Chapter 29
Finn staggered when a tree root cropped up to trip him. For the first time since become a gargoyle, he felt weak and dizzy. He extended his wings and tried to take off. After a couple of false starts, he got them to work, and he took to the sky.
He rose above the house and circled it, unable to control the need to check on Genevieve. Her tearstained face and broken voice had nearly undone him as much as her words.
He loved her with everything in him, but they could not be together. And now he knew they never would. He could not bear to experience such pain again. He would lose his mind and become the beast again.
The fire had died down to embers, and the witches were shadows as they crossed the field to the house. Several of them doused the flames, while others stood on the patio for a few moments, then broke away to go to their cars. When he was certain Miranda and Juliet remained with Genevieve to offer her comfort and support, he changed direction to fly south.
He came upon the clearing where he brought Genevieve the night they flew together. He glided down and stumbled when he landed, having to brace a hand on the ground to catch himself. He needed to eat to renew himself, but the idea of food set his stomach to churning.
He moved to the stream and cupped his hand in the water to bring some to his mouth. The sight of his rough, malformed hand and claws revolted him. How could he dare touch Genevieve with hands like this?
A groan built in his throat beside his rage, and he roared out his pain. He leapt to his feet, tore a small sapling out of the ground, and heaved it as far as he could. Once he’d embarked on a frenzy of destruction, he couldn’t seem to stop. He broke and destroyed, tore up the earth with his claws until they were broken, and the ground looked like a plow had harrowed it.
Afterward he lay on the ground, gasping and exhausted. The silence surrounding him was calming, though the pain of his crushed hopes lodged like a fist in his chest.
His eyes burned with his need to release his grief, but centuries of manly discipline made it impossible.
After a while, he sat up. Seeing the destruction he wrought only compounded his grief. He had destroyed a lovely, peaceful place. Even the fireflies were gone. Finn dragged himself to his feet, and, with deliberate care, began to clean up the mess and replant the trees and other plants he’d ripped out of the ground.
Hours later, when he was exhausted, sweaty, and covered with mud, the call of the sun struck more painfully than usual. He flew toward home.
He landed on the lawn and rushed to bathe away the sweat and mud. The first rays of the new day were glowing far in the distance when he moved to take his place on the stone block, and, at the same moment Genevieve walked out onto the patio and approached him. Her pale skin looked powder-soft in the early morning light. He watched the silky flow of her pajamas as she moved, and noticed the quick flash of her poppy-tinted toenails.
Dark rings stood out beneath her eyes like thumbprints. Realizing she had not slept, he felt guilty for causing her such distress.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“I meant what I said, Finn.”
He swallowed with difficulty. “If I say the words, ’twill only make it harder for us both, leannan.” When he framed her face with his hands, the delicacy of her bones, the softness of her skin, triggered a deeper ache of loss. “I want ye to have a husband, children, all the things I canna give ye.”
She gripped his wrists when he started to withdraw from her. “Don’t you ever get tired of be so damned noble, Finn?”
“Not noble, lass. Practical. We Scots are known for it. How do ye know our children wouldna be born with this curse? How would ye explain to them their arthair was a creature of the night instead of a flesh and blood man? How do ye know it wouldna somehow infect ye, should we make love?”
“How do you know that my loving you won’t eventually break the curse? Your eyes are still blue. Your ears are close to human now. Your brow is not so prominent anymore.” Her green eyes had turned grayish with passion. “You are becoming human again. We just have to be patient.”
He wanted her with an unquenchable hunger. But being with her…should he lose control… “Do ye ken how hard it is for me to see ye every day, touch ye, and not be able to kiss ye, caress ye, take ye to me?”
“Yes, I do. Because it’s just as hard for me.”
Women had never spoken so openly in his time. Blood rushed south and he hardened. “Genevieve…” The sun rose over the hills.
Genevieve rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. A floral scent clung to her, and her breath bore the faint taste of mint. For half a second, he was just a man responding to his lady’s kiss, until the magic rose and yanked him away. As the stone absorbed him, exhaustion overwhelmed him, but the taste of her lips lingered to torment him with a promise that could never be fulfilled.
* * *
Simon studied Detective Chase Robinson. The man had questioned him right after Mai’s abduction, and now he was back. But there couldn’t be any evidence leading this detective back to him, otherwise he’d be slapping handcuffs on him and hustling him out to his car.
“Did you see anyone on the street when you left?”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t. The street was deserted.”
“Where was your car parked? Liz, the owner of The Dish, said you took the same route Mai did that night.”
The streets were empty at night, and there were no traffic cameras. “I didn’t have my car parked on the street. It was parked behind the Gallery. I walked back there to get it.”
“That’s quite a walk, Mr. Martin. About eight blocks.”
Simon shrugged. “I don’t get as much exercise as I need during the day, so I take long walks at night. And Superstition is a relatively safe town. I’ve never had any trouble here. Unlike Lexington. I was held up at knifepoint on my way to my car one night there.”
Chase’s light brown brows rose. “When was this?”
The man’s gaze did give him a brief pause. His irises were so light they looked almost white. Had there not been a darker ring of color along the edge, Simon might have wondered if he could see. “It was three years ago, August seventeenth. I remember, because I had a very big sale that day, and my staff and I celebrated with some champagne before I left for home. The man had been in the gallery earlier that day and overheard us talking about it, and thought I’d have some extra cash on me because of it. I was taking the receipts to the bank when he held me up.”
“How much did he get away with?” Chase asked.
“Nothing. I fought him off, and he was accidentally stabbed while we fought. As soon he was released from the hospital, he went to jail. It seems he had broken his parole by trying to mug me.”
Simon adjusted the crease on his trousers. “Not our normal customer, although to look at him, you’d never have known he had a background in burglary and assault.
“Afterward I decided to pack up and move, since I can sell my artists’ work from anywhere. I run a successful website, and have thousands of contacts. Sometimes I ship pieces across the country to California and even Washington state, and share the commission. I always accompany Genevieve’s pieces to make certain they arrive safely and are correctly installed.”
“I’m sure she appreciates it.”
“The collector in New York loved Reclining Woman. He sent word Juliet could have a job with his agency any time.”
Robinson’s jaw tensed.
Simon controlled a smirk. “She really is extraordinarily beautiful. And her sister as well.” It was so easy to get a rise out of a man when his girlfriend or wife was involved.
“Yes, they are,” Robinson said, his tone neutral. “Did you know Mai Chen modeled for Genevieve?”
“I don’t believe she ever told me who the model was for her latest piece. She didn’t with Juliet, either. She’s very careful to protect her models’ identities. And she always changes their facial features in the finished work. The only reason I guessed Juliet had modeled for her is because she and Juliet are friends. I’ve seen them together, and I noticed a similarity in body type and guessed.”
“How long did it take you to walk from The Dish to the parking structure, Mr. Martin?”
“I’d say at least fifteen minutes.”
“And what route did you take?”
“South on Kentucky Street, East on Dove Avenue for about five blocks, then I crossed over and went down Trick Street for two blocks, then crossed over again and walked the remaining blocks on Secret Avenue.”
“Did you see anyone along the way?” Robinson poised the pencil over his pad, ready to write more notes.
“No. It was very late, but a few cars passed me along the way.”
“That’s okay, I’ll check the business cameras. That should give you an alibi.”
“I wasn’t aware I needed an alibi.”
Robinson eyed him. “At the moment every male in this town is under suspicion. And you were in the vicinity that night.”
“Did the young lady identify me?”
“No. But we’re checking DNA and fingerprints. Would you be open to giving me a DNA sample and your fingerprints? Both are completely painless.”
Sweat rolled down between Simon’s shoulder blades. If he didn’t cooperate, Robinson would think he had something to hide. He’d been careful, but there was always a chance he’d left evidence behind.
Robinson opened the case he brought with him, put on rubber gloves, then lifted a long-stemmed swab.
How long does it take to get DNA back? Simon opened his mouth, and the detective ran the swab against the inside of his cheek, then closed the plastic tube around it. Wrote his name on it and placed it in the case.
Then he plugged in the electronic scanner and carefully cleaned the glass. “Just place your fingers one at a time against the plate, and it will take a digital reading of each print.”
Simon pulled his shirt cuff back and put each finger into the device.
“Nice watch,” Robinson commented.
“Thank you. It’s a Rolex.”
Like any scanner, the light flashed and ran beneath his thumb. Immediately an image with whorls and ridges came up on a small screen. Robinson saved it.
When the last finger was done, Robinson said, “Beats having to clean fingerprint ink off, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know, Detective. I’ve never been printed before.”
“Never been a state employee, a teacher, been arrested?”
“No.”
“May I look at your watch?”
Simon studied him for a moment. Unlike most small-town cops Simon dealt with, this was no country bumpkin. Simon removed the watch and handed it to Robinson.
Chase took a picture of the watch with his cell phone. “I want a new watch for Christmas, and I really like this one.”
“If you show up to work with one, you may find yourself on the wrong end of an investigation yourself. It cost ten thousand dollars.”
Robinson whistled. “That’s a bit out of my price range.” He took another swab and rubbed it around the face of the watch and around the curved edges, Simon’s stomach fluttered uneasily.
Robinson sealed the swab, handed the watch back to Simon, then unplugged the scanner and shut it inside the case.
“Just where are you from, Mr. Martin, originally?” he asked, his tone more conversational than before.
“Holcomb, Kansas.”
“Isn’t that the town…?” Chase’s voice drifted off.
“Yes. The town Truman Capote wrote about.”
“I read that book in college.”
“I’ve read it, too. He didn’t have much to say about the town, only the killers. I left when I was eighteen and never looked back.”
“I did the same thing, but I went into the service.”
Curious Simon asked, “How did you know I didn’t do the same thing?”
“You’ve never been fingerprinted. The military takes DNA and fingerprints.”
“I see.” He should have known that.
“You saw the sculpture of Mai in Genevieve’s living room.”
“Yes. It’s one of Genevieve’s most beautiful so far.”
“You recognized Juliet as Reclining Woman, but not Mai as Water Baby?”
“Mai isn’t really a close friend to Genevieve. She’s more of a protégé.”
Robinson pounced on the comment. “How do you know that? Did Genevieve tell you?”
Simon shrugged. “I just assumed. She doesn’t get involved with her models usually. And besides, she’s changed the features on the sculpture. The sculpture doesn’t look Chinese. Without that as a hint, how would I know which college student on a campus of students had posed for her?”
Robinson’s gaze narrowed. “If you had access to Genevieve’s house, I’m sure you’d know where to look for that information.”
“I’ve never been to Genevieve’s house without her invitation. I don’t have a key.”
“I’ll be asking her to verify that.”
“Go ahead.” No one had any idea he had a key.
Robinson flipped his notebook shut and picked up the case.
“Aren’t you going to take Keith’s fingerprints and DNA?” Simon asked.
“No. Keith has an airtight alibi.”
A small twinge of resentment nipped him. “Because he’s gay?”
“No. Because there were several witnesses to verify his location for the time frame of Mai’s abduction. Of course, I’ll be checking the business cameras along the route you took.”
“Okay.” Simon would be long gone before Robinson completed that task. And Genevieve would be with him.
Simon accompanied the detective to the front door, and observed the detective while he got into his car.
Keith wandered up. “He’s quite yummy, even with those odd-colored eyes. Kind of like a young Bruce Willis, when he still had hair, only taller.”
Simon kept his tone neutral. “Too bad he’s got a girlfriend.”
“How do you know that?” Keith asked.
“She’s one of Genevieve’s friends.”
“He’s got his eye on you for that Chinese woman’s rape?” Keith asked.
“He’s just crossing off suspects. I think he may be investigating half the men in town, and every sex offender in the state. I have nothing to worry about.” He turned to see a look of speculation in Keith’s eyes. “I didn’t do anything.”
“It was strange that she was Genevieve’s model. And that it happened right after we put the drawings up. You don’t think it was someone who came through and saw them?”
“How could they recognize her from the drawings, Keith? Genevieve didn’t draw her as Chinese.” Sometimes his assistant wasn’t very smart. “In fact, I didn’t even know she was until Genevieve called and told me she was the one missing.”
“That’s a relief.” Keith smiled. “I mean that the drawings didn’t trigger anything. And the drawings you substituted for the originals were just as beautiful. Genevieve needs to do more. They take less time, and they sold much more easily.”
There’s a thought. “Yes, they did, didn’t they?” They’d need a way to bring in money while they were on the road, and that should be as good as any. Which reminded him, he needed to wipe the hard drive before he left, and take his black book of distributors with him. It wouldn’t do for the police to know who his contacts were. “I’ll be sure to encourage her to do that, and tell her it was your idea.”
Keith grinned like he’d won the lottery.
It was good to leave him happy. Since Keith would be out of a job once he and Genevieve left.
* * *
Genevieve lowered the electric chisel and took up the hammer and manual chisel. After weeks of work, the sculpture was taking shape, and she was doing finishing touches to his back and shoulders. It did her good to have a task to focus on that would take away the disappointment and worry over Finn.
Typical man. No patience.
He was changing. His brow ridge was beginning to recede, and his jaw wasn’t as distended. She had photos to prove it.
If she could just convince him to give it some time…
She finished hammering a section away and paused to step back and look at it. A hand touched her shoulder. She yelped and swung around, the chisel gripped like a knife. Recognition brought with it a shaky relief. “Damn it, Chase. You scared the shit out of me.” She jerked her protective headphones off and left them hanging around her neck.
“I’m sorry. Take it easy.” He gestured with his hand, as though waving her emotions down. “I just stopped by to ask you some questions.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t stab you with my chisel.”
“How does a person contact you if you’re hammering away in here?”
“Most people stand at the door and wave their hands around until I notice them.” Her heart began to climb its way back down out of her throat. She set the chisel on the worktable and took her headphones and safety goggles off. “Let me take these coveralls off, and we’ll go in the house and drink something while we talk. I need a break.”
Once they were seated at the kitchen table with glasses of iced tea, she felt a little calmer. “What’s going on?”
“I’m looking hard at Simon. I’ve run a background check on him and haven’t found anything criminal, but he’s moved about every five years, which in itself is strange, but not suspicious. Though you’d think he’d want to establish his business and stay in one place.”
“I took DNA swabs and fingerprints today. He didn’t object, though he didn’t like it.” He shrugged. “Most people don’t.” He leaned his elbows on the table. “I also took pictures of his watch and swabbed it. It matches the watch that Mai described her attacker wearing. But that doesn’t mean he was the one who attacked her. She was traumatized and drugged. And she only glimpsed it for a few seconds before she passed out. I haven’t had an opportunity to show it to her, yet. But I’ve emailed the photo, along with several others, to see if she can identify it out of a sort of watch lineup.
“The thing is… I’d like to have a copy of his travel schedule, but a judge won’t give me a search warrant since I don’t have any evidence to support the request.
“The DNA won’t be back for at least a month. It’ll automatically be put it in CODIS as soon as it’s processed, but the lab is always backed up. I’ve entered the fingerprints into the IAFIS database. If his prints have come up at any crime scene, I’ll know it in a little while. I’m doing a search for similar crimes in all the places he’s lived since he left home at age 18, but it’s going to be a long process.”
“You wouldn’t be doing all that if you didn’t believe something is off about him,” Genevieve said.
Chase remained silent for a moment. “I can’t point to any evidence and say yes, there’s something wrong, but the guy is wound pretty tight. He was mugged while he lived in Lexington. I have a buddy who’s on the force, and he emailed me a copy of the file. The guy who attempted to rob Martin almost died. He had a knife, and Martin turned the knife on him and stabbed him. It was ruled self-defense, but the mugger said he thought Martin was really going to kill him. He didn’t just disarm him, he stayed on top of him, threatening to slit his throat until the officers arrived. The officer involved thought the complaint was just a bid to justify less time since the mugger had broken his parole and was going back in. But there’s a coldness about Mr. Martin.”
There was…and why hadn’t she noticed it before? Because he was very good at playing a role. That was what it was. He played a role instead of being himself. “You weren’t in the room with him when he confronted me about the drawing. He went from fine to furious in a matter of seconds.”
“Does he have a key to your house?”
“I’ve never given him one.”
“If he did have one, how would he have gotten Mai’s information?”
Genevieve tilted her head in thought. “I have a contract my models sign saying they accept the lump sum payment for their services so they can’t come back and demand more money once the sculpture is finished and sells. And it also gives permission for me to use their image in my work.”
“Where do you keep those?”
“In my office in the studio.”
“Can I see them?”
“Sure.”
She rose and led him to the office. She went to the file cabinet, opened the drawer and pulled the file holding the contracts.
“Lay them on the desk. Would there have been any reason for Martin’s fingerprints to be on the file?”
“No.”
“When he was in here the other night, what did he touch?”
“Just some drawings and a glass he drank tea from.”
She opened the wide drawers in the cabinet. “These.”
“Anything else at all?”
“No.”
“How often has he been in your office?”
“Two—no, three times in the last year.”
“You haven’t cleaned in here since he left the other night?”
“No. Though I do clean pretty often. And I keep the door closed because of the dust.”
He looked over her desk. “Is the contract the only thing with Mai’s name on it?”
“I wrote her a check for her services. And I have her address and contact information in my address book.”
“Would anyone but you have reason to have contact with your address book or checkbook?”
“No. I give my accountant copies of everything but not the originals.”
“Would you mind if I lifted prints from your address book, checkbook and the contract file?”
“No. But I really don’t know how Simon would have gotten into the house.”
“But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a key or can’t pick or jimmy a lock.”
That suggestion gave her stomach a quiver.
“Did you give keys to the workmen when you had your kitchen remodeled?”
“Yes.”
“Did he have any contact with them?”
“He was the one who found them for me.” She rubbed her forehead. “He checked on their progress when I had to leave and do a workshop in Lexington at the UK for a couple of weeks.” She was beginning to understand what made him such a good detective. He was relentless. And she was beginning to admire the way he connected the dots in an investigation.
“I can give you the workmen’s numbers, and you can ask if they loaned their keys to the house to him for any reason. They returned them to me once they were done.”
“I’d like those numbers. Do you still have the keys?”
“Sure.”
She opened her top desk drawer. The two keys were tagged. She held them up.
“I won’t be able to get prints off them after this much time, and more than likely they’d be the workmen’s prints. I just wanted to be sure they were still here.”
She was grateful he was so thorough.
“I’m going to get my stuff out of the car. Gotta warn you the fingerprint powder is a little messy, but it won’t take but a minute to dust your address book and the other things, and I can check them while I’m here.”
Genevieve shook her head. “Would you like a sandwich while you’re here? It’s almost lunch.”
He grinned. “Sure.”
She left him to do his work.
Thirty minutes later, when he appeared in the kitchen, she set a thick ham sandwich down in front of him with a sprig of grapes and some homemade potato salad. She tried to let him eat in peace, but she could barely taste her sandwich, she was so anxious to learn what he found.
“Martin’s fingerprints weren’t on your checkbook or your address book,” Chase said casually. “He may have wiped the fingerprints off, or he could have worn gloves. There weren’t any fingerprints on either of them. Just on the pages. I’m assuming they were yours, since only one person’s fingerprints were on them. You said you hadn’t cleaned in there in….
“At least two weeks, because I’ve been working at my kitchen table instead.”
“He may not have gotten the address from your office. Or gotten it at all.”
She chewed the bite of sandwich she’d taken and swallowed and set the rest of it aside. “But you think he did.”
“I don’t know. But gut instinct tells me the guy is strange. Something about the way the police report read from Lexington. But there’s something strange about a lot of people.”
Like the void she felt when she touched Simon.
She shoved her chair back from the table and went into the pantry for her purse. She returned to the table with her phone, did a search for locksmiths, called the first number, and arranged for all her locks to be changed that afternoon.
“I keep a calendar, like a business diary, to write down things. Appointments, phone calls made, that kind of thing. I may be able to help you with Simon’s travel itinerary. Come back into the office.”
They set their dishes into the sink and she led the way back to the office. She slid the calendar out from beneath the desk calendar and flipped it back to the first of the year. “He went to California on January fifth…”
In some instances she even had the names of the hotels where he stayed. She had records of seven trips Simon made in the past nine months, one coinciding with her trip to Scotland three months before. California, Atlanta twice, New York twice, Miami and Orlando, Florida.
“Why is it you know where he was and when?” Chase asked.
“It never dawned on me that he was offering me the opportunity to keep tabs on him the way he does with me. He was very upset when I went to Scotland without letting him know.”
“What do you mean he keeps tabs on you?”
“He’s always asking what my plans are, when I’ll be back, and calling to check in on me. I didn’t realize how often he was doing it because I work so much, and the only other people I keep in regular touch with are Miranda and Juliet. And he always asks how the work is going. So I just assumed it was about that, not about me.”
“But lately that’s shifted?”
“Yes.”
“You have a security system, don’t you?”
“No. Just electronic locks on the studio and dead bolts on the rest. I’ve been meaning to get one, but I’ve been so consumed with my work and other things…”
“I strongly recommend you contact a security company and have them come out and install one right away. As in today or tomorrow. After what happened to Mai, even if Martin isn’t involved, you’re isolated out here, Gen. You want to be cautious.”
“Okay.”
Chase pulled a Post-it off a stack and wrote a number on it. “This is Security One, here in town. The alarm systems are routed to the police department. If there’s an issue, we come out unless they call us and tell us it’s a false alarm. Call them and get the ball rolling.”
“I will.” Him giving her all this information made her stomach shiver and shake so much she regretted eating the sandwich.
As she walked Chase to his car, he paused beside Finn’s statue. “Juliet’s been telling me about this guy.”
“She has?” Surely not.
“Too bad he’s not real. He looks like he could take on a bad guy. If he didn’t scare them to death first.”
“Finn’s not that scary.” She leaned against one of his wings. “Once you get used to him.”
“Finn?”
“Yeah. That’s his name.”
Chase shook his head. “You’ve named the statue?”
“He was already named when I got him.”
“Really?” Chase’s brows rose.
“Yeah.”
“Finn.” He studied him a moment longer. “It suits him.”
“I think so too.”
“Didn’t I see a model of him in your studio?”
Model? She’d placed the clay figure on a shelf in the studio but hadn’t looked at it since last night. She’d been too disheartened and had thrown herself into her work as soon as her feet hit the floor this morning. Chase was saying goodbye and she forced her attention back to what he was saying.
“Thanks for lunch. How ’bout giving that potato salad recipe to Juliet? It was great.”
“I’ll send it to you instead, so you can fix it yourself and impress her.”
She snickered at his expression.
She waved goodbye as he drove away and dashed back into the studio.
Last night, after Finn flew away, she’d placed it on a shelf in the studio for safekeeping, just as Juliet had urged her to do. She went to it now and took it down from the shelf. The wings were little more than nubs by the time Finn limped away. Now they were full-blown wings, and in proportion to the figure. The facial features that were melted away by the end of the spell had shifted to look more like a facsimile of Finn’s gargoyle face.
Hope surged, and her heart pounded in her ears.