She hadn’t wanted this. She had been perfectly content in her self-contained world, isolating herself from people and not letting anyone really touch her. She knew analysts would say that in her childhood she had learned to protect herself by mentally distancing herself from the people in her world, and she knew they would be right. But the change had opened her up, made her really see people, made her feel, and she didn’t know if she would return to the old way even if she could. There was Richard now; she didn’t know what she felt for him; she was afraid to even try to put a name to it, but she knew her life would be poorer without him in it. There was passion growing in her, passion he was carefully feeding, and she could never be content now if she didn’t discover the full reach of it.
There was no going back. Instead of fighting the changes, or at best trying to ignore them, she should be opening herself up to the experience. For the first time in her life, she should live.
As much as she loved the painting of the baby and the balloon, she could no longer focus on it. She could see, from the corner of her eye, the other canvas. Waiting. Waiting for the night, when sleep lowered all her mental barriers, or perhaps just waiting. Perhaps she could do it now.
She approached the easel as one would a snake, cautiously, ready to run. Her heart hammered, and her breathing was quick and shallow. What was wrong with her? This was just a painting, even if it was a weird one. Okay, maybe not just a painting, but neither was it a snake. She knew art, knew the techniques, knew how to scale and shadow and foreshorten, how to manipulate light with the thickness of the paint, how to highlight or downplay with her choice of colors. Since art was the medium in which this particular gift was expressing herself, perhaps she could look at the painting strictly on that level: assess it on its artistic merits, and go from there.
Yes. She could do that. Calm descended on her. She took several deep breaths, just as insurance, and forced herself to study the composition objectively.
The composition and scale were good. The position of the woman’s feet looked as if she had just fallen. The shoe lying on its side would have come off when she fell. They were nice black pumps, three-inch heels, and light gleamed on the rich leather. But they weren’t right, she thought, frowning at them. The shoes weren’t right. Something was missing.
She had no idea what it could be. All the basic parts of a pump were there: heel, sole, upper. There were endless designs and decorations one could put on shoes, however. This might be something she would have to do in her sleep, when she was open to suggestions.
The man’s shoe disturbed her, not because there was just one, but because of the way it was positioned. He would be looking directly down at the woman. He was too close. A bystander wouldn’t be so close. Anyone running up to give aid would be crouched beside her. A cop . . . Where would a cop be? An investigator would be crouched, she thought. Medics would be crouched. The way this shoe was positioned, the man was just. . . looking at her.
He had killed her.
The thought was a flash, electrifying in its surety. She was painting a murder scene.
She hurried to the phone, called Richard. When he answered she said, without preamble, “Was Elijah Stokes murdered?”
He hesitated. “Why do you ask?”
Sweeney gripped the phone tighter. “Because I think this shoe thing is the beginning of a murder scene. Don’t try to protect me or humor me; just tell me the truth: was he murdered? Did you see something in the painting I missed? Is that why you contacted his son?”
“Yes,” he said. “Look—I’m scheduled for a business dinner tonight, but I’ll cancel it and be right over.”
“No, don’t do that. I’m okay, I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking. Besides, I’m working.”
Another pause, then he gave a low laugh. ‘And don’t bother you, right?”
“Right.” She stopped, frowning. Having to consider someone else’s feelings when she wanted to work was a new concern for her. “Did that hurt your feelings?”
“Of course not.” There was a hint of tenderness now.
“Good.” She took a deep breath. “What made you think Mr. Stokes had been murdered? What did you see?”
“The head injury. You didn’t paint any stairs, and he was obviously lying between two buildings. It looked like blunt-force trauma to me.”
“‘Blunt-force trauma,’” she repeated. That wasn’t laymen’s lingo. She had the exciting sense of discovering a facet of Richard she hadn’t suspected existed. “Do you have medical training?”
“Only in the rough first-aid stuff we needed in the field. I can set a simple fracture, rotate a dislocated joint back into place, stop bleeding. Things like that.”
“But you know what blunt-force trauma looks like.”
“I’ve seen it.”
Somehow she had absorbed enough information about the military to know that, in general, only medics were given that kind of training. Of course, her information came from books and movies, so her impression might be wrong. But a medic would have had much more extensive training than what Richard had described. “Just what kind of army were you in?” she asked curiously.
“The United States Army,” he said, amused again. She could almost see his lips curving. “But I was in a special unit. I was a Ranger.”
She knew about forest rangers. She knew about the Lone Ranger. Other than that, her memory bank was empty of information on rangers. “My military experience is kind of limited. What do Rangers do?”