art studios.”
“I have work to do,” he objected. “I can’t be watching the door.”
“Bibi would really be happy if you’d do her roommate this one favor,” Rachel said, hating herself for using Bibi. But desperate times called for desperate measures. Rudy was all she had, and if she had to blackmail him into helping her out, so be it. “Rudy, there’s no way you won’t notice one lone person walking into the lobby. All I want you to do is come and get me. Use the elevator. It’ll only take a second.”
“Oh, all right. But I’m going to be done in here in a few minutes.”
“I’ll hurry.”
And she did. She went from one studio to another, as vague about what she was looking for as she had been at the waterfall. But she couldn’t bear to leave the art building without at least looking around. He had been here sometime during the night, slathering fresh oils on the still life. Maybe he’d left some sign, some clue …
The studios all smelled of paint and paint thinner. Rachel knew where she’d found the studio where Aidan worked because half a dozen of his masks lay on cloths on a table. There was a faint, mildewy smell of plaster.
Rachel was drawn to the masks. They were lying on a long, narrow table directly beneath a wall of short, wide windows. She recognized only one of the faces. Samantha’s. There was no mistaking the perfect oval, the high cheekbones, the deep-set eyes, the confident set of the mouth.
Samantha had been braver than Rachel.
She wanted to pick up the mask and check the back for Aidan’s initials, part of her hoping that someone else had taken the time and energy to create a mask of Samantha’s face, not Aidan. But she was terrified that she’d drop it and it would smash into a thousand tiny pieces scattered all across the floor. Besides, she knew it was his.
She turned away from the table and glanced around the room. Did you really expect to find a black-hooded cloak hanging on a hook for everyone to see, perhaps with a bloody baseball bat hanging from its pocket? a voice in her head asked sarcastically.
She wandered over to a large supply closet, its door standing wide open, on the opposite side of the room. It was dark inside, but Rachel could make out a long, narrow space lined on both sides with floor-to-ceiling shelves and cubbyholes. Rachel stepped cautiously over the threshold. Boxes and cartons and plastic cases of art supplies spilled over the edges of the shelves, stretched empty canvases were stacked on the floor, metal cans of paint thinner sat just inside the door, and long-sleeved smocks had been discarded on the floor at the far end of the closet, forming a multicolored, paint-daubed mound.
Rachel walked back to the mound. When she noticed the name SAMANTHA WIDDOES written neatly in black ink on the inside of a collar, she bent to pick through the pile, searching for Aidan’s smock.
There … AIDAN MCKAY, scrawled sloppily. Artist or not, his penmanship stank.
Rachel pulled the wrinkled, paint-stained smock from the pile and slipped her arms into the sleeves. She pulled it closed in front, trying to feel as Aidan must feel when he put it on and went to work. But she only felt silly. It was way too big for her.
The smell in the closet was giving her a headache.
She was about to remove the smock when she noticed the colors patchworked across the front. She wasn’t surprised by the dried paint itself. She had known that was there, had expected it when she first picked up the smock. But the colors caught her eye. Or, more precisely, the exact shades of color. Three egg-shaped blotches of bright green. Not the ordinary green of grass or trees, not the green of an avocado or of a turtle shell, but the vivid, startling green that she had only seen in one other place. The seascape. She had seen this exact, unusually vivid shade of green in the seascape.
And there, on the other side of the smock, half a dozen smaller splotches of a blue almost as
“I have work to do,” he objected. “I can’t be watching the door.”
“Bibi would really be happy if you’d do her roommate this one favor,” Rachel said, hating herself for using Bibi. But desperate times called for desperate measures. Rudy was all she had, and if she had to blackmail him into helping her out, so be it. “Rudy, there’s no way you won’t notice one lone person walking into the lobby. All I want you to do is come and get me. Use the elevator. It’ll only take a second.”
“Oh, all right. But I’m going to be done in here in a few minutes.”
“I’ll hurry.”
And she did. She went from one studio to another, as vague about what she was looking for as she had been at the waterfall. But she couldn’t bear to leave the art building without at least looking around. He had been here sometime during the night, slathering fresh oils on the still life. Maybe he’d left some sign, some clue …
The studios all smelled of paint and paint thinner. Rachel knew where she’d found the studio where Aidan worked because half a dozen of his masks lay on cloths on a table. There was a faint, mildewy smell of plaster.
Rachel was drawn to the masks. They were lying on a long, narrow table directly beneath a wall of short, wide windows. She recognized only one of the faces. Samantha’s. There was no mistaking the perfect oval, the high cheekbones, the deep-set eyes, the confident set of the mouth.
Samantha had been braver than Rachel.
She wanted to pick up the mask and check the back for Aidan’s initials, part of her hoping that someone else had taken the time and energy to create a mask of Samantha’s face, not Aidan. But she was terrified that she’d drop it and it would smash into a thousand tiny pieces scattered all across the floor. Besides, she knew it was his.
She turned away from the table and glanced around the room. Did you really expect to find a black-hooded cloak hanging on a hook for everyone to see, perhaps with a bloody baseball bat hanging from its pocket? a voice in her head asked sarcastically.
She wandered over to a large supply closet, its door standing wide open, on the opposite side of the room. It was dark inside, but Rachel could make out a long, narrow space lined on both sides with floor-to-ceiling shelves and cubbyholes. Rachel stepped cautiously over the threshold. Boxes and cartons and plastic cases of art supplies spilled over the edges of the shelves, stretched empty canvases were stacked on the floor, metal cans of paint thinner sat just inside the door, and long-sleeved smocks had been discarded on the floor at the far end of the closet, forming a multicolored, paint-daubed mound.
Rachel walked back to the mound. When she noticed the name SAMANTHA WIDDOES written neatly in black ink on the inside of a collar, she bent to pick through the pile, searching for Aidan’s smock.
There … AIDAN MCKAY, scrawled sloppily. Artist or not, his penmanship stank.
Rachel pulled the wrinkled, paint-stained smock from the pile and slipped her arms into the sleeves. She pulled it closed in front, trying to feel as Aidan must feel when he put it on and went to work. But she only felt silly. It was way too big for her.
The smell in the closet was giving her a headache.
She was about to remove the smock when she noticed the colors patchworked across the front. She wasn’t surprised by the dried paint itself. She had known that was there, had expected it when she first picked up the smock. But the colors caught her eye. Or, more precisely, the exact shades of color. Three egg-shaped blotches of bright green. Not the ordinary green of grass or trees, not the green of an avocado or of a turtle shell, but the vivid, startling green that she had only seen in one other place. The seascape. She had seen this exact, unusually vivid shade of green in the seascape.
And there, on the other side of the smock, half a dozen smaller splotches of a blue almost as
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