisher?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t figure into my calculus.”

“Wait. Are you the one my sister’s looking for?”

“‘Looking for.’ Think she has more in mind than that. But the simple answer is yes.”

“You really kill people on their wedding night?”

“Around then.”

“And what are you doing here? What do you have to do with this?”

He spun and looked down. “Because if I gut you like a little fish, your sister will be all, oh, fuck, what’s he done to Selina?”

She gasped.

“That answer your question? Now. Move.”

He took her arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Fine.” He hadn’t particularly wanted to.

Outside, as they walked to his Mercedes, she said, “I have to pee.”

“And you couldn’t have said anything in the house?”

“I had a gun pointed at me. I wasn’t thinking too clearly.”

He sighed. “There.” He pointed to the edge of the driveway and unzipped her jeans, leaving it for her to tug them down.

“Go away.”

“No.”

She muttered something under her breath.

He stayed close. The same way Miss Spalding had stayed close when she’d had him pee in the bushes at the playground, rather than go into the public city restrooms (“You never know who’ll be in there”).

Damon did, however, look away from the girl as she squatted. Maddie Willis’s body was the only one he desired.

And he was counting the minutes until he would experience it once more.

Selina got to her feet. “I have to wipe. I need a Kleenex or something.”

“No.”

“You’re disgusting.” She struggled to tug her pants up, the maneuver taking an inordinate amount of time with her bound hands.

He sighed and pulled them the rest of the way up, then zipped them. Not because he cared about her modesty, but because he wanted to get on the road. He led her to his car, helped her into the passenger seat and taped her hands to the armrest.

“You don’t need to do that.”

He’d seen her flinty eyes—and he remembered the articles about her gymnastics, photos of her body in the close-fitting leotards. The muscles. “Yes, I do.” He got behind the wheel and started the engine, then drove down the long switchback to the highway.

She sat back sullenly and stared out the window at the desert-tinged landscape as they sped south.

Damon was suddenly aware of something. Selina wasn’t curious why he hadn’t blindfolded her.

The implication, of course, was that by keeping her eyes uncovered he didn’t care that she saw their final destination.

And if that were the case, another conclusion was obvious: that she wouldn’t live long enough to tell anyone where she’d been held captive.