‘‘... brutally beaten to death ...”
. savagely attacked ...”
. fatal assault ...”
The scary thing was that she could imagine John doing it. Gentle as he was with her, she knew how strong he was, how much he abhorred injustice, how he had no fear of breaking the law because they were “white man’s laws. We never agreed to them.”
What kind of a friend are you, she asked herself, that you’d even suspect such a thing of him?
This I can promise you.
And then she thought: Angels and monsters. Spirits called from beyond. Guardian spirits ... and vengeful ones as well?
She shook her head. This was crazy. But she couldn’t suppress a shiver all the same.
“You okay?” Kathy asked.
Izzy nodded. “I’m just a little creeped out, that’s all.” She let her gaze rove to the kitchen clock.
“God, look at the time. I’ve got to get to the studio.”
“What? Rushkin’s got you punching a time clock now?”
“No. It’s just that I’ve got a class at two, but I really wanted to finish off this painting I’ve been working on.”
She managed to make her retreat and leave their discussion finished without having to bring up the fear of John’s involvement in last night’s murders that had lodged inside her. But she couldn’t make it go away, either. It stayed with her all day, affecting her ability to paint, distracting her in class. She felt guilty for even thinking what she was thinking, but it loomed so large in her mind now that she knew she had to hear John’s innocence proclaimed from his own lips before she could let it go.
My word’s the only currency I’ve got that’s of any real worth. I don’t spend it lightly.
He wouldn’t lie to her. She trusted in that much. Even if he had killed those men last night, he wouldn’t lie to her when she asked him about it.
She felt like such a traitor when she spotted him cutting across the common to meet her after class.
He looked the picture of innocence as he ambled over the grass, hands thrust deep in his jeans; his hair the glossy black of raven feathers, swallowing the sunlight; the white of his T-shirt showing through his open coat even though everybody else was buttoned up and wearing scarves and hats and gloves. When he got close enough, he didn’t even say hello, just swept her into his arms and gave her a long kiss that left her happily breathless. But the question that had plagued her all day rose up between them and stole away her pleasure in the moment.
“Did you read in the paper about what happened to those guys that attacked Rochelle last month?”
she asked as they started to walk back across the common.
John shook his head. “No, but I heard about it. I told you retribution was waiting for them on the wheel that they’d chosen. It was only a matter of time.”
“Do you think they deserved to die?”
He paused and turned to look at her. “What you’re really asking is, did I do it?”
Izzy couldn’t read the expression in his features. He didn’t look sad, or even disappointed in her, but there was something new there all the same. “I guess I am,” she said.
“Maybe you should look at this first,” he said. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and brought out something wrapped in brown paper. “I was trying to think of how to bring this up, but I guess I might as well be as up front about it as you are.”
Izzy took the parcel. The blood drained from her features as she found herself looking at a corner of mounting frame with some canvas attached to it. The ends of the frame were charred, as was the edge of the canvas, but there was enough of the image left for her to recognize that it was all that was left of her painting Smither’s Oak. The rest was gone. Burned. Just as her paintings were in her dreams.
“Where ... where did you get this?” she asked.
“In the trash behind your studio.”
Not her studio, Izzy thought. Rushkin’s studio. Where Smither’s Oak was supposed to be in storage with the rest of her paintings that weren’t stacked up around her easel in the upstairs studio proper.
Her chest felt tight, but she didn’t feel the helplessness that always accompanied her dreams. Anger rose up inside her instead, unfamiliar, dark and over-powering.
“What do you want to do about it?” John asked.
“What do you think?” she said. “I’m going to confront him with it. Right now.”
John fell in step beside her as she marched off, but she stopped and shook her head.
“I appreciate your wanting to help,” she said, “but I have to deal with this by myself “
“What if he gives you a hard time?”
“The only person that’s going to get a hard time is him,” Izzy said, her voice grim.
She looked down at all that was left of her painting. The sorrow at its loss would come, she knew, but all she felt now was the pure hot burn of her anger. Just let Rushkin try and raise a hand against her, she thought. Her gaze lifted to meet John’s.
“I just have to do this myself,” she repeated. “If you come it’s going to make everything more complicated.”
“I understand,” John told her.
He walked her as far as the bus stop, but when the bus came, he stayed behind. It wasn’t until she was almost at her stop that Izzy realized that once again she hadn’t gotten an answer to a question she’d asked John.
XVII
When Rushkin opened the downstairs door to the coach house, Izzy thrust what was left of her painting at him, poking him in the chest with one end. He backed up a step in surprise and she followed him inside, jabbing him again.
“It had spirit, did it?” she said. Her voice was so cold, she couldn’t recognize it as her own. “It couldn’t go to the gallery because you don’t sell paintings with spirit—right?”
“Isabelle, what are—”
“But burning them is fine.”
“I don’t—”
“How dare you do this to my work?”
Images from her dreams flashed before her eyes. They’d been horrible enough on their own, but to know that they’d been prescient warnings made them all that much worse. How many of her paintings had he destroyed?”
“Isabelle—”
“Who died and made you God? That’s what I want to know. You’ve treated me like shit most of the time I’ve come here, but I put up with it because I could still respect you as an artist. I thought you really believed in the worth of my work. God knows I’m nowhere near your level, and maybe I never will be, but I was trying. I was doing the best I could. And then you do this to me.”
She thrust the charred remains of Smither’s Oak up in the air between them, almost poking him in the eye. He backed up another step, but this time she didn’t follow. She stared at what she held and her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. Her anger was still there, deep and strange to her and so very painful, but the sorrow she thought she’d be able to put aside until she’d dealt with Rushkin rose up to overpower her.
Rushkin moved forward, a hand raised to touch her shoulder, but she backed away from him.
“You ... you betrayed me,” she mumbled through her tears.
“Isabelle,” Rushkin said. “That is not your painting.”
She looked blankly at him, everything blurred through a veil of tears. Her gaze dropped to the charred canvas in her hand. Though she couldn’t see it clearly now, she’d studied it on the bus ride over.
She knew the brushstrokes, the subject matter, the palette.
“I ... I know my own work,” she said.
But Rushkin shook his head. “I did that painting.”
“You ...”
“I’m intrigued by your choices of subject, your use of light,” he said. “I wanted to get inside your work.”