by Isabel Wroth
Between my growing sexual addiction to your son, stress from the continued media frenzy, bitchy contractors, and dreams about your daughter ... dreams I can't fully remember...
"Yes. Just a little stressed with the renovation happening downstairs on top of everything else that's going on. Thank you for bringing the bagels. Most woes can be fixed with the right concentration of sprinkles."
Marcy laughed softly and agreed. "How is the renovation going?"
Oh... the renovation, I thought dismally.
After the police had busted down the door to Nigel's little apartment on the river in Brooklyn to arrest Gemini, I'd had an undeniable need to have Nigel close.
He'd been working with me for ten years, and I'd offered to help him get an apartment closer to the warehouse or build him one inside the warehouse, but he'd always declined, saying he loved his apartment and the neighborhood.
Having experienced the trauma of being involved with a serial killer combined with my offer of free rent, Nigel was ready to make the move.
I'd started looking for contractors after I'd come back from the Hampton's with Callum and his family. Six months, and the second floor of the warehouse was still in a state of complete disarray.
The contractor's guys were lazy as hell, only one of them showing up reliably to do the work of ten guys, and my contractor had some new excuse every day as to why the work wasn't getting done.
The walls separating what would be two very large apartments were up, the electrical and plumbing put in, but no sheetrock.
The flooring had been delivered, but it couldn't go in until the debris from the wall construction got cleaned up.
Nigel and I picked out all the paint colors and fixtures, but we couldn't order them until the flooring and walls were completed.
It was a nightmare, and I hadn't expressed my displeasure to Callum yet, for fear he'd drag my contractor in for questioning and scare the shit out of him.
Given the fact the vultures were circling, waiting to find someone willing to talk about me, letting my bossy, sexy cop boyfriend handle the problem might only make the situation worse.
"Going slow, but Nigel and I have everything pretty much picked out and ready to go."
"Jo, you feel up to meeting with Helena in a few hours?" John called from across the apartment.
I looked over at him to find he had his cell pressed to his chest, one hand on his hip with the look of an extremely harassed man written all over him. I'd just put a finger full of cream cheese frosting in my mouth, so I couldn't answer him, other than to shrug and nod.
Today can't get any worse. Might as well just get it all over with as soon as possible.
HELENA MARKOWITZ ROAMED around my loft with her hands jammed deep into the pockets of her persimmon-colored slacks. She was a petite woman in her late sixties, with a wild shock of hair the same color as her high-waisted pants.
She had a pair of coke bottle glasses perched on her enormous beak of a nose, and the hazel eyes behind the thick lenses were sharp and cunning. For some reason, her demeanor reminded me of Eliza Gilden.
The two couldn't have been more opposite in looks or style choices, but like Eliza, Helena was most definitely a maven of her time, who'd lost not one ounce of youthfulness despite her age.
I shot an uncertain glance at John where he sat perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, his wife in the circle of his arm.
Callum left for work thirty minutes ago, already late because he'd stayed with me to hear the report on Elliot, promising to make sure he could get some time off to come with me to the mansion this weekend.
He better. I'm not going up there without him, no matter how much of a pussy that makes me. What is this woman staring at so hard? She hasn't said a word since nearly shaking my arm off fifteen minutes ago.
Helena paused in front of a new landscape I was working on, examining it with a critical eye. “A dear friend of mine gave me a calendar filled with prints of your work, darling. It's absolutely divine,” she declared, spinning on the turquoise heel of her shiny silver ballet flats, pointing a long, bony finger at me as though pulling the trigger of a gun.
She called me darling, but it came out more like, dahhhhling.
“That tool, Harry Osburn bought my favorite piece from a charity auction two years ago. Quiet Requiem. I absolutely adored it.
“The shimmer of the snow and the burn of the sunrise? Marvelous. I nearly had it, too, but that old bastard outbid me by two hundred bucks.”
“I painted that when I was eleven years old,” I told Helena, giving an idle thought to the irony: out of the hundreds of others I'd completed, both Helena and Callum favored the same painting. “It was the view from my room at Dr. Franklin Banes' Institution for Troubled Youth.”
Helena's bright orange brows gave a bounce, her lips twisting in obvious disdain.
“Franklin Banes. What a monster. I'd like to discuss him and your life, but this isn't the right place.” Helena circled her finger around in the air to indicate my home, and I couldn't help but shoot a questioning glance at John.
I hadn't heard him say anything to Helena about the mansion, and he gave a bemused shake of his head to silently answer my questioning look.
“This is your sanctuary, darling. The home you chose to grow, heal, and become your own woman in. I'm sure you'll agree, you don't want to have hundreds of thousands of strangers in your sanctuary.”
“I do agree. Wholeheartedly.” An ex-boyfriend, a serial killer, a host of cops, and an unscrupulous cleaning lady's assistant had invaded enough of my sanctuary to ensure I would forevermore be very stingy with who I allowed into my home.
“John has some things he'd like to check out at my childhood home. The mansion in Pine Hill is where I filmed most of my interviews as a child, and there are several rooms large enough to set up.”
“Ah!” Helena exclaimed, throwing up a hand with a very Nigel-like flair. “Perfect! I love the Catskills during the Fall. I'll see about some hotel rooms for myself and the crew.”
“No need for that. The mansion has twelve bedrooms.”
“Very kind, darling. Very kind,” Helena rubbed her hands together with something akin to glee in her expression. “When would you like to begin?”
“Uh, well, as soon as possible I guess. I just need to check with Callum. He's going to put in for the weekend off, so barring a conflict on his end, this weekend?”
“Wonderful. Text me the address.”
CHAPTER THREE
“JOSEPHINE, COME ON. If you don't open your eyes right now, I'm calling a bus. Jo, Jo? Hey, there you are. Come back to me, baby.”
I groaned, turning my face away from the sharp pats Callum was giving my cheeks, confused as to why I was on the floor beneath my man, who was white in the face and staring down at me in fearful concern.
“Fuck me, Jo. What the hell happened?” he demanded, shifting to kneel beside me so he could help me sit up and lean against him.
Callum wore the same clothes I'd seen him in last, looking haggard and worn, but even exhaustion and two days' worth of beard growth darkening his jaw and sleep-deprived bags beneath his eyes, didn't take away from his attractiveness.
There was an entire sketchbook dedicated to the masculine beauty that was Callum Graham. At six-foot-five, he dominated most every room he entered.
He had an energetic presence that made him seem twice the size he was. Twice as powerful, twice as intense, and yes, twice as sexy.
My man has gorgeous dark brown hair and whiskey brown eyes. Eyes that are currently filled with angry concern and a small amount of fear.
The pain began to register in my hands, the cramping feeling accompanied by stinging pins and needles, the throbbing in my feet, in my bladder. “I ... I don't know. What time is it?”
“Three in the fucking morning. I just got off work and came by to sneak into bed with you, only to find you lying on the floor in the pitch black. You've got paint all over your hands. Were you work
ing?”
“No.” A particularly vicious cramp worked through my hands and arms, making me bite down on my tongue to stifle the whimper. “I think I had an episode. My hands hurt so bad.”
“Tell me what to do, Jo.”
“Bathroom. I've got to pee, and my post-POD kit is under the kitchen sink. I need a bath and to ice my hands.”
“Okay, can you stand up?”
My feet looked to be their normal size, but it felt as though I'd been standing on a bed of nails for hours. The idea of putting weight on them seemed to make the pain even worse. “I don't think so.”
Callum ducked his head, helping me lift my shaking arms around his broad shoulders. “Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
“No,” I murmured, touching a kiss to the clenched edge of his jaw, hoping to ease some of his worries. “Just the bathroom, please.”
“Alright. I've got you. Hold onto me.”
My body was so tired, so sore, that Callum had to do the heavy lifting as he carried me to the bathroom.
I didn't even drum up the embarrassment when he yanked my leggings down and sat me on the toilet so I could pee, but then he'd barely put my ass on the porcelain before he was back out the door to get my post-POD self-care kit, so I got to go in relative peace.
When I finished, I nearly fell off the toilet as I tried to get my pants off. Callum was so torqued with worry he snarled at me to just sit there and let him do it.
He ran my bath, threw in half a bag of Epsom salt, stripped me down, and helped me into the tub. The feel of the freezing cold metal bowl in my lap and the contrast of hot water was so amazing, I moaned.
It took five minutes for my hands to unclench and quit spasming, and when I was able to open and close my fingers, I felt something hit the bottom of the bowl with a click.
“I think I was holding something.”
Callum reached into the ice water without flinching and fished out a diamond stud. He held it up for me with a grave expression. Seeing it was like a jolt to my memory banks.
“Lucinda found it when she was tidying the couch cushions. She handed it to me, thinking it was mine. Did I paint a portrait of my housekeeper?”
“No, baby,” he told me gravely, his eyes flickering over my face. “You painted a picture of Helena Markowitz.”
“THAT IS JUST COMPLETELY unhelpful!” My irate shout echoed in the expanse of the warehouse as Callum and I stood in front of my easel and the still-wet painting of Helena Markowitz.
It never failed to baffle me how I could complete an entire painting in twelve hours while having an episode. It felt like I became possessed and had no control over what I was doing.
Despite the fact the paint was still wet, none of the details had been lost. The details that were there weren't enough to identify where Helena would spend her last moments or when it would occur.
Par for the fucking course!
It could have been any time, day or night, and the only clue to say she was indoors was the wood floor beneath her and the soft gray wall behind her.
She sat with her legs sprawled out in front of her, her head tipped to one side, looking like a discarded doll carelessly tossed aside by a bored child.
If not for the ring of red bruises around her throat, Helena looked as though she had fallen asleep sitting up against a wall.
Her high-waisted slacks were crimson, her blouse a wild leopard print, and her coke-bottle glasses were on the floor by her lifeless right hand.
Nothing on the ten by twelve canvas hinted as to where Helena was going to die.
“Well, she's going to be with us the whole weekend, so unless someone kills her tomorrow, we've got time to warn her and try to stop it from happening.”
Callum sounded so confident; I couldn't bear to tell him it was unlikely. Although, what the hell did I know?
I had two hundred and twenty-seven Portraits of Death, and I'd only tried three times to try and stop a murder.
Maybe we could stop it. Maybe I could have stopped all the deaths if I hadn't been so afraid to speak up.
Unable to give voice to a lifetime of trauma and cowardice, I changed the subject. “What the hell am I going to say to her?”
“I'm not worrying about it tonight,” Callum answered, scooping me up to carry me to the bedroom. “You scared the shit out of me, baby. It's the second time I've come back here and found you on the floor.”
At least this time I wasn't bleeding all over the place... I thought, but I couldn't say that out loud.
Callum didn't like to be reminded of the time a serial killer had invaded my home and sliced open my back with a knife.
The wound had completely healed, and just as I feared, the scar was hideous. A two-foot-long bright pink souvenir from my brush with death.
I snuggled my cheek against his throat, inhaling the faint scent of Callum's aftershave to remind myself where I was.
An involuntary chill raced through me as the memory of running for my secret room took over, accompanied by the feeling of agony across my back as Gemini's knife sliced through my skin.
“I know. I'm sorry.”
“Not like you did it on purpose, Jo,” Callum told me gruffly, lingering traces of his worry still felt in the way he held onto me. “Let's get you into bed, huh?”
He tucked me in like a little girl, promising to be right back. He showered in record time and then crawled in bed with me, pulling me against his side with one big hand on my butt and encouraging me to throw a leg over his so I was half sprawled over his chest.
“What would you have done if I hadn't come over?” Callum's serious question floated through the darkness, his hold on me both protective and possessive.
“I had my Apple watch on. I could have called for help.”
“Yeah, but what if you'd taken it off to charge it and you couldn't get to a phone?”
I shrugged at his persistence, turning my lips to his skin, closing my eyes as I savored the heat of his body and the way my own gave up one last bit of tension.
“Well, I guess I'd either have had to crawl to a phone or stayed there until I could get up.”
“It's a hell of a thing, thinking of you waking up on the floor like that, being here in the pitch black by yourself with no way to know when Nigel or I would stop by.”
Already on my way to sleep, I yawned and said the first thing that came to mind, “Maybe you should move in, then.”
“Seriously?” Callum's fingers clenched on my butt with just enough strength to pinch, catching my chin in his other hand and tipping my head back so meet his astonished gaze.
I realized what I'd impulsively said, and though I didn't regret it, I wondered what the hell I was thinking.
The last time I'd let a man move in with me, it had ended in spectacular disaster.
True, Jared had pretty much invited himself to live with me, and for some stupid reason, I hadn't kicked up a fuss about it. I'd enjoyed his company prior to us living together.
I had fun with Jared because he'd helped me get out of the warehouse to enjoy living in the city that never sleeps.
We'd gone on cool dates, had picnics in Central Park, and done all the silly things couples were supposed to do, so moving in seemed like a natural progression.
At least, it had to Jared. I'd had reservations but chalked it up to simply having lived alone for so long that sharing my space with someone else seemed intimidating.
I didn't think anything of the toilet seats left up or the way he'd thrown my towels on the floor or left dishes in the sink when he'd visited.
After he'd moved in and came home drunk more nights than what was normal, brought people over without asking me, made a mess of my bathroom in ways I never had before—those reservations of mine turned into serious moments of frustration.
It wasn't until I'd found Jared snorting up a huge line of cocaine in my guest bathroom that all those little things had suddenly mutated into one very huge problem.
I didn't want dru
gs in my home, and Jared was under the misconception that as the warehouse was now our home, he could do whatever he wanted.
I asked him to leave then and there. After that, shit went seriously sideways.
The worst being his invasion of my privacy by selling photos of my POD paintings to the tabloids, along with stories that I was psychic because I'd mistakenly tried to explain the paintings once he'd discovered them and demanded to know what the hell they were.
Watching Callum now, the way his eyebrows shot up in surprise, how he then frowned and covered my hand with his, where it lay curled on his chest. I wasn't worried about any of that.
I wasn't worried Callum would disrespect my home. He wouldn't ever be so rude as to invite someone over without asking me, and he would certainly never do drugs in my bathroom.
Callum picked up his dirty clothes and put them in a laundry basket. He washed my bedsheets after our more marathon-like sex sessions, changing the bedding without ever being asked to.
He washed and folded the towels, took the garbage to the dumpster outside, and always rinsed any dishes he used and put them in the dishwasher.
When he shaved, he wiped out the sink afterward and made sure he never left a mess of hair on my bathroom counter.
Not once had I ever had to put the seat down after him or tripped over wet towels on the floor.
If anything, Callum was so neat and orderly, I sometimes felt like the slob.
I gave a sleepy sound, too exhausted to be anything other than honest. “Yes, seriously. I like having you here, and I miss you when I don't get to wake up with you in the morning. You don't have to decide right now, but the offer stands.”
He silently searched my face for long enough that my vision began to blur with oncoming sleep.
“The lease on my apartment is up in two months,” he finally told me.
“Plenty of time to decide, then. I love you.” I answered, pressing a clumsy kiss to the granite edge of his jaw.
I felt the whisper-soft brush of Callum's lips to my forehead, his voice rumbling under my ear.
