The Keeper

by T F Allen

  Once he covered the last area of unpainted surface, he dropped his brush into a jar of turpentine. He’d been working nonstop for three hours and had used every square inch of the two mixing palettes. Drops of sweat fell from the tips of his dark hair to the floor. He walked to his bed, grabbed the top sheet, and used it like a towel to dry his hair and neck while he inspected his work on the easel. The painting was only half finished, but he needed to stop and let this first layer dry.

  Unlike Donnie and Jolene, I didn’t care if Michael finished this painting by midnight tomorrow. Donnie would probably kill him anyway.

  I rested my hand between Michael’s shoulder blades and felt the heat from his overworked muscles radiate through his skin. The sensation I caused helped him relax, and he took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. “Keeper, you’ve got to help me.”

  Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.

  “Not just me,” he said. “I need to get Jolene away from him, too. He’ll kill her if she stays.”

  I knew he was right. Though Donnie hadn’t killed anyone yet, I doubted he would ever allow Michael or Jolene to leave the vineyard alive.

  I promise we’ll save her, too.

  Michael lay down on his side. Together we stared at the two paintings across the room—one he’d just started and another that had made him famous. The wounds on Jolene’s image looked exactly like the real ones he saw on her face. He turned and faced the opposite wall, but he couldn’t swat the vision from his mind. “If we ever get out of here, I’ll kill him for what he did to her.”

  I didn’t want to think about that yet. My best bet was figuring out what Donnie was planning then getting Sister Mary Elizabeth, Hannah, and the police out to the vineyard before he could act.

  I’d never been scared of anyone, but I didn’t look forward to swimming through Donnie’s mind again. Besides the mosh pit of competing thoughts that waited there, it was the chance he might hear me again that worried me most. I’d spent most of my life as an observer, free to watch and judge anyone I wanted without them knowing. But Donnie’s mind was different. His sensitivity seemed even more fine-tuned than Michael’s. And while my voice might make other people nervous or scared, Donnie treated it like a challenge he wanted to conquer. I needed to be extra careful.

  I found him inside the mansion on the third story, walking down the hall with a set of keys in his hand. His eyes looked tired, his hair messy. And he still smelled like he needed a shower. He stopped at a door two rooms away from his studio—the only door with a dead bolt. I jumped into his mind as he turned the key and stepped inside.

  The room was completely dark, the air stagnant. It smelled like someone had left out an Italian salami sandwich. But Donnie never complained about it. This was Cole’s room. Cole liked it dark and quiet. And Cole always got what he wanted. Donnie didn’t stumble when he closed and locked the door behind him. He didn’t reach for a light switch or a lamp. Instead he found the edge of the bed by feel and sat on the corner of the mattress.

  I could usually see anywhere I went, but not in here. This room held a darkness even my senses couldn’t penetrate. I was at the mercy of what Donnie could see and hear.

  You’ve been watching him, haven’t you?

  The words came from inside Donnie’s head, but I hadn’t said them. Someone else was speaking. Someone who thought only Donnie could hear them.

  Tell me what he’s up to.

  The voice was deeper than mine, and rougher. But the tone didn’t bother Donnie at all. He treated it like the voice of his best friend. That’s who Cole was, anyway. “It’s amazing. He’s a natural talent—ten times better than she ever was.”

  Will it work this time?

  “I think so. I’m pushing him to his limits. He still loves Jolene. Seeing her face was almost too much for him.”

  Cut her again if he stops painting.

  The only thing Donnie disliked about Cole was his tendency not to trust that he had everything under control. Cole always offered an extra suggestion. It’d been Donnie’s idea to kidnap Jolene but Cole’s to give her the scars. Donnie wanted to kill her, but Cole convinced him to use her to get Delacroix to paint. He respected Cole’s judgment more than anyone’s, but he hated being second-guessed. No one—not even Cole—could claim they were more committed to making this happen than Donnie.

  “He’ll finish before tomorrow night. I’ll make sure.”

  It better be done. And it better be the best damn painting you’ve ever seen. I can’t stay like this forever.

  I sensed movement on the other side of the room. Maybe it was the wind lashing against the window. Maybe it was Cole venting his anger. I couldn’t tell.

  “This will work. Don’t worry.”

  But Donnie was worried. He worried the painting wouldn’t be enough. He’d done all he could to push Delacroix into an emotional state more intense than when he’d painted Jolene. Donnie had mixed the paints himself. He’d prepared the canvas, stretched and stapled it. Coated it with a special white gesso he’d made by hand. Delacroix had already finished one layer, infusing it with a powerful dose of emotions. This painting would work. It had to work. Because if it didn’t, Donnie was out of options.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway. They approached from the right and stopped just in front of Cole’s door. Jolene was eavesdropping again. He couldn’t wait until after the painting was done and he could finally kill her. Such a nuisance, this girl. Even a mansion was too small to share with someone like her.

  He raced to the door, turned the bolt, and jumped into the hall. “Why aren’t you in your room?”

  She looked lost, both inside and out. The skin around her eye had already turned purple. It amazed him how easily she bruised. “I heard a noise,” she said. “Is Cole back again?”

  He poked her chest so hard she fell back against the wall. “Don’t say his name. You never get to say his name.”

  Jolene placed her hands over her heart and looked at the door. “Does he need anything?”

  “If he does, I’ll get it. You can go now.”

  Jolene turned and headed down the hall toward her bedroom. Her bony figure looked pathetic in that blue dress. He didn’t know why she bothered to wear it every day.

  He took out his keys and locked the dead bolt. He placed his palms against the solid wood door. Cole was his secret, his possession. No one would speak that name except him. At least not until after midnight tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 20

  I’d been with Michael for almost three decades. That meant thirty years of watching him think, dream, and live. Thirty years of traveling the world with complete freedom, floating through the minds of scientists, entertainers, beggars, and priests. What I found there always surprised me. People are experts at disguising their thoughts. They hide their darkest secrets from those they love, never sharing their irrational fears, their prejudices, the strains of illness that seep into their minds while they sleep. I’d seen the most horrible images and sensed the most degenerate thoughts, but I’d never heard a voice like the one inside Donnie’s head.

  Maybe he was mentally ill. I’d heard about dissociative identity disorder, where a mind could hold at least two distinct or split personalities that could take control at different times. But that wasn’t the only possibility. Maybe someone with psychic abilities was hiding in that room. Or maybe Cole was someone like me, moving from mind to mind but focusing on Donnie, clouding his filter, guiding him deeper into this madness.

  There was no way to know for sure. I wanted to stay longer to find out more, but San Francisco was calling.

  Focus. Lock. Pull.

  When I opened my eyes, I stood outside the Richmond District police station. Night had fallen. Halogen lamps mounted on the station facade buzzed above my head. I moved to go inside, but Sister Mary Elizabeth and Hannah burst through the doors and rushed past me.

  “Total waste of time,” Hannah said.

  “Slow down, dear.” Sister Mary Elizabeth pu
lled up the folds of her dress and ran to keep up. “Yelling at them doesn’t help.”

  Hannah stomped to her side of the rental SUV, which she’d parked on the street in front of the station. She yanked a parking ticket from under the windshield wiper and threw it into the street. “They don’t care about anything we say. He’s just another case to them. They’re humoring us.”

  I dove into Sister Mary Elizabeth’s mind as she reached her side of the SUV. I figured I could catch up faster in the calmer mind of the two. She didn’t show it, but the nun was every bit as frustrated as the reporter.

  “You probably get that treatment a lot,” Hannah said.

  “Comes with the outfit.”

  They’d spent the evening trying to convince the police Donnie Harkrider was a person of interest. But Sister Mary Elizabeth knew once Captain Tuttle asked them to sit in separate rooms that the police were only interested in conducting background interviews. She tried to explain in quiet, gentle tones the connection they’d made between Michael, Jolene Anderson, and Mr. Harkrider, but the investigators figured several other students must have shared those same classes, too. And they weren’t buying the idea Michael was abducted because the painting he destroyed was a fake. She couldn’t say how she knew he was, and by the time she mentioned Mr. Harkrider’s copy of Michael’s angel painting, the investigators had stopped listening altogether.

  By the sound of it, things hadn’t gone any better in the next room. Just before her own interview ended, she heard Hannah’s voice booming through the walls. She couldn’t make out the words, but it didn’t matter. The sound of the door slamming was all she needed to hear.

  Captain Tuttle met them afterward in his office. Ever apologetic, he tried to sell the value of his department’s resources over Sister Mary Elizabeth’s and Hannah’s gut feelings. He also told them the latest: traffic cameras had captured images of a black truck towing a silver Hyundai toward the south, so they were focusing their search in that part of the city. His officers would follow up on the news she and Hannah had given them, the hairy captain promised, but only after they followed the trail of hard evidence first.

  Hannah demanded the captain’s mobile number and punched it into her phone while he watched. When she finished, she bolted out of his office. The clicking of her heels on the floor warned the other officers that a time bomb was rolling through the station. No one got in her way or tried to stop her.

  Sister Mary Elizabeth rushed after Hannah, but not before sending a last-minute warning to the captain before she left his office: “You’d better answer when we call.”

  Now they were speeding across town again. Neither seemed willing to stop until they found someone else who’d believe them. It wasn’t even a discussion, but Sister Mary Elizabeth put it out there just to make sure. “Mr. Thatcher’s place again, right?”

  “He’s been mining talent from SFAI for years,” Hannah said. “I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t know this Harkrider guy.”

  “Do you think he wanted to get rid of Michael?”

  “Thatcher?” Hannah shook her head. “I doubt it. He had the most to gain after Chicago. Plus, he’s the one who helped us find the video. His reaction was real. The guy looked as shocked as we were.”

  “But the value of Michael’s paintings skyrockets if no one finds him. Over a dozen of them are hanging on the man’s walls.”

  “That doesn’t mean he took him. It just means he’ll be hard to convince.”

  When Sister Mary Elizabeth thought about it, Hannah’s statement made sense. Grant Thatcher was an easy man to figure out. He wasn’t Michael’s best friend or even a good mentor. But he also wasn’t a kidnapper. He probably wanted Michael back in his studio working on more paintings for his collectors.

  “Then what’s Mr. Harkrider’s motive?”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “Envy, of course.”

  The SUV’s tires screeched when they turned into Mr. Thatcher’s driveway. As fast as Sister Mary Elizabeth tried to run, Hannah still beat her to the doorbell.

  Mr. Thatcher answered the door. He’d changed his clothes again, even putting on a silk shirt this time, but he still looked like a Casanova from the seventies. “Ladies, three times in one day? That’s a new record for me.”

  Sister Mary Elizabeth could barely stand to look at him. The top three buttons on his shirt hung open. Why did some men seem so proud of their body hair?

  “We need to talk,” Hannah said.

  “You’ve got news?”

  “And questions.”

  “Of course you do. Let’s go to my office.”

  Standing in Mr. Thatcher’s office, ignoring the beanbag chairs again, gazing with wonder at the breathtaking paintings on each wall, Sister Mary Elizabeth was overcome by how much she missed Michael. The way he saw the world was one-of-a-kind special. And his ability to convey what he saw and felt through his paintings was definitely Heaven-sent. Despite all the weird furniture Mr. Thatcher had thrown in here, she somehow felt closer to Michael in this room.

  “Have you talked to the police?” Hannah said.

  “Not yet. I’m stopping by tomorrow before the news conference.”

  “News conference?” The whole idea sickened Sister Mary Elizabeth.

  “I thought it would be a good idea. Michael is a celebrity now. It’s worth reaching out to his fans in case one of them saw something.”

  “You’ll be wearing a tie, then?” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.

  He scrunched up his face. “What?”

  She raised her hand to point her finger, but Hannah pushed it back down. “We found out the painting in Chicago was a fake.”

  “I know.”

  “You what?”

  “Who do you think holds the insurance policy? I still own that painting.” He scrolled through the display on the tablet in his hands. “Wherever the damn thing is.”

  “So now you have a reason to help us,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.

  “Of course I want to help, and not just because of the painting. Finding out who took Michael is very important to me. That’s why I’m working with the police. Besides, the policy covers both theft and damage.”

  This man was incredible. Sister Mary Elizabeth wondered why she ever let Michael sign a contract with him. She and Hannah were probably wasting their time, but she pushed ahead anyway. “We think the person who took Michael knew him from art school.”

  “More than that,” Hannah said. “We think you might know him.” She unlocked her smartphone, tapped on the picture she’d taken in Professor Banks’s office, and slid it across Mr. Thatcher’s desk.

  He stared at the image. “What’s this? Michael’s angel painting?”

  “Not exactly.” Hannah walked around his desk and leaned over his shoulder. “This is a copy someone painted at SFAI. Whoever made this was extremely envious of Michael’s work.”

  Mr. Thatcher squinted at the screen. “I can see why. This guy’s an amateur. But listen to what you ladies are saying. Someone kidnapped Michael because he wanted to copy more paintings?”

  “Maybe Delacroix pissed him off,” Hannah said. “He exposed the guy as an art thief by ruining a copy of his painting.”

  “What do the police think?”

  Sister Mary Elizabeth leaned on the front edge of his desk. They had him surrounded. “The cops are going their own direction. They’re only focused on the car.”

  “So they don’t believe you.”

  Hannah shouted into his ear, “Do you know an artist named Donnie Harkrider?”

  “He’s your kidnapper?” Mr. Thatcher jerked around in his chair. “Gerda Harkrider’s son? Are you serious? They’re worth millions.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Sister Mary Elizabeth said.

  “Yeah, why should that matter?” Hannah put her hands on her hips.

  “It doesn’t. It’s just—that’s a very powerful family. They’re winemakers. Everyone respects them. You don’t go around tossing accusations at
people like that.”

  Sister Mary Elizabeth felt a chill run down her back. Mr. Harkrider was connected to the winery after all. Too many pieces of evidence were falling into place. But she and Hannah seemed to be the only ones who could see it.

  “What else do you know about him?”

  “Not much.” He threw up his hands. “He was an average artist. That’s the best I can say about him.”

  Hannah pointed to her smartphone. “He tried to copy Delacroix’s style. Just like someone copied his Jolene and switched it for the real one. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Mr. Thatcher sprang out of his chair and walked away from them. He spun around. “I’m warning you. You don’t want to go down this road unless you get hard proof. Personally, I’d follow the police on this one. Let them take the chance of pissing these people off. They could destroy you with one phone call.”

  “Let them try,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “We’re not afraid of anyone.”

  Hannah charged around the desk and took the sister’s hand, but her stare never left Mr. Thatcher. “We’re trying to save Michael’s life. Every minute matters. If you’re not willing to help us, we’ll make sure he knows that once we find him.”

  • • •

  When they climbed back into Hannah’s SUV, the weight of the day finally dropped onto Sister Mary Elizabeth’s shoulders. Every part of her was exhausted. It was late—too late to keep crisscrossing the city looking for another clue. Hannah revved the engine and gripped the steering wheel with both hands, but her eyes were closed like she was praying. Sister Mary Elizabeth knew better, but she still believed God could speak to Hannah even if Hannah didn’t believe in Him.

  “Time to call it a night,” she said.

  “Not yet. There’s still something out there.”

  “We can find it in the morning.”

  “Shh,” Hannah said. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the window controls and lowered them all, letting the cool night breeze rush through the SUV. She grabbed the charm on her necklace and rolled the crystal between her fingers. Sister Mary Elizabeth shook her head. The poor girl was wasting her time.