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Now it was all crammed into a single area in a haphazard manner. There wasn’t enough room to work. He wasn’t even sure which box contained his paints and brushes. There were at least a dozen prepped canvases in the room, but he suspected they were mixed in with completed paintings.
Painting would give him the answers he needed.
There was only one way to deal with it. Pressing his lips together in a hard, thin line, Marc jumped in. He quickly started sorting his finished paintings and those still waiting for his attention. He stacked other boxes filled with random supplies. Chunks of granite and softer marble he’d had shipped in from a quarry in Italy. He had boxes sealed with untouched clay.
In school, he’d never been able to settle on a single medium. They all called to him at one time or another. This need to create with his hands, to expunge the demons mocking him and clear his scattered thoughts came often.
But it all zeroed back to the blank canvas. Sometimes with paints. Sometimes with charcoal. It was always the place he started a piece before he moved on to other arts.
He didn’t know how much time passed before he finally had an easel set up with a blank white canvas staring back at him. Only when the brush was balanced between the fingers of his left hand did he feel like he could draw a breath. One color went on easily, quickly. Then another. Bold slash. And then another. He just kept painting while his mind turned over one idea after another regarding Royce’s problem.
Nothing worked.
All of it was too dangerous.
There had to be a better solution. He just wasn’t seeing it.
With a grunt, he set aside the piece he’d half created. Need a blank slate. Bigger. He had to think bigger.
Past the easel was the blank white wall. Better.
Refilling the paints on his palette, he snatched up a clean brush and marched over to the wall. The paint swirled on the wall, growing wider and wider in a circle. He let his subconscious take over the brush while his thoughts turned back to the problem.
Royce needed a painting. A painting worth up to 150 million dollars. But they couldn’t get it from a gallery. The security would be too tight. They’d need too many people to help. He wanted to limit the number of people who would be endangered by his plan.
Few private collectors kept such works in their own home. They stayed on loan to galleries, museums, and traveling shows so that the owners didn’t have to personally handle the exorbitant insurance fees. That became the job of the gallery or museum.
But there were exceptions. Those who didn’t want the world to know that they possessed these grand paintings. Not because they feared theft. But because they owned them illegally. Paintings that could never be resold through the regular channels but had to continue flowing along the current of the black market.
Marc had never dealt in art that didn’t have a clean provenance. That didn’t mean he didn’t know of owners of such art.
And there was one piece that had hung like a dark shadow over his soul because he knew where it resided, and he’d never done anything about it out of fear.
Getting the painting would be no easy task. They’d need help. But he could keep it to just one person…if he could even get ahold of him. And even then, if they were caught, they’d be killed. Not handed over to the cops. No trial. No jail. Dead.
He couldn’t risk Royce.
But he could go. Angelo would help…assuming he could get the notorious thief to answer the phone and take a break from his partying. He’d go in with Angelo, get the painting, and then Royce would be able to save his mother. He could do this for Royce.…
“This is beautiful.” Royce’s low, deep voice caused Marc to jerk away from the wall. He turned to find the bodyguard standing near the entrance, looking at a painting leaning against the far wall. It was an abstract he’d done a couple of years earlier. A grim kind of sunset laced heavily with reds and grays.
“It’s not. And you shouldn’t be in here,” Marc snapped, dragging his eyes away from Royce’s bare chest. He’d pulled on jeans before he’d come to look for his client but hadn’t paused long enough to button them or put on a shirt. But as Marc’s eyes fell back on the wall, he nearly groaned. The design he’d been painting clearly resembled the tattoo on Royce’s shoulder and bicep. He would never have thought he’d memorized it, but the intense detail was already evident. God, he prayed that Royce didn’t notice the resemblance. The poor guy had enough on his mind. He didn’t need to think his delusional client was also a stalker.
