An unstretched canvas rests in her hands.
The sensation of a trapdoor opening in my stomach brings on a wave of nausea as my skin turns clammy.
“Levi, what is this?” Blake holds up the tube and gestures to the others inside the closet.
Oh shit.
CHAPTER 41
BLAKE
My thoughts go a million different directions as I stand there holding a painting—my painting.
I painted this piece about a year ago after a particularly terrifying encounter with a man named Anthony Cole. I’ll never forget him. He attended one of my showings and spent an uncomfortable amount of time asking me questions unrelated to my art. His southern accent sent chills up my spine. I couldn’t wait to get away from him. Then I thought I saw him following me home after the show.
The next day, I started this painting of a woman sitting in silence in the middle of a crowd.
“Levi?” I prompt him again.
He rushes forward, outstretching his hand for the canvas. “I can explain.”
I pull it out of his reach and take a step backward. “Please do, because I can’t make sense of it.”
Levi spears his fingers into his hair, pulling at the roots as he paces. He takes a steadying breath, but his hands still quiver.
“I tried finding you as soon as you left Evergreen Falls. I needed to know that you were okay. That’s all.”
Tipping my head forward a fraction, I raise my eyebrows as I point to the rest of the shipping tubes and other stretched canvases still in the closet. Morbid curiosity pushes to the front of my mind as I set the painting in my hands on his desk and reach for another in the closet.
“It took three years, but I finally found you. When I did, you were on your fourth showing.”
I flinch as if he slapped me across the face. “You—you were there?”
Levi does a quick swipe with both hands, slicing the space between us in a clear sign of denial. “No. I never flew out to New York. I purchased these online.”
Flipping the canvas in my hands, I show him the painting of a man on a horse in the middle of a field of wheat. “But this one was a commission.”
Levi takes an unsteady inhale. “Yes.”
“You’re my patron in the west?”
“What?”
“My agent had told me that there was an anonymous person out west who was buying up a lot of my work,” I explain, then wave a hand at all the art pieces. “I think she undersold how many you bought.”
Levi chews on the corner of his bottom lip. “Some of it was after the fact.” He points to the canvas in my hands. “I found out who originally bought that one. It was some guy on the Upper East Side, and I convinced him to sell it to me.”
A flutter rolls through my stomach.
“You bought all of these?” My gaze moves over the shipping tubes and canvases, trying to count them all.
He has so many of my paintings.
Like he was collecting them.
I don’t understand it.
Levi gives me a single nod.
