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know you, and she was extremely protective of Justine, which made her A-okay in my book.
    As I mentioned before, my apartment and Justine's apartment occupied the sixth floor, which was also the top floor of the building. My humble space was on the smaller side, while Justine's was simply huge. She had told me all about the building's history; it started off as an apartment building, and at some point was converted into a tenancy-in-common building, which was similar to a condominium structure, but not quite the same. As the individual apartments were sold, many of the one and two bedroom units were purchased in pairs and converted to larger dwellings. Justine's was actually three units combined into one, making it the largest in the building. Her living room occupied the southwest corner and was surrounded by floor to ceiling windows on one side and French doors that led to a small terrace on the other. The doors were open and a light breeze ruffled the silk drapes.
    Her taste was fairly simple, but even this untrained eye knew the pieces were also very expensive. She preferred natural earth-tone colors for the upholstered furniture and richly stained antiques for the solid pieces. Her artwork consisted of large, colorful canvases, mostly landscapes, and their vibrancy offset the simplicity of the room's color palette. I glanced around, letting my gaze fall on the alcove at the back of the room. The space was designed as a reading nook, open to the room, but not actually part of it. Floor to ceiling bookcases occupied all the walls with the exception of the center of the back wall, which held a cozy fireplace.
    Above the mantel, hanging in all its glory, was the painting done by her cousin, the one I remembered but couldn't place. It depicted dark hills and valleys in the early stages of evening light. There were several human-like forms, a yellowish one that appeared to be running from several grey, more ominous forms. It had a very similar style to
What Haunts Me
. I wondered why I'd never really noticed it before; surely it had been hanging there all along. The piece seemed so out of place in a space that was for the most part bright and cheerful. It almost seemed to create a sort of vortex, or black hole in the room, sucking in the color and light if you stared at it too long.
    The fact that Vokkel had
What Haunts Me
hanging in his stairwell wasn't lost on me. I just hadn't, or should I say, hadn't
wanted
to connect the strange man to Justine. Why did he have Justine's cousin's artwork hanging in his home? Was Wilhelmina the woman Vokkel had been rumored to drive to suicide? Did Justine know Vokkel? I couldn't shake the feeling that none of this was a coincidence and perhaps I needed to have a good old fashioned sit-down chat with my lovely neighbor.
    There was a light touch on my elbow and the not-so gentle voice of Anne said, “Mr. Sinclair, are you all right?”
    I hated it when she called me by my surname, but I smiled at her just the same and nodded my head, then glanced at the painting one more time. She noticed the direction of my gaze and in a conspiratorial whisper, she said, “I hate that painting—it's creepy.” As if realizing that she'd spoken out of place, she shifted uncomfortably and said, “This way Mr. Sinclair, the ladies are on the terrace.” She still had her hand on my arm, and with a surprising amount of strength, she nudged me toward the French doors.

Chapter 15
    I walked onto the patio to find Justine and Billy sipping wine and engaged in deep discussion. They abruptly stopped when they saw me. As usual, Justine was dressed impeccably; lightweight wool trousers with a matching sweater and a colorful scarf around her neck. I didn't know what was
usual
for Billy, but she looked nothing like our first encounter. She'd ditched her dingy dark clothes for a tan knee length skirt, white sweater, and ballet style flats. Her hair had been recently washed and hung in silky black waves down her