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She wondered if that was true for Aiden Martlet as well. Had the killer known exactly where to find him?
“The spot where Aiden Martlet was killed is near here, right?” Paige said.
“Just a little farther along the boardwalk.”
The two of them headed along it, past a couple of artists’ studios where painters were out in the sunlight, producing pictures of the scenes in front of them. Paige saw one of them looking her way and found herself wondering if she would find herself included in one of those paintings.
“It should be somewhere along here,” Christopher said. He pointed to another alleyway.
Paige headed into it. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting there. If the most recent crime scene had been cleaned already, then it seemed obvious that one from days ago would also have been taken care of.
“Here, I think,” Christopher said, looking at his phone. He was obviously looking at the crime scene photographs the way Paige had been. For a moment or two, it was almost as if things were back to normal between them, just working on a case, the two of them fitting together perfectly as they investigated.
“Why this alley?” Paige wondered aloud.
“Maybe he’s just making his way along the alleys of the boardwalk.” Christopher sounded as if he didn’t feel that it was the most important question.
“There are alleys in between here and the one where Hope Jackson was killed.” To Paige, that couldn’t be the answer. No, there had to be another reason for it.
Paige found herself thinking about the spot on the boardwalk where Hope had sung. If the killer had found her in the spot where she did her work, was it possible that Aiden Martlet’s work also had something to do with where he’d been murdered?
Paige took out her phone, looking for the museum where Aiden Martlet worked. She found an address for it and then looked it up on a map, trying to plot a route from where she was currently standing to the museum.
It wasn’t difficult, because the museum was just a street away, close enough that it was almost shocking. The alley led pretty much directly to it. Paige found herself going to Aiden Martlet’s social media and quickly found several shots of him getting dinner or going for drinks at places out along the boardwalk.
“Aiden Martlet worked just over there,” Paige said. “Literally a street away. The address is in the police file, but they didn’t seem to make the connection.”
“You think this could have something to do with his work?” Christopher asked.
Paige wasn’t sure. “It’s possible. Certainly, there’s a chance that they followed him from his work to kill him. Maybe if we go there then we’ll be able to find something that will lead us to the killer.”
Christopher nodded, setting off down the alley.
Paige hoped that they would find answers at the museum. Maybe if they solved things here quickly, they would be able to get back to DC, talk things over and maybe find a way to keep working together.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He was working on a painting, pulling shapes and patterns out of the abstract colors he applied to his canvas, the image of a body before him in his mind’s eye. A body twisted into a perfect facsimile of a work of medieval art, the vibrancy and modernity of it perfect, inspirational.
He was certainly feeling inspired now. His hand flew over the canvas, the paintbrush flicking in marks that were almost impressionist in their speed. The image at the heart of them was closer to photo-realism, every detail of the woman hanging there captured as perfectly as the first moment he’d put his latest muse into that position.
A muse. Yes, a muse, that was what she’d been. A muse who had inspired him, helping to inspire great art even as her lack of talent had added so little to the world. At least this way she had been able to make a true artistic impression.
He’d needed her, so he’d taken her. He’d sworn to himself that Aiden Martlet would be the last one, theonlyone, but the wave of inspiration that had come in the wake of his death… no, he couldn’t keep himself from doing it again. He’d produced a work of such impact, such dark beauty that he’d barely been able to believe it. It was such a huge step away from his past, such a jump, such a new thing for him…
He wouldn’t do it again. He mustn’t. This would be the last one. The last painting.
He kept working on it, looking out over the ocean as he did it. The scene before him was beautiful, but beauty wasn’t enough. Beauty wasn’t something that could produce truly great art. The truest inspiration came from far darker things.
He watched a pair of people in suits walking down the boardwalk. He knew law enforcement when he saw them. His life before all of this had made that all too easy to spot. He saw a man and a woman there, his natural talent for observation showing the way they drifted towards one another and then pulled apart, as if afraid of getting too close to one another. He smiled to himself at the thought that, if they only walked over here, they would see everything that he had done.
Of course, in that case, he would simply say that he’d heard the story of what had happened the night before and felt inspired by it to try to pull some beauty out of the darkness.
There were parts of that which were even true. Hewasinspired by it. That inspiration made his hand practically fly, adding moments of action painting to the outer edges of the piece, fading from the realistic to something else, something more, something different.
His life had been so different to this for so long. Oh, he’d always dabbled in art, but his life had included so many other things, and his art had been anything but good. Then he’d found himself killing Aiden Martlet, and to his surprise, the inspiration had been so strong that it had been impossible to ignore.
He’d painted afterwards, and it had been better than anything else he’d ever produced. It had been close to a masterpiece.
