CHAPTER TWENTY
The new deaths sparked a fresh wave of press at-ten-tion around Do-rian.
Re-porters flut-tered around cam-pus like moths de-vour-ing cash-mere, and no mat-ter how many pleas the dean is-sued, they would not dis-pel. It was a free coun-try, af-ter all, and that free-dom hinged upon the ef-fi-cacy of the fourth es-tate. Upon the rights of the press to ex-pose ugly truths.
Au-top-sies had de-duced, as they had with Or-lagh, that the glit-ter-ing alumni had died of nat-u-ral causes. But a med-i-cal ex-am-iner had leaked the fact that they were cov-ered in the same strange, faded marks, and it had caused a surge in con-spir-acy the-o-ries.
None I read were re-motely close to the truth—what per-son of rea-son-able in-tel-li-gence would sus-pect a haunted gallery?—but there were some es-pe-cially out-lan-dish ideas be-ing pub-lished. Tales of cruel haz-ing prac-tices at Do-rian, bod-ies tied to posts and whipped sense-less, the scars en-dur-ing for decades af-ter. Hy-pothe-ses about sin-is-ter cults and sa-tanic rit-u-als. Fresh spot-lights cast on the fac-ulty, and on the cam-pus it-self.
The whole of Do-rian seemed to be sus-pended on a held breath, an-tic-i-pat-ing po-lice in-ves-ti-ga-tions and wide-spread ques-tion-ing. But the obit-u-ar-ies were pub-lished, and the weep-ing fu-ner-als were held, and nei-ther ever came.
And I was no closer to know-ing for cer-tain whether Davina was be-hind it all.
Yes, I’d con-firmed that she too hung in the gallery, and she knew the power of the paint-ings. She had enough of a vendetta against me to jus-tify the spite-ful cuts on my throat. And if Dr-ever had been hook-ing her up with au-di-tions she had no hope of book-ing oth-er-wise, she had a very real rea-son to want to si-lence Or-lagh about their af-fair. Dr-ever was her golden ticket, and she was the kind of per-son who would stop at noth-ing to keep it that way.
But she had no mo-tive that I could find for the last two mur-ders, un-less she re-ally did just love the sport of it all. The sense of power, of con-trol, of be-ing in the driv-ing seat. See-ing me squirm.
Of course, she was with me when the news about Lyle and Celia broke, but that didn’t prove any-thing. It could have taken a while for the bod-ies to be found—she’d been miss-ing in ac-tion for weeks, af-ter all.
The cold, raw fear I felt around her was pure gut in-stinct. Some-thing an-cient and evo-lu-tion-ary. It had to mean some-thing.
An-other cut had ap-peared on my throat that night, once again jolt-ing me from sleep. It was tiny, a pin-prick, right be-neath my chin. Which meant that who-ever killed Celia and Lyle had gone back not long af-ter-ward. Just to toy with me.
An-other com-pass point-ing to-ward Davina. I’d pissed her off, and sus-tained a fresh wound mere hours later.
Over the next week, more cuts started to ap-pear over my chest—nicks along my col-lar-bone, a thin cres-cent carv-ing over the top of my breast. Con-trolled and pre-cise, de-signed not to se-ri-ously hurt but to tor-ment. It worked. With ev-ery fresh scar, a new wave of panic crested. That feel-ing, once again, of a jun-gle cat bat-ting around a mouse be-fore fi-nally putting it out of its mis-ery.
While Davina no longer fit per-fectly as the per-pe-tra-tor, she was still the only sus-pect I had. I couldn’t think of any-one else who would want to hurt me like this, nor could I dis-cern a clear pat-tern be-tween Or-lagh and the other vic-tims. There were no other leads to fol-low but her, and so fol-low her I would.
I formed a ten-ta-tive plan to tail Davina as closely as I could, try-ing to find any ev-i-dence I could to prove my the-ory cor-rect. I wasn’t sure what I’d do once I did un-cover proof, but it seemed like some-thing I should have re-gard-less. So that if things es-ca-lated and I was forced into go-ing to the po-lice, they could act quickly against her. They could bring me to safety.
But once again, Davina van-ished from class.
Was she at-tend-ing more au-di-tions? Book-ing her first real roles? It was the only rea-son I could think of that she’d will-in-gly com-pro-mise the place at Do-rian she’d worked so hard for. She didn’t seem the type to value ed-u-ca-tion for ed-u-ca-tion’s sake, like Catalina. This pro-gram was a means to an end, and if she was al-ready suc-cess-ful with-out it … why stick around?
That’s not to say I never saw her on cam-pus. I caught oc-ca-sional glimpses of her talk-ing to Maisie in shaded cor-ners; brief licks of her tongue-pink bal-let slip-pers in the crowded Cos-tumery. From the quad, I saw a fleet-ing glim-mer of her in Dr-ever’s of-fice win-dow be-fore the blinds were snapped shut. Ev-ery time I came re-motely close to her, though, she dis-ap-peared like a swal-low swoop-ing and div-ing around a net. Like a mi-rage, or a shadow, or a ghost.
One pat-tern did emerge, though: Ev-ery time I caught sight of her at Do-rian, a fresh cut would ap-pear. Was that her only rea-son for re-turn-ing be-tween au-di-tions? To tor-ment me? Did she re-ally loathe me that much?
My mother had been call-ing me fif-teen times a day since the fresh mur-ders. I never picked up, though the sad lit-tle girl in-side me liked feel-ing pur-sued, for once. Even if Mum was likely just call-ing to re-mind me what she would do if I went to the po-lice.
In truth, the idea of go-ing to the po-lice grew more ap-peal-ing by the day. The stack of dead bod-ies was mount-ing, and I was be-ing slowly but surely maimed. And yet the thought of stand-ing in a ceme-tery, watch-ing my only par-ent’s cof-fin be-ing low-ered into the earth …
I couldn’t risk it. I would have to solve this my-self.
The Masked Painter was a dead end, and Davina was im-pos-si-ble to cap-ture, so I de-cided to pur-sue the next best thing: Maisie.
She had grown close with Davina, and while her loy-alty al-most cer-tainly lay with my neme-sis, my room-mate was also a no-to-ri-ous gos-sip. If she knew some-thing strange or sus-pi-cious about Davina—that she had been sneak-ing around in the dark of the night with a dag-ger in her purse—she might not be able to help her-self. She might tell me just for the thrill of it.
Worth a try.
One morn-ing af-ter class, she dis-ap-peared in the di-rec-tion of the li-brary in-stead of hit-ting the Cos-tumery for lunch with the rest of us. Giv-ing my apolo-gies to Catalina and Fraser, I told them I’d see them in re-hearsals and fol-lowed suit.
The cam-pus was aflame with au-tumn leaves, sprays of bril-liant or-ange and red yel-low pop-ping against the red-brick build-ings. On my stroll through the quad, not one but two sep-a-rate im-prov troupes tried to rope me into their elab-o-rate per-for-mances—a bank heist and a di-vorce hear-ing—but I shook my head and tried to look amused in-stead of ir-ri-tated.
“Have a day off, will you?” I mut-tered to my-self, feel-ing rather acutely that I could not fit in less if I tried.
I found Maisie alone in a small li-brary nook, por-ing over a vol-ume I didn’t rec-og-nize from the course read-ing list. She didn’t see me at first, and I had the chance to ob-serve her in her nat-u-ral habi-tat, like a cu-ri-ous wildlife species. She car-ried her-self dif-fer-ently when she was alone, and there-fore not try-ing to im-press peo-ple. Her hair was tossed up in a messy bun, and she was bit-ing her nails rather fiercely. Shoul-ders re-laxed, even a lit-tle hunched. Her head-phones played some-thing that sounded sus-pi-ciously like coun-try mu-sic, the qual-ity tinny through the speak-ers.
I pulled out a chair, its legs squeak-ing over the check-board tiles, and said, “Mind if I sit?”
She jumped ever so slightly be-fore yank-ing out her head-phones and slam-ming the book on the ta-ble shut. I caught a glimpse of the cover be-fore she stuffed it un-der her hand-bag: RSPB Hand-book of Scot-tish Birds: Sec-ond Edi-tion.
I smiled as warmly as I could, dis-guis-ing the grunt of dis-com-fort as my bony legs pressed into the stiff wooden chair. I could feel ev-ery pro-trud-ing knob-ble on my back-side. “What are you read-ing?”
“Noth-ing.” Two per-fectly round spots of pink had ap-peared on her cheeks, like a china doll. “It’s for the an-i-mal stud-ies class.”
I frowned. “I thought you were a chimp.”
The pink spots burned red-der, but Maisie just shrugged.
“Don’t be em-bar-rassed,” I chuck-led, in a way I hoped was re-as-sur-ing in-stead of pa-tron-iz-ing. “Birds are cool. And hey, I have my fair share of nerdy in-ter-ests too.”
Maisie scoffed, but not in a cruel way. “Oh yeah? Like high fash-ion and star-ring in plays? So nerdy.”
“Nope. Like chess.” I beamed at her, try-ing my best to win her over. “I know all the main lines of ev-ery sin-gle chess open-ing there is. If you want a de-tailed run-down of the Ice-landic Gam-bit, I’m your girl.”
The cor-ners of her mouth lifted de-spite her best ef-forts. She pulled the bird book back out from un-der the hand-bag, then ran a thumb over its cover. “I think I saw a ca-per-cail-lie in the Cross-woods yes-ter-day. I wanted to make sure it re-ally was be-fore I told my grandpa.” A sheep-ish smile. “Birds are kind of our thing.” There was a sub-tle Geordie twang to her ac-cent when she talked about her fam-ily.
“That’s adorable. Why are you try-ing to hide it?”
She shot me a de-fi-ant look. “Same rea-son you don’t talk about chess, I’d imag-ine. We’re all just play-ing a part, right?”
“Speak-ing of which…”
I was re-luc-tant to break the frag-ile kin-ship be-tween us, but the wounds on my throat and chest seemed to burn and throb when-ever I thought about them. I needed to stop this.
I swal-lowed hard. “Is Davina okay? I haven’t seen her in class re-cently.”
I could tell im-me-di-ately this was the wrong tac-tic.
Maisie shook her head, clench-ing her jaw. “Is that why you’re re-ally here? To talk about Davina?”
Shame coiled in-side me like a spring. I scram-bled to re-gain the ground I’d just lost. “I feel bad about ev-ery-thing that’s hap-pened. I want us all to be friends.”
She raised a sin-gle eye-brow, and I en-vied how nat-u-rally ex-pres-sive her face was. “You want to be able to black-mail some-one, steal what’s right-fully theirs, and then sit around a camp-fire and sing ‘Kum-baya’?”
I chewed the in-side of my cheek. There was a thick web of scar tis-sue from where I’d bit-ten into it dur-ing the night, when the most re-cent scar ap-peared. “I of-fered her the lead back. She wouldn’t take it. I fucked up, okay?”
“I’m not your mes-sen-ger.” She shook her head again, a lock of hair fall-ing out of her bun and into her face, then picked up her head-phones.
Panic surged in me like a rush of river wa-ter. “No, wait. Please, Maisie. This is im-por-tant.”
She didn’t re-spond, but her hand stilled.
There were so many things I wanted to say, but I had no idea which would be most likely to glean a re-sponse.
Where has Davina been?
Has she been act-ing strangely to you too?
Do you think that dark-ness in-side her has the ca-pac-ity to kill?
Do you think she might kill me?
No. I couldn’t ask some-thing solely about Davina. I needed her to feel rel-e-vant, like a crit-i-cal cog in the story.
“The night Or-lagh died,” I started, throat sud-denly arid. “You said you were with Davina, but you weren’t. I saw her with Dr-ever in Or-lagh’s of-fice. Why did you lie? Did she ask you to?”
Maisie looked over her shoul-der sud-denly, as though ex-pect-ing some-one to jump out on her. Davina? Was she se-cretly as afraid of the cruel-mouthed bal-le-rina as I was?
“Maisie,” I whis-pered. “It’s okay. Please, just say yes or no.”
Sec-onds sprawled into min-utes sprawled into hours—or so it felt—un-til fi-nally she said, “I was bird-watch-ing at an ob-ser-va-tory in Mus-sel-burgh. It was me who lied, not Davina.”
Then the head-phones went back on, and I knew the con-ver-sa-tion was over.
A few days later, I was walk-ing to re-hearsals with Catalina when my whole world was pulled out from un-der me.
“Why are you at Do-rian?” I was in the mid-dle of ask-ing her, gen-uinely cu-ri-ous. She didn’t seem to crave fame and ado-ra-tion the way the rest of us did.
We had been spend-ing a lot of time to-gether lately. With Fraser al-ways out and about and Maisie off hunt-ing hawks, the two of us were of-ten alone in the flat. We stud-ied to-gether, watched Net-flix true-crime doc-u-men-taries to-gether, drank tea and ran lines to-gether. I had be-gun to as-so-ciate Catalina with the feel-ing of home.
And in truth, it fright-ened me. The last time I’d felt like this was with Samara, who had been my best friend in the world. When she cut me out of her life for de-vel-op-ing feel-ings, it was so deeply painful. I had to guard my heart around Catalina. I had to make a real ef-fort not to sink too deeply into the friend-ship.
Yet I found my-self end-lessly fas-ci-nated by her. Ev-ery ques-tion I asked yielded a thought-ful, in-ter-est-ing re-sponse.
“What do you mean?” She was fold-ing a piece of lined note-book pa-per in her hands, ev-ery crease neat and elab-o-rate, con-cen-tra-tion etched around her brows and tem-ples. She’d re-cently dyed blue streaks into the front of her hair, and it made her bronze eyes shine brighter than ever.
“You just don’t seem like the typ-i-cal self-ob-sessed thes-pian. And I’ve never heard you talk about what you want to do af-ter this. Do you want to be on-stage? Screen?”
“I don’t know, in all hon-esty. I’ll go and au-di-tion, of course, and what-ever hap-pens, hap-pens.” She ad-justed her mus-tard-yel-low bob-ble hat. “But I would equally love to teach. I can to-tally see my-self in a lit-tle of-fice filled with books, get-ting paid to do noth-ing but sit and read and pon-der. And I’d play an in-de-cent amount of Dun-geons & Drag-ons, of course. Teach a course on its aca-demic mer-its, maybe. What about you?”
“West End,” I replied au-to-mat-i-cally. “I want peo-ple to come from far and wide to see me per-form. I want stand-ing ova-tions and ado-ra-tion. Your typ-i-cal nar-cis-sis-tic bull-shit.” I laughed in self-dep-re-ca-tion, hop-ing she didn’t try and psy-cho-an-a-lyze this de-sire any fur-ther. “You’d re-ally be con-tent with a small of-fice and pre-tend-ing to be an orc?”
“First of all, my char-ac-ter is an as-tral elf, so let’s get that straight.” She shrugged, her breath fog-ging in front of her. “And yeah, I would. Stand-ing ova-tions are won-der-ful, but … I don’t know. Big joy and small joy are the same, right? I get as much hap-pi-ness out of my first tea of the day as I do out of land-ing a big part in a play. Pa-per is the per-fect ex-am-ple.” She held up an origami lion and of-fered it to me. “Some-thing so or-di-nary can be some-thing so beau-ti-ful, if you look at it the right way. God, I sound like a for-tune cookie.”
End-lessly fas-ci-nat-ing.
The pa-per was warm from the brush of her fin-gers. I tucked the lion into the deep, satin-lined pocket of my fur coat, care-ful not to crush its in-tri-cate folds. I had the strange de-sire to take it out once I got back to my own room and pore over its ev-ery de-tail.
As we were cross-ing the quad, a tall, dark-skinned jour-nal-ist with white-gray stub-ble and a navy wool coat ap-proached me, Dic-ta-phone out-held.
“Ms. Pax-ton—”
“I have noth-ing to say about the deaths,” I said, star-ing at a fixed point just over his shoul-der. It wasn’t the first time I’d been ap-proached in the past week, and my pa-tience for it was wear-ing thin.
“That wasn’t what I was go-ing to ask you about.” His voice was a grav-elly tenor, the words rak-ing over peb-bled earth.
Spiked fear opened in-side me, like a hedge-hog un-rolling barb by barb. I couldn’t say for cer-tain what I was afraid of.
I stopped walk-ing abruptly. A few paces ahead, Catalina fol-lowed suit, frown-ing over her rounded shoul-der at me.
“Okay,” I said, frozen in place.
His heels twitched for-ward, ea-ger, and he pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up his broad nose. “Do you have any com-ment on the con-tents of your mother’s book?”
I felt a flicker of sur-prise, as though I’d pulled back the cor-ner of a du-vet ex-pect-ing to see a mon-ster be-neath the bed and found only a lumpy pil-low.
Of course. My mum’s book came out to-day.
“What? Oh.” Re-lief ebbed ten-ta-tively at my shores. “No. No com-ment.”
The jour-nal-ist quirked a brow, equal parts play-ful and pro-vok-ing. “Not even the new rev-e-la-tions about your fa-ther?”
An-other missed-step plum-met in my gut. I knew my mother’s pub-li-cist had been drum-ming up in-ter-est based on the prom-ise of new in-for-ma-tion, but I thought she’d just put a clever me-dia twist on stale old sto-ries. Had there ac-tu-ally been any-thing of sub-stance?
“What new rev-e-la-tions?” I asked qui-etly, like a child who’d been of-fered candy by a stranger’s hand and was afraid to trust it.
The jour-nal-ist wore the ex-pres-sion of a fish-er-man who’d landed the big-gest salmon in the river. “The three new facts re-vealed in the book: that they met at Do-rian, that he was an artist, and that he is no longer with us.”
All the air was sucked from my lungs.
Ter-ri-ble un-der-stand-ing struck me across the face, harsh and true.
The Masked Painter was my fa-ther.