Stroke of Death

by Dale Mayer

  He helped her into the vehicle, closed the door, walked around, got in on his side, and started the engine.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I sounded a little defensive there, didn’t I?”

  “With good reason,” he said. “You’re the artist. You’re well-known for the quality of the special work you do.”

  They pulled away from the curb. She sank back into the leather seat, loving the little bit of luxury that was available in the seating. Maybe it was more the fact that somebody was taking care of her.

  She couldn’t even remember the last time that had happened. She had staff who looked after her to a certain extent, but it was obvious that they were staff. This was something different. She didn’t know what he wanted, and that part of her was being judgmental. Of course he wanted something. Everybody wanted something. But, at the same time, she didn’t know what it was.

  She pointed at the corner light coming up. “If you turn right here, it’s the fastest way home.”

  He nodded. “But, if I take you home, you won’t eat, will you? Remember? We ate most of your food last night.”

  She turned to him in surprise. “Well, I would have a shower and then eat.”

  “I’m taking you for dinner.”

  “Oh no, you’re not,” she gasped in horror. “Look at me.”

  He looked at her, smiled, and said, “Believe me. You’ll be very welcome at this place.”

  “No, no, no,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere with paint in my hair!”

  “Do you realize that you almost always have paint in your hair?” he asked with an affectionate chuckle.

  She was still protesting when he pulled up outside a small brick restaurant. Italian from the looks of it. She shook her head. “Nope, nope, nope, no way, not happening.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “Absolutely yes. Come on. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  At the end, her voice rose in a wail.

  He laughed, got out, and circled to her side, where he opened her door and held out a hand. He said, “Remember who you are.”

  She shook her head. “I’m an idiot, apparently,” she said. But nevertheless, she placed her hand in his, wondering at herself for doing so, and stepped from the vehicle. “You do realize my clothes have paint on them, and I’ve got paint on my fingernails.” She held them up for him to see.

  He didn’t even look at them.

  “Why is this so important?” she asked.

  “Because you don’t look after yourself,” he said. “I’ll take you home afterward. You can have a shower and get a good night’s sleep.”

  Feeling embarrassed and horribly put out, she somehow allowed him to lead her into the restaurant. As soon as they entered, she realized that the lights were dim, and the ambience was much more subtle than what she had expected. That was still no excuse for his behavior though. She gave him a good frown to prove it. But his teeth flashed white in the smooth, silky atmosphere. They were immediately led to a corner in the back of the room.

  She shook her head. “How do you get that kind of treatment?”

  He leaned down and whispered, “I have connections.”

  She just rolled her eyes at him.

  Cayce was seated in the dark corner, so just he could stare at her hair. And she realized he’d also done that deliberately. “Well, you get points for consideration,” she said, “but not for not allowing me to come out in my best.”

  “If you were really hungry, would you have cared?”

  “I’ve been known to go to a coffee shop,” she said cautiously, “but not anywhere else if I looked a mess.”

  He nodded. “This place won’t care. They already know who you are. They’re absolutely thrilled to have you.”

  She shook her head. “They don’t know me. Unless you just told them, they wouldn’t have known either.”

  “I told them a while ago.”

  Just then another woman appeared with two menus. She placed them down, held open her arms, and he hopped up, gave her a big hug, then turned and introduced Cayce to Rosita. The woman beamed.

  And yet poor Cayce felt terrible. She immediately apologized for her appearance.

  The woman in front of her shook her head. “You honor us with your presence. The fact that you have just come from yet another masterpiece is also an honor. You must never feel that you need to put on airs or be anything other than who you are here. We have known Richard for decades. Now, what can I get you to eat?”

  Cayce hadn’t even had a chance to look at the menu. Richard looked over at her and asked, “Do you have any objection to spaghetti and meatballs?”

  She shrugged and said, “This appears to be your show. Go for it.” Her tone was dry.

  Rosita laughed with great merriment. “At least you understand Richard. That’s good.” She quickly removed the menus and disappeared, coming back a moment later.

  They hadn’t said a word to each other while the woman returned with a basket of what appeared to be fresh sourdough bread, the aroma wafting up from the basket and making her stomach growl. And then Rosita came back with a pot of whipped butter.

  Richard picked up the loaf, slicing off thick slabs. He took one for himself from the center and left her the rest, for whatever choice piece she wanted. She couldn’t help herself. She reached for a crust, buttered it, and took a bite, then sank back and ate it slowly in complete silence. She just loved the warm, yeasty bread, as it slid down her throat wrapped up in fresh butter. “That is delicious,” she said.

  “I’m glad you think so,” Richard said. He left her to just sit and enjoy.

  When she had a second slice of bread now buttered, she put down her knife, and then ate it with a smile.

  He leaned forward and asked, “Feel better?”

  She nodded. “But now the fatigue is setting in, and I’m a long way from home.”

  “You’re only a few blocks away, and I promise that I’ll get you home again.”

  She smiled at him. “It’s not your job to look after me.”

  “Well, somebody needs to,” he said gently. “Obviously you’re distracted and aren’t doing such a great job of it.’

  “It’s just … this business with Elena,” she said, getting her friend’s name out with great difficulty.

  He nodded. “I know,” he said, “and you’re allowed to feel this way.”

  She nodded. “But it’s still not your job.”

  “Everybody needs help sometimes,” he said.

  They sat in comfortable silence amid the candlelight, and she realized just how much like a date this was. Not that it made her necessarily uncomfortable. She certainly hadn’t been dating much in the last six months—or however long it was. But she was just having that odd sense of having somebody care enough to look after her. However, she was still fighting it.

  “Stop,” he said. “You’re trying to wrap your mind around this, trying to figure out the details, trying to see if there’s an underlying issue. There isn’t. So just stop.”

  “Meaning that you’re just being a friend, making sure I don’t collapse?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, and his tone was sincere. Then he flashed her a bright grin. “If it makes you feel better, don’t think of this as anything too intimate,” he said. “Just think about it as me looking after my case.”

  She rolled her eyes at that. “I highly doubt you take anybody else out for a meal.”

  “I do for dates,” he said.

  She studied him quietly for a long moment.

  “And we can consider this a date,” he said, “but I’d much rather take you out when you’re not quite so exhausted.”

  “That brings us back to the personal-versus-business conversation,” she said slowly.

  “It does,” he said.

  Just then Rosita appeared with two large plates of spaghetti and meatballs. When she placed one platter in front of Cayce, she stared at it in shock. “I’ll never eat all this.”

  “You’ll eat what you can,�
� he said, “and we’ll take the rest of it home for tomorrow.”

  She looked up at Rosita, who held up a block of Parmesan, asking her if she wanted some. She nodded mutely as a generous sprinkling went over the sauce. When Rosita was gone again, Cayce stared down at the food, looked over at his plate, and said, “Is it my imagination, or is your serving even bigger than mine?”

  He laughed. “They know me here,” he said, “so my portion is probably bigger.”

  She looked down at the four massive meatballs in the center of her platter and saw that he had five. “If you can eat all that, I’ll be amazed.”

  “I’m likely to work all night,” he said, “so it’s one of those things, you know? I eat when I can.”

  “Ah, so you don’t look after yourself either,” she said immediately.

  *

  Richard chuckled, staring at Cayce, loving the wit that she mustered, even though she was obviously exhausted, and yet she had been game to come here. Although obviously not pleased at first, now that she was here, with a hot meal in front of her, she wasn’t throwing a fit. He knew lots of women who would never have stepped into the restaurant at all. He’d warned Rosita ahead of time, so she’d been extremely discreet but happy that Cayce was here.

  He took a bite and moaned. “You need to try it.” He watched as she slowly twirled a few noodles onto her fork, lifted it up, and took a bite. She stared at him in surprise. He nodded. “They do absolutely divine spaghetti here.”

  She didn’t bother answering. She bent her head to work on the food on her plate. And when she finally put down her fork, he noted the amount left on her plate and estimated that she’d eaten about 40 percent. Adding in the French bread, that was a fairly decent meal for her.

  He nodded. “We’ll get Rosita to put the rest in a to-go container.”

  “And I’ll need to go soon,” she said.

  He could hear the fatigue in her voice. Black shadows were under her eyes, and she looked very droopy. He nodded. “I can take mine to go too.”

  “No, no, no,” she said. “You eat. I’ll be fine.”

  He laughed. “If we leave that plate in front of you for more than another five minutes, your head will fall right into it.”

  She looked at him, laughed in delight, and said, “Can you imagine the mess?”

  “A new form of art,” he said.

  Rosita appeared, almost as if by magic, but she’d seen the conversation from a distance and was extremely astute. She quickly removed both plates and came back a few minutes later with their take-out boxes.

  Thanking Rosita before she disappeared again, he looked over at Cayce. “I should have offered you a glass of wine,” he said, “but I completely forgot.” He chastised himself for that. Not very smooth.

  She waved a hand. “I wouldn’t have had it anyway because it would put me to sleep.”

  “That might not have been a bad thing.”

  “The pasta and the bread are doing that alone.”

  “I’ll get you home in five minutes. I promise. Just stay upright a little while longer.”

  Rosita came back with the check, which he quickly snagged and paid with his credit card, and then stood. He held out a hand and helped her from the bench seat, as he said, “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  She looked at the to-go boxes. “That’s coming with us, right?”

  He snagged both containers. As they headed for the exit, Rosita met him at the door with a bag. They carefully put the take-out boxes in it, and he stepped outside. His car was just a few feet away, and she stumbled even getting that far. He put the take-out bag on the hood of the car, walked around, and helped her inside. Then came back, sat behind the wheel, giving her the bag. “You hold that.”

  She clutched it like it was gold.

  He chuckled. “It was good, wasn’t it?”

  “It was delicious,” she murmured. “And, as exhausted as I am”—she gave him a half a smile—“my mind is already putting this in my stomach for breakfast.”

  “You could do a lot worse,” he said.

  He pulled up in front of her apartment a few minutes later. He hopped out, even though she was busy protesting that she didn’t need him to. He opened the car door, helped her back out again, grabbed the leftovers, and said, “You’ll learn one day that no way will I leave anybody, especially a woman, alone outside in the city at night. I’ll take you up to your apartment. Just to compound all this, please remember a crazy wacko is out there.”

  At that, she subsided.

  He tucked her arm into his elbow, and, as she walked up to the front entrance, the door opened automatically, and the doorman smiled at her. “Did you have a good evening?”

  And with the same elegance that he expected from her at all times, she nodded and smiled. “Despite my looks, we just had a wonderful spaghetti dinner.”

  The doorman’s face split in two with a great big smile. “Did Rosita look after you?”

  She stared at him in surprise. “Do you know her?”

  “She has the best Italian food anywhere in the city,” he said with a big grin. “Besides, I saw the bag.”

  She chuckled and waved at him. “Any messages or anything I should know about?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “All is quiet.”

  “Thank God for that,” she said. As they walked into the elevator, she looked at her purse.

  “Forget about it,” he said. She glared at him. “Yes, I know you’re thinking about checking your phone.”

  “I absolutely am,” she said.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Not right now, not until tomorrow morning.”

  “But things can blow up in that time period,” she said in protest.

  “Then let it,” he said. “You need to look after you. Remember?”

  Suddenly they were at her front door, and he could see she felt awkward. He took the key from her, unlocked the door, and pushed it open, ushering her in. He put the leftovers into the fridge and then did a quick search of the flat.

  She stood beside the front door, staring at him in confusion.

  “Just making sure,” he said. He turned to walk to the door, then walked back in a very long, slow, unhurried pace, tilted her chin up, and kissed her on the lips. It wasn’t one of his out-of-the-park kisses, but it was definitely a way to impart that he cared, that he was really worried about her, and that he really wanted her to take care of herself. And that he really wanted to spend more time with her.

  When she stood there dazed, swaying on her feet, he kissed the tip of her nose and said, “Now off to bed.” He turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.

  It was all she could do to walk over, throw the bolt, and drag herself upstairs. As soon as she got into her bathroom, she took one look at the mirror and shrieked.

  *

  “Get out of my way, loser,” the beautiful woman snapped, as she walked past him on the sidewalk. Halo shrank back against the wall. He knew her.

  She’d been in one of the paintings.

  She was marked.

  Needed to be warned. To be saved.

  “Your soul is at risk,” he cried out, his voice hoarse.

  Caustic laughter wafted toward him.

  “There’s no saving me, asshole. And I don’t need your help. Look at you. Just a homeless bum on the street. You wouldn’t know good or evil if it came and bit you in the ass.” And she walked away, strutting her stuff.

  But she was wrong. He did know. He’d learned at a young age that evil came in male and female forms. That it came in the form of those who said they loved you the most. And sometimes in the form of complete strangers.

  You couldn’t let down your guard.

  Good boy. Bad boy.

  Chapter 14

  “Oh, my God,” Cayce said to her mirror. “He dragged me out in public like this? How could the restaurant even let me in?” She alternated between laughter and fury, and then realized it was already an after-the-fact thing. No wonder Graham, her doo
rman, had been grinning.

  She shrugged, stripped out of her clothes, let them all drop where she stood, and stepped into the shower. She leaned over, putting her hands against the shower wall, and just let the water sluice down her hair and back. She wanted to moan and cry for joy, but that took effort.

  It took three times washing her hair to be able to run a comb through it without snagging on dried paint. Her fingers took a little bit longer to scrub. By the time she was done, she stepped out, grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her hair, and another around her body. She quickly dried off and walked into her bedroom.

  She stared out the window, wondering how quickly her life had changed. She’d lost Elena, and then, all of a sudden, there was Richard. She didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know how to act. It was like he’d completely taken over, not as if she were a suspect, but as if she were a dear, dear friend. Something that Elena would certainly have done, if she’d been here. If it had been anybody else who had affected Cayce the same way, she might have known how to handle it. Not that she had to handle anything, but it felt like she did.

  Then she realized she was just too damn tired, too tired to think, too tired to stand here any longer.

  She walked over to the bed, dropped her towels to the floor, and completely collapsed under the sheets. Her last thought was that he had put all the leftovers in her fridge. And then she closed her eyes and let the world of darkness take her away.

  And if her dream world had just taken her for a nice gentle stroll, it would have been fine. Instead it led her through a nasty maze of nightmares, of artists being hacked apart, arms being skinned, legs being skinned to go with the torsos. She knew that she could count on Richard to do the best he could, but, so far, two were dead, and, from the way he acted tonight, it was obvious that he thought she may be in danger too.

  All of this filtered through her mind throughout the night, so, when she woke up the next morning, she lay exhausted, even while still in her bed. Her eyes opened. Instead of her almost perfect bed, as if she had slept solidly in one place, her bedding was twisted and turned, with the blankets and pillows everywhere. She groaned, shifted so that she sat up, leaning against the headboard, and pulled her knees to her chest.