Flirting with Disaster (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 2)

“Is one of them yours?”

“Yes, the portrait. I suck at landscapes. And watercolor.”

“The portrait is striking. Really spectacular.”

“Thank you,” she said simply, not offering any protest. She knew she was good, and he liked that. He was about to ask who the man was, but Isabelle’s mouth tightened as if she was waiting for just that question—and resenting that he’d ask it—so Tom tipped his head toward the dark doorway on the other side of the room. “May I please check the rest of the house? Just to be sure?”

Her eyes narrowed. She watched him for a long moment then looked around the room, as if trying to see what he was seeing. “If you really think it’s necessary. Watch out for the laundry when you get to my bedroom. I haven’t quite kept up with it this...week.”

“Got it.” He flipped on the hallway light and moved to the right toward two open doors. The first was a small bedroom with no piles of laundry and no intruder. He checked the closet and moved on.

The second door was clearly her bedroom. A king-size bed was piled high with silver-and-blue pillows on top of a rumpled gray comforter. Despite the massive size of the thing, it looked as though she used the whole big mattress. There wasn’t a smooth spot of blanket on it. Or she’d had a guest sometime recently. He couldn’t rule that out.

Other than that, the bedroom was fairly unremarkable aside from the pile of laundry at the foot of her bed. There were also a few clean clothes stacked neatly on top of a dresser as if she’d gotten distracted before putting them away.

Tom moved toward a door in the far wall and found a large bathroom, empty aside from a can of turpentine on the counter and a smaller pile of laundry. He checked the closet, surprised there were still clean clothes remaining in there, then shut off the lights and headed for the other side of the house.

It was quick work. There was one more bedroom that seemed to be used for storage, and past it, a laundry room with a door that creaked in protest at being opened after so long. The last door led to the garage, which was empty aside from an SUV and a few very large canvases wrapped in plastic.

He found Isabelle in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water and not the least bit concerned about the security of her home. He shook his head. “I guess I should’ve asked you to wait in the living room until I’d cleared this area.”

She shrugged. “I would’ve yelled if I found someone.”

“Is that the last room?” he asked, tipping his chin toward the double doors.

“Yep, it’s my studio.”

He hesitated a moment. He’d never been in the home of a real working artist before. “I won’t be invading your privacy if I look inside?”

“You’re invading it right now, but I think I’ll survive.”

He opened the doors to cool air and a strong smell of paint. Even before he reached for the light he could make out easels highlighted by the moonlight that streamed through tall windows. Their shadows stretched across the wood floor, the long shapes making his neck prickle with alarm. Anyone could be standing there. He’d unbuttoned his gun strap, but he hadn’t drawn it. The likelihood that anyone was actually here was minuscule, but he still put his hand on the butt of his gun as he swept the wall with his fingers.

They finally found the switch, and the darkest shadows vanished in the sudden onslaught of light.

Her studio was a large room, and the scattered canvases blocked a lot of the view, but Tom could see practically every corner when he dropped down to peer past the forest of easel legs. It looked clear. He blew out a sigh, but his relief lasted for only the two seconds it took him to stand and refocus his eyes on the nearest canvas.

This time his breath left him on a rush, and he stepped back in alarm.

What the hell?

His gaze skipped off that painting and moved to the next one, trying to escape the sight or just make sense of it, but the second one was no better. Just a mess of blood and sinew and flayed skin and glistening muscles.

Narrowing his eyes, he forced himself to step closer to the first easel, but that only made it worse. Her painting was of a human abdomen, except that this person’s skin had been peeled off to reveal the connective tissue beneath it. It was so incredibly detailed that he could make out the smallest capillaries on the underside of the peeled skin.

Even worse than the paintings were the photos taped to the sides of the canvas frames. These were actual pictures of bodies stripped of their skin and humanity. They were corpses. And she was re-creating them.

“You don’t like them?” she asked from only a few feet away. Tom jumped, spinning toward her, his hand tightening on his gun. He didn’t draw it, though. He had that much sense left.

“What the hell kind of art is this?” Was she a provocateur or just some sort of sicko?

She grinned at him, and he changed “sicko” to “serial killer” in his mind. Clearly, she was sociopathic. “I’m an anatomical painter.”

“Yeah, I damn well see that.”

Now she was actually laughing. “You should see your face.” She wiped a tear from her eye. She was laughing so hard she was crying.

“What is this?” he barked.