The Edge

Chapter 50

“What are you doing here?” asked Alex as she opened the door to her studio. There were paint smudges on her hands and a broad charcoal stroke on her nose.

Devine looked down at her. “Thought I’d check up on my favorite local artist.”

She grinned and then looked skeptical. “Why don’t I believe that?”

“Can I come in? Pretty cold out here.”

“You’ll have to watch me work. I’ve got a tight deadline.”

“My pleasure.”

He looked at the easel with a four-by-four-foot canvas on it.

“Coffee’s fresh,” she said, pointing to the pot on an electric plate and some cups next to it.

He poured himself a cup and leaned against a table to watch as she went back to work.

“Seems pretty sedate for you,” he noted as he looked over the painting of a lake’s surface with colorful water lilies floating on top. “No male genitalia or anything.”

She laughed. “The client loves Monet but can’t afford that sort of artwork, not that you can just go buy an original Monet these days. They’re either in museums or owned by billionaires. But I’m a good chameleon. I can imitate lots of styles.”

“But you prefer your own style?”

“Every artist does, but you have to pay the bills, too.”

“Did you mention to anyone that I slept here that night?”

She shot him a glance. “No, why?”

“Harper knew about it. He arrested me for breaking and entering — at least that was one of the charges.”

She lowered her palette and brush. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“I wish I were. He let me out but he could pick me up anytime.”

“I’ll talk to him and tell him it was fine that you were here.”

“But, like I said, those weren’t the only charges.”

“What else? Urinating in public? From what I’ve seen you could get half the male population up here on that one,” she said jokingly.

He debated whether to say. “It actually involved a piece of evidence from... your case.”

She looked startled. “My case?”

“He accused me of stealing it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I wouldn’t. And didn’t. But the evidence is missing. Someone took it.”

She set her palette and brush down and came over to him. “What was it?”

He glanced at her before answering. She seemed equal parts angry and... frightened? “It was your rape kit.”

Alex looked down, her facial features tight, her body rigid where it had been relaxed and loose while painting. “Why would anyone take that?” she asked, her gaze still averted from him.

“I don’t know. But it would make it impossible to compare anyone’s DNA to it, so there is that.” He waited for her to say something but when she didn’t, he added, “Your sister came up here because I think she had figured out who had attacked you.”

“How... how could she possibly have done that? And after all this time?”

“She used some of her resources at CIA to work the case.”

“What?!”

“She told your mother that she came up here for unfinished business. And she asked you about the attack.”

Alex started to crumple. “But... but she never told me that... that she... knew who—”

Seeing how she was being affected by this revelation he said quickly, “I’m not saying she knew for certain. But I think Jenny might have suspected.”

She looked up at him in a way that made his skin tingle. She seemed wobbly and dazed, and Devine felt like an insensitive idiot for having brought all of this up.

“I just meant that if she really knew who it was and had proof of that, she would have just contacted the authorities. I don’t know what the statute of limitations up here is, but I doubt it goes back fifteen years for what happened to you.”

Alex did not appear to be listening. Then, while Devine was preparing what he would say next, she slumped to the floor.

“Alex!” he cried out, kneeling down next to her. Her eyelids were fluttering and her breathing was erratic. It was like when he had unwittingly brought her to the place where she’d been attacked, only this time was worse.

Devine gripped her hand. “Breathe in and out, nice and slow, in and out. Come on, you can do it.”

Instead, the woman went completely rigid and her eyelids stopped fluttering and closed.

“Get off me,” she screamed.

He let go of her and sprang back, stunned. “Alex, I’m just trying to—”

“Stop it, stop it! Let me go. Let me go. You’re hurting me. I... I don’t want to do this! Stop!” she shrieked.

She started writhing on the ground, punching with her arms and kicking with her legs.

“Alex, I’m not touching you. I’m over—”

“I will kill you. Let me go... stop it, don’t, don’t! Stop... Please!” She screamed again. And then fell silent, her body now still. And then she started to weep, softly, agonizingly, her whole body shuddering with the effort.

“Alex, I’m...” Devine stopped and looked helplessly down at her.

She grew still and the cries stopped. She opened her eyes and looked around in a daze.

When she saw him she said quietly, “What happened?” She looked around and noticed that she was on the floor. She slowly got to her feet, putting a hand on a table to help lever herself up on shaky legs while Devine just stood there, stunned. “Why was I on the floor? I remember talking to you and then... nothing.”

He looked at her closely. “You just sort of passed out, Alex. Do you not feel well? Are you dehydrated?”

“No, I mean I’ve been drinking water and coffee. But I haven’t been feeling all that well lately. And I do get anxious. Maybe fainting is my self-defense mechanism.”

“Do you feel all right now?”

“Yes, I feel fine now.”

Devine didn’t want to upset her unduly, which was why he had not told Alex what she had said while she had been on the floor. He didn’t think she was dehydrated or had fainted from anxiety. She seemed to be reliving what had happened to her when she had been attacked.

Something occurred to Devine as he connected one thing to another. “Alex, has this ever happened to you before? You... you sort of faint and then don’t remember anything?”

“What? No. I mean, not that I remember... But wait, okay, one time I was at Bertie’s studio. I was working on a sketch that I was later going to turn into a painting. She was helping me to get my three-point perspective and vanishing points just right. I was doing a building with people walking in front, but there was tricky trajectory to work out and my 3D boxing skills on the people weren’t all that stellar, especially getting the middle point right. I hadn’t really done something that complicated before.”

“I won’t even pretend to understand what you just said.”

She smiled. “There’s more math in art than most people think. But the world is three-dimensional and art has to be as well. There are skills of the trade to get that effect, and having a grasp of geometry and other disciplines helps. Anyway, I was sketching it and Bertie asked me something.”

“What did she ask you?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t really remember. She said I had just collapsed.”

“Do you recall when that was?”

“It was a long time ago. My senior year of high school, I do remember that. The painting was going into a school competition.”

“Is that the only other time this happened to you besides with me just now?”

She frowned. “No, come to think, the same thing happened here. Bertie was with me again. She was over helping me on a sculpture I was doing. The piece was just physically hard to maneuver and she was very strong. Boom, I just collapsed, and the next thing I knew she was kneeling next to me shaking me.”

“Were you talking to her about anything before you fainted?”

She thought for a moment. “Bertie was asking me if I was ever going to leave Putnam. Look, it was probably all the paint fumes I was breathing.” When Devine looked worried she added, “Don’t worry. I’ve been to a doctor and gotten checked out. No brain issues or anything like that. And I had my air-filtration and ventilator systems here upgraded. You have to be careful with all the fumes and such. It can be toxic.”

“What doctor did you see?”

“Françoise Guillaume. She checked me out thoroughly. I’m fit as a fiddle.”

“Okay, so when did the last episode happen with Bertie?”

Alex let out a protracted sigh and her expression darkened. “It was the last time I saw her, actually. She was killed by the hit-and-run driver two days later.”