“What? How?”
“I—” Her mind went blank. Furious with herself for not being able to lie, she said, “I swear to God, Kai, if you spill the beans on this, I’ll pull every hair out of your head.”
“Spill the beans?” He was looking back and forth from the painting to her, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“I’m sort of psychic,” she snapped.
“Sort of—?”
“I do paintings of things that haven’t happened yet. When I finish this, it will show who killed her.” She glared at him. “And I don’t want you to ever mention any of this to anyone.”
He was all but backing away from her, inching toward the door. “I won’t,” he said.
“I mean it, Kai. I don’t want the cops to know; not yet.”
He drew a deep breath. “I understand,” he said. “I won’t tell the cops, I promise.” Then he laughed, the sound shaky. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “No one would ever expect this, would he?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I‘m telling you, I saw it.”
“That’s impossible. You must be mistaken.”
“That isn’t something I’d be mistaken about,” Kai said, annoyed.
“There’s no such thing as a psychic; that’s all just parlor games. She must have already done the painting, and when she heard about Candra, she just painted in her face.”
“Then explain how Sweeney knew what Candra was wearing. I saw Candra at the party, remember? I know how she was dressed. Sweeney had the dress, the shoes, the jewelry, everything, down right.”
“This is unbelievable. She had to have found out some other way.”
“There is no other way,” Kai insisted. “I don’t care if you believe real psychics exist or not; the painting exists—because I’ve seen it. And you have to decide what in hell you’re going to do about it.”
“Do? What is there to do? I don’t know anything about what’s going on. You, on the other hand, are going to do your civic duty and tell the police about this very interesting painting Sweeney has, which couldn’t possibly exist unless she saw the killing or did the killing. At the very least they’ll take the painting, and she won’t be able to finish it.”
“You don’t think the cops would be interested in letting her finish the face?”
“Why should they?”
Kai felt as if he were beating his head against a rock. He began ticking off points on his fingers. “A: Initially, the cops will think she did it, but unfortunately there isn’t any evidence except the painting to tie her to the murder. B: She’ll demonstrate how she did the painting, and once they’re believers, they’ll be watching every brushstroke she makes.”
“That would never hold up in court.”
“No, but once they know where to look, do you honestly think they won’t find some little shred of evidence to tie you up like a Christmas turkey?”
“No, I don’t. Anything they find will point to someone else and you know it.”
“But what about your fucking face?” he said from between gritted teeth. “Once they have it, don’t you think it will occur to the cops to show your picture to the guard? What’s going to happen then?”
Finally, the danger of the situation began to sink in. They stared at each other in silence for a moment. “Okay, we have to contain the damage. I still think you should go to the police; it will take suspicion off you. And they won’t allow her to work on the painting because if they do, then it’s inadmissible as evidence against her, if they can make the case, and they wouldn’t take that chance.”
“What if they do?”
“Then we’ll fall back on our safety net. With hard physical evidence, and the tape as motive, do you think the cops are really going to believe a kooky painting? He’d have to die, of course, and leave a suicide note telling why. Such a shame.”
Kai relaxed. The logic of the plan was comforting. For the first time since seeing the painting in Sweeney’s apartment, he felt as if he might slip out of this trap after all.
“And there’s always the most obvious step.”
“What?” he asked.
“Why, killing Sweeney, of course. Before she finishes the painting.”
* * *
Late that afternoon, Sweeney opened the door once again to Detectives Aquino and Ritenour. As soon as she saw their cold eyes and impassive faces, the bottom dropped out of her stomach. She knew exactly what Kai had done. “That rotten tattletale,” she muttered.
“Ms. Sweeney,” said Detective Aquino, “with your permission, we’d like to search your apartment. If you insist, we can get a search warrant within the hour, but things will go much smoother if you cooperate.” Smoother for them, he meant. Right now smooth was probably very important to him; he didn’t look as if he had gotten any sleep that day, either.
She sighed. “The painting’s in the studio. I’ll get it.”
“If you don’t mind, we’ll go with you,” Ritenour said immediately, and they both fell in step just behind her.
She was so tired she didn’t care, or almost didn’t care. She had been fighting the need for sleep all day, hoping she would get to spend the night with Richard again and he would somehow protect her from whatever happened when she slept. If she was at his town house, then she couldn’t work on the painting, could she? But her conscience hurt her whenever she thought of avoiding the completion of the painting, as if she were planning to let a murderer go free. She had to do the painting. But she would very much prefer that Richard be with her when she did, to help her through the aftermath. That meant he needed to be here.