Love, Art, and Murder – Mystery Romance
I finished my drink, not really sure how much of this I could listen to. The less I knew about the victims, the easier it would be to somehow forget them, I hoped.
“A simple internet search of the watercolor artist, Trudy, brought up results that she’d attempted suicide three times. Once she tried to paint a picture during her last suicide attempt. She hung from the ceiling by her neck and colored. Her assistant discovered her before it was too late.”
Hex has more than invited people with sad histories, he welcomed crazy people to our home. What other insane person did he invite, someone who enjoys killing?
I stifled my groan of annoyance and asked, “What about the video installation artist?”
“She is the oddest one. Her name is a symbol, one that looks like an upside-down triangle. I can’t find any records of her existing anywhere. The police took her fingerprints and scanned them. Nothing has come up in any of their databases.”
“Isn’t that impossible?”
“In this day and age, most people are fingerprinted. I searched her room and couldn’t find a passport or any form of identification. I’m not even sure how she arrived here. There is no record of her coming in on a plane, bus, or train around the time the director of cleaning said she came. I’m considering the possibility that she came here by boat and have my men checking boat yards. They’ll be asking around and showing her picture.”
As always, conversations with Detective White presented more questions than answers. “Do you need more men working with you on this?”
“Yes. My mind is boggled. I need to have my eyes and ears in many places at once. Having a larger team can do that for me.”
“Add as many men as you need and send the bill when you’ve finished.” I got up from my chair and went to grab another drink, telling myself it was the last one, but deep down inside knowing it would be a part of many drinks for the evening.
“Okay. When do you think will be the earliest I can talk to your brother and grandmother?”
I twirled the bitter brown liquor in my glass. “You can go ahead and talk to my grandma in her cottage now. Let’s plan to meet with my brother tomorrow afternoon. I have to interview new personal assistants soon.”
And perhaps spend the next five hours trying to convince Elle to have more faith in us.
Chapter 25
Elle
“Hex?” I entered his studio. With the dim lighting, shadows danced on the walls as I moved through the space. “Hex?”
He didn’t answer. Although my guards stood outside and one flanked the doorway to Hex’s studio, a chill ran through me. The week’s events had frazzled my nerves and shoved me over the edge of normalcy. Everything came out suspicious. Every distorted shape of light or twinkle past my eyes caused me to jump or shake. Yet saying goodbye to Hex was the last thing on my list before I left.
Whether he knew it or not, he’d changed my life and how I looked at myself and art. That simple session with the cancer survivors had changed my outlook on everything. They were beautiful women, not beautiful due to their hair, faces, or bodies, but lovely because they exuded it from every pore. They captivated everyone around them with their strength, spirit, and examples of survival. That was art. The paintings Michael had done of me were only pitiful attempts to capture life’s beauty. What Hex created trapped life into a solid image and forced the viewer to explore the layers of our world much deeper.
I wonder what else Hex would have taught me if I’d continued modeling for him.
I browsed his amazing works for the last time, hoping he would come back soon and seizing the opportunity to check out some of his works from his new collection.
Did he finish the painting of the women and me?
I walked through the maze of sculptures and scattered canvases full of forgotten obsessions, tip-toeing over fallen paintbrushes and oil soaked rags. The perfume of paint filled the air just like it would in Michael’s studio when he was in the middle of creating his huge images of me. I inhaled the aroma and followed the scented trail to an opened door in the far back of the studio. The last time I sat in this area with Hex, the door had remained closed.
Maybe the painting is in here.
I entered. Bright lights hung from the high ceiling. The whole room was more organized than Hex’s studio. Art stuff packed the shelves. Paintbrushes lay in their particular jars as well as many paints, fabrics, colorful layers of paper, copper wires, clear cords, long tubes of glitter, nails, planks of wood in various grades, and even more.
Is this his supply room, or is all of this stuff going to be used in his new collection?