“I’ve got to get back. Contact me when you get the next card.”
He had traffic issues, parking issues, beach issues, boating issues, drinking issues, even some petty theft to deal with. Every day was a holiday, and people swarmed the streets, shops, trails, beaches.
Most days he worked until after sundown, and then some. But most evenings he had Simone. If he found an hour or two of quiet and solitude, he settled into his office, studied the map, the faces, tried to put himself in Patricia’s mind-set.
He stepped out one morning—Simone tended to leave at the crack of dawn these days— and found CiCi in his yard with canvas, easel, and paints.
“Morning, Chief Delicious.”
“Morning, love of my life. You’re painting.”
“I want the morning light. I’ve been out here a couple times this week later in the day—which shows how sneaky I am—but I need this light.”
He walked around to her—the dog had already hurried over to wag and lean.
“It’s the house.” And the lupines, he noted. Those rivers of color he still marveled belonged to him.
“They’re not at peak yet. Next week they will be. But I need this light, and a good start before they peak. I like the lines of this house, always have. Somebody was smart enough to paint those porches orchid.”
“Somebody had someone with an artist’s eye tell him to.”
“You figured out painting the main doors that plum would add punch all by yourself.”
“I have my moments. And HGTV.”
“More than a few moments. The lupines, they’re a study all on their own.”
“Leon helped me out there, and with the other flower stuff. He knows his fertilizer. I had to buy a composter. He wouldn’t take no.”
CiCi studied him as he spoke. “You haven’t been getting enough sleep, my cutie. I can see it.”
“Summertime. Busy time.”
“And not just that. Why can’t they catch her?”
“She’s slippery.” He leaned in to kiss CiCi’s cheek. “But we will.” He pulled out his key ring, took off a spare.
“To the house. Help yourself—and go ahead and lock it when you leave. Keep the key. Just don’t roll a joint while you’re out here. I’m the chief of police. I have a hat.”
He clipped on Barney’s leash, walked to work, stopping at a rental along the way to wake up the tenants—college kids—and tell them to pick up the beer and wine bottles scattered every damn where. Left with a warning that a deputy would be back within the hour to fine them if it wasn’t done.
So, he thought, begins a summer day on the island.
And since he’d estimated the arrival, it didn’t surprise him when Donna brought in the third card.
“Don’t call everybody in, we’re too busy for that. Just contact them, let them know we’ve gotten a third, and this one from Potomac, Maryland.”
“That crazy woman’s ruining my damn summer.”
“Not making mine a picnic, either,” he replied as he got gloves, the penknife, and opened the card.
“Cute,” he said as he read the printed greeting.
This time she’d drawn hearts with blood dripping from them and arrows through them.
What do you think? I could try some archery. Or maybe we’ll just stick with bullets in the heart, and the head. Maybe I’ll shoot you in the balls first for shits and giggles. The fancy, bleeding-heart lawyer climbed on my brother’s dead body to get on her pedestal. I knocked her off. She didn’t know what hit her. Neither will you, asshole.
XXOO, Patricia
She even drew a very distinct middle finger after her name.
Devolving, he thought. Angrier, or less able to control that rage, so a more overt threat.
She’d need that next kill, no question about it. She’d need that rush.
But who? And where?
He looked at the map as he contacted Jacoby.
*
Simone inspected every inch of the investment casting over the wax mold. She’d done the wax chasing, using delicate tools for minute scraping, hot tools for filling in imperfections. She studied it now, and deemed it ready.
She’d taken hours to design, create, and attach the sprue system, the channel system of wax rods and gates to feed the molten bronze into the mold.
More hours still coating the wax with slurry. First, the very, very fine grain—two coats—to pick up all the minute and delicate details. More layers—nine in all—of various grades and mixtures, letting each dry between coats to create that thick ceramic shell.
All the tedious, technical work had kept her mind occupied for days, and off the anxiety of that third damn card.
She didn’t know what hit her. Neither will you.
Don’t think about it now, she told herself. Don’t let a madwoman dictate your life.
She boxed the shell, carried it downstairs.
“Is that Reed?”
“All ready to go.” Simone set the box on the kitchen counter with a little huff from the effort. “I appreciate you giving up a pretty summer day to go with me.”
“I love a trip to the foundry. All those sweaty men—and women,” CiCi added. “I’ll get some sketches out of it.” She checked her hair in the mirror—long and loose with a trio of enormous hoops showing through at her ears. “And I really am looking forward to hearing Natalie’s wedding chatter. We’ll make it a fun day.” She shouldered on a straw bag the size of the Hindenburg. “Let’s get our pretty boy out to the car. You did tell him we’re going to the mainland this morning.”
“I’ll text him from the ferry.”
CiCi narrowed her eyes as they walked out of the house. “Simone.”
“It gives him less time to worry.”
“And no time to try to talk you out of going off-island.”
“Exactly.” Simone settled the box in the cargo area, tossed her satchel back with it, popped on sunglasses as CiCi slid on her rainbow-lensed ones. In the driver’s seat, she cranked up the radio, shot CiCi a grin.
“Girl trip!”
“Wee-hoo!”
Under usual circumstances, Simone might have booked a hotel room near the foundry, instead of pushing the work there to a single day. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the supervisors, or the workers who were, in their way, artists themselves. But she preferred being in on every step and stage.
These weren’t usual circumstances, and she didn’t want to be away from Reed and the island, so the push was on.
He looked after her, she thought, and she looked right back after him.
Still, she left CiCi to entertain herself on the pouring floor or to wander around the furnaces while she hovered over the worker who placed her piece into the autoclave.
She’d used the lost wax method, her preference, and the heat and pressure from the oven would force the wax out of its shell.
If she’d done good work, she thought, The Protector would be perfectly formed inside the empty, hardened shell.
CiCi joined her when the workers transferred the hot shell to the pouring floor.
“And here we go,” CiCi said.
Workers in helmets, face masks, protective suits, thick gloves, and boots always put her in mind of rugged astronauts.
They secured her work in sand while others heated solid blocks of bronze into liquid. She imagined muscles tensed and rippling inside those thick suits as they stirred that glorious molten bronze.
Here was art, too, she thought, in the enormous heat, the scent of chemicals and sweat, of liquified metal. And magic in the glowing light as workers lifted the crucible of molten metal out of its furnace.
And the pour—that moment of truth—always enthralled her. Those quick movements of workers moving in unison, the fluid flow of deep, glowing gold like melted sunlight.
Inside the shell, her work, her art, her vision filled with that melted sunlight. The negative became positive, and the symbol and study of the man she’d come to love would be born.
“Not as good as sex,” CiCi murmured beside her. “But it’s a damn fine rush all the same.”
“Oh boy.” On a long sigh, Simone released her breath.