“Well,” Susannah prods. “What about it?”
“What about what?” Thomas looks from one to the other.
“Yes, my ex showed up at my house today. Shovel guy saved me. His name is George, by the way.”
“George.” Susannah tries it on. “George. Weird that it never occurred to me that he might have a name.”
“Everyone has a name,” Thomas says.
Susannah sips her coffee. “Thomas and I were at the gallery. Did you know that Esmé is an artist?”
“I didn’t.” Thanking Thomas for the coffee, I stand up and walk toward the art gallery. Two streets over, I see Voldemort leaving one of the corner bars and I duck down an alley to avoid her. Two men step out from the shadows with intent on their faces, but I raise my hand and lower my voice. “Don’t even fucking think about it,” I enunciate as I stalk past them. My face must be something else, because they both slink back into the shadows as I pass. I make the street and I turn toward the gallery. I’m nearly running as I get to the door. Why the hell wouldn’t she mention being an artist? Certainly having a showing at the only gallery in town would be cause for at least a casual mention in conversation.
Slamming through the door, I startle a couple of tourists who are looking at trinkets in the front of the shop. The woman drops whatever it is that she’s holding. Ignoring her gasp, I push past them into the main showroom. The room is filled with paintings, but I recognize Esmé’s immediately. They’re daytime forest scenes, but they are all somehow terrifying. The trees are twisted and warped. The shadows seem to meld into almost recognizable shapes on the ground and on the other trees. The sky, though blue, barely makes an impression through the intertwined branches of the trees. In each one, a woman is standing. It’s a series, so in the first one, she’s too far away to see. She moves progressively closer in the point of view of the artist until, in the last one, she is near the front of the painting, and she stands, smiling awkwardly, but happily, like a lonely teenager who has been asked on her first date, but isn’t quite sure if it really happened or not. The woman is Fran. Reeling, I make it back to the sidewalk before I pass out.
Chapter Eight
This is getting familiar. I blink into the sunlight and wait to see whose face is going to appear in my line of vision. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t such a pain in the ass.
“Well, look who’s awake.” a strangely familiar voice says.
Voldemort. My eyes fly open and I blink them furiously to clear the clouds. I’m in the front seat of her car. She’s sitting in the driver’s seat, smiling. “It’s good to see you alive.”
“I’m out of here.” I grab the door handle as she grabs my wrist and pulls me back.
“I saved you,” she grins. “The least you can do is hear me out.”
Her grip on my wrist is strong and I know from past experience that if she decides I’m not going anywhere, it’s going to take a lot of effort to change her mind. I don’t know if I have the strength for that right now.
“What do you want?”
She releases my wrist. “I came on a little too strong earlier. I need your help.”
Sighing, I lean back against the car door. She-who-shall-not-be-named could sound so sincere sometimes. I wasn’t as stupid as I used to be, but it was still hard to disbelieve her when she had that look on her face. Part of the problem is that she believes herself when she’s talking like this. A part of her truly believes that the world is against her and she is just doing her best to be a good person in a bad world. If I hadn’t caught her in so many lies, I’d be a lot more likely to believe her now. “Well?”
“I’m about to be kicked out of my apartment. I need some money to cover the rent.”
“And I was your first thought as a benevolent benefactor?”
“I know you’ve got some stashed away.”
“It’s what I live on when the royalties aren’t enough.”
“Your house is paid for. You don’t drink. You don’t have any credit card bills. If you loan me, say, five thousand dollars, I can pay you back at five hundred a month. That’s more than enough to cover expenses and you’ll be paid off within the year.”
“And have you given a thought to how you’re going to shell out an additional five hundred a month when you can’t make your expenses right now?”
“I’ve stopped going to the bar. That’s more than five hundred a month right there.”
Laughing, I look at her incredulously. “I just saw you coming out of a bar.”