CHAPTER 5
Nash
Now at home, standing under the punishing rain of my large shower, this evening’s encounter with the beautiful woman consumed me. My eyes were closed, water beading down my eyelids and nose. I scrubbed my hand across the stubble on my jaw.
She’d left as fast as she’d appeared, pulling Bill after her.
Part of me wanted to follow in secret, to see where she was going. But with a stolen painting stashed in my bag, I didn’t have many choices. It almost hurt having to let her disappear into the night.
I found myself torn between the intrigue of the PERL and this ghost of a female. The pull for both had a similar vibration and urgency, as though connected in some cosmic wink I needed to decipher. The excitement of the heist had cooled, and it made little sense.
Walking away from her backward, I shuffled through memories, trying to think if I’d ever seen her before. Was she just visiting? Was she even real?
The muscles in my stomach clenched, a knot of frustrated longing tightening with every thought of her. I shut off the shower with more force than necessary. Thinking this way made me feel agitated and out of control.
The water’s drumming ceased as I leaned against the cool, tiled wall. The scent of amber soap hung in the air, and humidity wrapped around my sore arms like a blanket. I swiped my wet hair back from my face.
Stepping out of the shower, I tied a towel around my waist. My skin prickled with gooseflesh; the room’s chill outside the confines of the glass clung to my skin. A thrill ran through me from the sensation.
My hand swiped across the mirror, hard enough to send water droplets flying. I picked up my rocks glass, taking a deep sip of the bourbon I’d poured before washing off. The familiar thrum of the liquor attempted to chase away the wisps of her phantom presence, but her echo remained like residue.
Women rarely affected me this much, so why her?
I squeezed my hand around the tumbler, imagining how easily I could fit her in my grasp—this slight thing with so much intensity behind her eyes. My breath dragged at the thought, a shallow rasp in the otherwise quiet room as the image of her face flickered unbidden behind my eyelids.
Dammit.
She was like something from the pages of a fairytale, and her dog—the complete opposite of her—added to the intrigue. Interesting people had interesting dogs, and that dog was a character. It hinted at a softer person behind her stoic mask.
I set the glass down, resolving that I would find her. I had a talent for finding things that didn’t want to be found. Like a knot, I’d pick at it until it unraveled, one tug at a time. She was a mystery begging to be uncovered.
I’d glimpsed her smirk tonight, the only sign that she’d felt it too, as shy as she was. She could hide a lot, but that little tilt of her beautiful lips was all the confirmation I needed. It was an invitation.
I slid on a pair of loose gray pants and a white shirt.
On my way out of the room, I snagged the bag with the PERL and headed up the spiral stairs from the primary bedroom into my private office on the top floor of the townhouse.
I set the bag atop the large oak desk that sat like an island in the middle of the room.
Books, oak shelves, and the lingering sweet smell of cigar smoke from decades past filled the room. I was not a smoker, but its rich scent was hard to mask, and I didn’t mind it. It was masculine, briny, and added romance to the space.
Opening a drawer, I retrieved a box of black gloves.
I pulled on a pair before grasping the edge of the canvas and sliding the art from the bag.
With a sharp eye, I began inspecting it to be sure it wasn’t damaged—or that the dog, Bill, hadn’t drooled all over it.
The edges looked normal, with no dents in the paint beyond your typical wear and tear.
No drool.
I flipped it over in my hands, inspecting the back. It was a view that few ever got the chance to see. In large, fast writing, four letters formed the simple name, P-E-R-L. The signature was smack in the middle, and it was about one inch tall.
It made me wonder if it was an acronym, perhaps of names, initials, or a place? I ran my finger across it. Nothing came to mind.
My position at Beaumont Antiquities offered many opportunities to study PERL signatures, and they were all the same. All capital letters. No hint of whether the person responsible was a man or a woman. It was a hurried signature, either written with confidence or laziness, both applied.
I ran my hand along the inside of the frame and under the edge where the canvas met the stretchers. Pulling my hand back, it came out clean but for a single hair against my black glove.
Holding it close for inspection, it had an orange tint and was about two inches long. My gut said it was from a feline, likely the artist’s cat. That did little to narrow it down. Most artists had cats—hell, most New Yorkers had cats.
Turning the painting over, I let the work of it sink in.
It was now in full color, no longer bathed in the dull red lights of the archives.
There were teal greens, reds, yellows, pinks, and white, all bleeding together.
There was a single thread of sky blue near the lower right, choked out by the surrounding colors.
I inspected the paint for any fingerprints. Some artists painted with their hands, and it wasn’t uncommon to find a fingerprint left behind, pressed forever into the paint. Unfortunately, I saw none.
Admittedly, I admired the piece. The story offered the perfect appeal. This artist was searching for something, reaching out to share this struggle, and inviting us to experience it with them. It was melancholy, sad, a perfect visual representation of what Blue might be in physical form.
There was a personal reason I was so drawn to PERL’s art.
It’s hard to pinpoint what that could be, but it was something important to the very core of my being.
Life was a kaleidoscope of unique experiences for each person, yet we all shared a hunger to know our reason for being.
I believed that if I could decipher the thrill we found in specific things, I could unlock the secret of what makes life worth living.
With little effort, my mind wandered back to the woman. I wanted to know what made her life worth living.
I snorted. I wanted to make her life worth living.
Anyone could see she was emotionally frayed around the edges, much like her sweatshirt. Did it make me a bad person to want to dismantle that? Challenge it?
Our family was no stranger to emotional turmoil after all. With all we’d endured with my mother, and the aftermath—it’s something easily identified in another.
With a turn on my heel, I took the painting to the back of the room to a set of double sliding doors. After punching in a code on the door latch, the door clicked. I slid them apart.
I stepped into my private gallery. The lights came on with my presence. The room was empty, all previous treasures delivered to the clients or organizations that hired me to ‘procure’ them. It wasn’t a large room, only about 8 ft deep and 12 ft wide.
I hooked the wired art onto a nail on the back wall. It sat under a central light fixture that deepened the shadows and grooves in the heavy paint. It was perfect there.
I left the doors open as I made my way back to my desk, peeling off the gloves and tossing them in the trash. The decanter clinked against my tumbler as I poured myself another finger of bourbon from my bar cart. I sat in my leather armchair behind my desk, facing the art.
Taking a hearty sip, I turned to look out the front windows.
Being on the top floor of the townhouse, my office window was floor to almost ceiling, rounding at the top.
There were skylights overhead, black with night.
My townhouse, being tall, offered a better view than the ones on the other side of the street.
City lights peppered the distant expanse.
My gaze dropped five floors to the sidewalks, trying to peer between trees, hoping to catch a little black shadow, towed by an animated and excited black and white dog.
There was nothing.
My chest constricted, a physical manifestation of the tightening grip of anxiety, a hollow, lonely ache in the pit of my stomach.
There was an enormous bang of garbage trucks in the distance, beginning their rounds, a pizza man leaving an order on the stoop across the street.
I looked back at the painting, tilting my head until it rested against the back of the chair for a moment. Focusing on the colors, I worked to resolve the anxiety and excitement of the evening. After several moments and breaths, it fell away from me.
Twisting again to look back at the street, I noticed the delivered pizza was gone from the neighbor’s porch. The garbage truck was outside as the driver tossed bags into the back. There was a hint of light on the horizon, showing morning would be here soon.
Downing the last sip of bourbon, I returned to the gallery and slid the doors shut once more, securing the locks.
Descending the spiral stairs, I found my bed and slid into it.
My tired muscles relaxed as I sank into the familiar softness, the quiet broken only by my breathing.
Behind my lids, the colors of PERL danced across my vision, haunted by the crystal blue eyes of a beautiful stranger, and the excited dance of a little black and white dog.