Thirty-Four

“Vandalism,” Charley heard the police constable say to Alex. The young woman reported the fact in a clipped, dispassionate tone. The cold hard truth, simple as that. “But, now that you’re here,” she said, “we’ll have to do a thorough search to rule out theft, too.” Document the evidence, the crime scene. Her gallery.

The partition wall blocked Charley’s view of the rest of the room. Her glance met painted eyes. Veronica Lake hair, red lips. An intense stare of almost scientific interest. She had painted the woman so that she seemed to be leaning out of the canvas, to look at reality. Larger than life itself, she appeared to be a second away from reaching a hand out, into the gallery.

The title of the piece took on a whole new meaning now. The Witness.

What had she seen? A trick of the light changed the woman’s expression, her eyes widening, as she moved past her, deeper into the gallery.

Anger churned inside Charley. Her steps echoed as she scanned, looking for marks, for damage. And braced herself for empty spaces.

A canvas lay face-down on the ground. One of hers? Dry-mouthed, she forced herself to move toward it, to her section of the exhibit.

The painting on the wall. The torn canvas gaped like an open wound.

Grief slammed its fist into her, hard and fast.

Because her vision swam, she bit the inside of her lip, tasted blood. And stepped closer.

Not torn. Cut. Something sharp had sliced through the canvas, lacerating the careful brushstrokes. The diagonal incision ran from corner to corner. Just like the visual effect she’d created on the gallery’s poster, revealing the exhibition title. A deliberate reference?

Only this time, words had been scrawled on top — thick and red and gleaming — over the paint she’d built up, layer by layer.

BITCH

The letters glistened, with the plastic sheen of a lacquer. The permanence of varnish.

She struggled for calm. Tried to see past the hurt, take stock of the situation. And realized what she’d missed as she entered.

Only hers.

The thought ran through her like a knife.

Not Kayla’s. Not Thomas’s. Their work was intact, untouched. This wasn’t theft, and it wasn’t just vandalism. It was another message. Another threat.

Charley heard the sharp hiss of an indrawn breath as Matt came up behind her. “Jesus.”

Heart aching, she swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

Alex rounded the corner, and his step faltered. “Hell, Charley.” He’d gone pale, and she could guess why.

Close on his heels, Meghan asked, “What happened?” And gasped when she saw it. “What kind of a scumbag does this?” She looked at the painting, at the reporter working moonlit hours to beat her deadline, and crossed her arms. “Did you tick them off or did I?”

The reporter in the painting was Meghan. The cut slashed across her face. The red letters trailing like blood on her cheek.

“That’s a lot of anger there,” Matt said.

“Or envy,” Alex remarked.

Someone who wanted what she had. Enough to destroy it? Someone filled with doubt. Grieving for a life they should have had.

He killed the old me.

No. She shook the thought off. Kayla would never butcher a work of art.

Meghan scowled. “Whoever did this deserves to be throttled.”

Charley’s hands balled into fists at her sides. “Worse.” Torn limb from limb.

Alex sighed. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“What’s the title of the piece?” Matt moved closer, read the print on the label. “The News —”

“Never Sleeps,” she finished.

Meghan stared at the slashed canvas. “I liked that one.”

“Me too,” Alex said flatly. No surprise there.

Meghan glanced at her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not going to cry, if that’s what you’re asking.” But damn it if her voice didn’t wobble, just a little.

Flanked on either side, they stood in a row and took in the destruction. The ragged canvas curled back to expose the drywall beneath, scarred too, nicked by the blade.

Meghan draped an arm over her shoulder. Meant to comfort but Charley felt the anger vibrating through her. “You can paint another one.”

Alex studied the scrawled letters, the large print, taking up as much space as possible. “You sold a painting, but Kayla didn’t. Her life is in turmoil. Do you recognize the handwriting, Charley?”

Of course he’d leap to that conclusion. But Kayla’s writing was small and neat, her dots always placed directly above the stem of the ‘i’. Not an off-centre afterthought like this one. “We spent the better part of last night drinking Cosmos. I doubt she woke up this morning with revenge on her mind.”

“There’s only one target — your art. This attack was planned, purposeful.”

And vicious. But the motive wasn’t jealousy. “She wouldn’t have tripped the alarm system getting in.”

“Neither would Thomas,” Matt murmured at her side. For once, his mouth was unsmiling, his brows furrowed.

Alex snorted. “Only a complete idiot would use their key to enter the gallery. Might as well hold up a sign, saying ‘I did it’.”

She had a hard time imagining smashing the glass pane was the more subtle route, even if it was just a single panel. “What about the alarm system? How could they do all this before the police showed up?”

Alex grimaced. “It’s not a perfect system. Our target response time is ten minutes. In an ideal world. Realistically, it’s impossible. Response time is a combination of two factors: the allowed time to enter a code before the alarm goes off, which varies between companies, and the time it takes for the security provider to be notified that the alarm has been triggered. Then they call us. All in all, it takes about eight minutes before we even get the call. Then we have to get here.”

“So, the alarm is useless,” she said flatly.

He shook his head. “Only if the perp has balls of steel. It takes confidence to carry out a burglary — or destroy a painting — while an alarm is going off over your head. In most cases, it’s enough to stop the crime and send them running.”

Twenty minutes, fifteen even, would be more than enough time for someone who knew the building. Who had helped design the layout of the exhibit.

Meghan asked, “Did anyone hear the alarm go off? If so, maybe they saw something.”

Outside the window, the wooden deck, the courtyard was deserted.

Alex said, “On a residential street, that might be the case, but on Main Street at 6 a.m. on a Saturday? We’ll look into it, but I doubt it.” He slid his hands into his pockets. “I told you to take the postcard seriously.” His voice was calm, matter-of-fact. “I told you to leave it alone.”

Charley opened her mouth to reply, but Matt was quicker. He asked, “What postcard?”

Meghan crossed her arms. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

No way to deflect attention now.

Alex’s smile was grim. “Care to answer that one, Charley?”

Put on the spot, she had to tell them. “This isn’t the first —” Threat? “— message, I’ve gotten.”

Matt and Meghan rounded on her, both talking at once.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Matt asked. The tone accusing, and no wonder. He’d confided in her and she’d kept this from him.

“I want details,” Meghan said. “Right now.”

Or else. Alex met Charley’s eyes and raised his brows.

Fine. “Someone left a postcard of a vanitas still life inside the gallery door the other day.” Was it possible to feel both numb and furious at the same time?

“Inside the door,” Matt repeated, his brows drawing together.

Alex said, “The painting was full of memento mori. Reminders of death. Go on. Tell them about the note on the back.”

“I was getting to it.” Charley shot him a look that she hoped would shrivel his toes. She would have told them eventually, but not here and not like this. “There were only four letters, cut from newspaper and pasted on, like a clichéd ransom note. M-Y-O-B.”

Meghan frowned. “Poison. A postcard in the gallery window. Wrecking the painting. There hasn’t been any real violence.”

“No violence?” Alex waved his arm at the painting. “Megs, whoever did this slashed a knife through your face.”

“A painting of my face,” Meghan said.

“Who’s to say it’ll stop there?”

“This is simply murder of a different kind.” At the new voice, Charley turned around. Sarah stood beside the face-down canvas on the whitewashed floor, surveying the damage done in her building with a fierce glint in her eye. “To destroy art” — she stepped forward — “is unforgivable.” She pursed her lips. “Has anything been stolen?”

“I’ll have to check,” Charley said, “but so far, it doesn’t look like it.”

Matt said, “Seems odd someone would go to the effort of breaking into an art gallery without stealing anything.”

“Senseless,” Sarah agreed. With slow steps, she walked the length of the wall. Her lips moved silently, as though tallying a score to be reckoned.

Charley hoped she wouldn’t blame her for this. “I must have hit on something,” she murmured to Matt. “But what?”

“A clue,” Alex said, fast and off the cuff.

Meghan nodded. “Have you noticed the way Matt and Charley keep looking at each other?”

Matt tensed beside her. She had to force herself not to glance his way.

“Hard to miss it,” Alex said.

“It almost makes you think they’re hiding something.”

“I’m with you on that one.” Alex prowled around them. “Maybe they heard something, saw something —”

Like two lions stalking their prey, Meghan circled counter-clockwise. “Or pieced something together.”

Sarah stood at a distance, head tilted. The scavenger on the sidelines, waiting for scraps of knowledge.

Matt rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “There’s —”

Charley cut him off. “Why not pastel?”

Matt was right, they couldn’t tell Alex about the past just yet. They didn’t have enough facts. But they would soon.

Alex paused. “What?”

“The writing.” She gestured at the word scrawled over her painting of Meghan. “It looks like some kind of varnish. And a quick-drying one at that. Why not oil pastel or oil paint squeezed straight from the tube?” She had both in her kit. It would only take a second to grab a tube of scarlet oil colour, shove it in a pocket.

“Why not a permanent marker?” Matt asked.

“The ink would smear. You’d need to use an oil-based paint marker.” An artist would know that.

Meghan studied the letters. “Varnish, like nail polish?”

There were no brush marks. “The lines are too precise for that, and thicker.”

“Car lacquer?” Matt suggested.

Touch-up paint. Similar to nail polish, but more potent. Laced with chemicals. “Maybe.”

“Another mystery.” Sarah’s voice echoed through the gallery.

Alex snapped a photo of the painting on his phone. “This whole thing reeks of desperation.” His grin was sharp and feral. “And that’s a good thing.”

“How do you figure that?” Matt asked.

But Charley knew what he meant. “Because that’s a sign the murderer has stopped thinking straight.”

“And that’s when mistakes happen. Which is when I” — Alex emphasized the word — “catch them.”

Sarah met her glance, a sudden flick, and away. Had that been dread, fast as a shadow and gone just as quick?

Or just another trick of the light, changing an expression.