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“We have to focus on the case, Paige. There’s a killer out there we need to catch. I want to keep looking into the possible gang aspects.”
Paige wanted to argue, wanted to say that they weren’t done talking about the state of their relationship as partners, as friends, as . . . whatever else they were. She knew that it wouldn’t do any good, though. She could see how set on it Christopher was. Besides, there was another aspect to it that Paige still didn’t agree with.
“You’re still set on this gang thing being the answer?” she asked.
“There’s still a chance that it’s all a display designed to intimidate people, that all three of the victims stumbled into something that got them killed. Maybe someone linked to Sebastian Dvornic, or maybe something to do with a project one of them was working on.”
That didn’t make any sense to Paige. “Three artists have been killed,” she insisted. “This has to be something to do with the art world. That’s where we need to focus our efforts.”
Christopher shook his head. “I don’t agree. We need to—”
Paige held up a hand to stop him. Right then, she couldn’t deal with him still trying to run the investigation when the two of them couldn’t even sort out the problems that were running between them.
“No, I’m not doing this,” Paige said. “The gang angle is a dead end. If you want to pursue it, then be my guest, but I’m going to look into the artistic angle.”
She walked off before Christopher could argue about it, putting distance between them along the boardwalk. It was still evening, with diners out in the restaurants and drinkers filling up the bars. Paige walked past a banjo player and a singer working their way through old time songs and wondered briefly why the local authoritiesstillhadn’t warned away singers and artists when there was obviously a killer out there targeting people like them.
Paige walked and found herself thinking about the Exsanguination Killer. Somehow, she kept being drawn back to the first serial killer who had touched her life, even while she knew that she should be focusing on another. She still had that need to find out who had killed her father running through her as the stress of the situation pressed in on her.
To quell it, she reminded herself that she had a case to focus on. She would track down Ann Dawson and end the Exsanguination Killer’s spree, but for now, she had to find the killer who was leaving his victims on the streets of Arnville.
It didn’t work completely, but it at least let her focus enough to try to do some work. She needed a quiet spot to go through the case files again on her phone, trying to find any way the fact that all three victims had been less than successful in their creative fields might link them.
Paige found, of all places, a late-night gallery that doubled as a bar, paintings adorning the walls while a long bar served coffee and wine. Paige stuck to the former, regardless of how much the way things were going with Christopher made her want to switch to something stronger.
“Ok, first question,” Paige told herself. “Howdid the killer know that all three victims were failing as artists?”
With Hope Jackson, that would be easy to find out. She performed publicly, so anyone passing by might be able to make a judgement about whether or not she had the talent to make it. With Allison Hartley, it would have been a little more difficult, but certainly doable. Paige had managed to find out that much about her after only a few minutes of research. Aiden Martlet would have been the most difficult. His sideline as an artist had been anything but obvious. Paige had needed to go looking for it specifically in order to find anything.
Maybe the killer had just picked him and the professor because they were both connected with art without being artists. Maybe that was enough for him, or at least enough to make him start researching them as potential victims.
Paige still wanted to look into who might have been in a position to know about all three of them. Perhaps an agent? No, that didn’t make a lot of sense. None of the three had been in a position where they would have had an agent, and while it was possible that all three had tried to attract one, wouldn’t a singer have gone to a very different agent than two painters?
As a connection, it simply didn’t work. So, what did? Briefly, Paige found herself wondering if Christopher’s pursuit of the gang angle might be justified after all, but she shook her head. She’d seen the paint marks for herself. They mostly seemed strange and abstract; the only way someone was seeing gang markings in all of it was if they were looking for it, willing it to be the case.
No, that wasn’t the answer. The only question was, what was? Paige couldn’t get into the head of this killer yet. He was killing failed artists, but did that mean that he thought of himself as a successful one or that he’d failed himself and hated anyone who reminded him of that failure?Washe an artist at all? Paige could imagine a scenario in which the killer turned out to be some kind of art critic who had decided to take his work to new and more brutal lengths. There was even a world in which this was about someone who felt they had lost their big chance lashing out at those they felt didn’t have the talent to take theirs.
Paige didn’t know, and not knowing was frustrating. She needed to be able to construct a psychological profile of this killer, but so far, she didn’t have anything to go on.
“Do you mind if I join you?” The man who asked was young, good looking, and judging by the way he was looking at Paige, obviously interested in her.
Paige flashed her badge. “I’m working. Please go away.”
That got him to back off. Paige watched him go.Becauseshe was watching him, she saw him walk past a painting that fixed her gaze to it more firmly than any man could. It was a Degas, or at least a copy of one, showing a ballet dancer in the middle of a performance. The skill involved in catching an impression of the movement and the moment was inspiring, but that wasn’t what kept Paige staring at it.
The pose was exactly the same as the one Hope Jackson had been found in.
Paige pulled up the crime scene photographs, wanting to be sure. She headed over to the painting, trying to compare the two. Now that she could look at them side by side, there was no doubt in her mind. This wasn’t a coincidence. Somehow, the killer had copied this painting.
Paige found herself thinking about the other two crime scenes. Aiden and Allison had been posed very differently. Aiden had been upside down with his arms out to the side. Allison had been on her back, her head thrown back, her arms hanging down almost as if . . .
Almost as if she was floating. A thread of memory pulled at Paige’s consciousness. It took her a few moments of searching to find an image of the painting she wanted online. It was by Millais, and of the Shakespearean character Ophelia in the moments before she drowned, floating on her back, her arms spread, her hair turned into a halo like a cloud by the water. Again, Paige compared it to the crime scene photographs and again, the resemblance was far too close to be a coincidence.
That left Aiden Martlet. Paige searched online again, and for the first couple of attempts she didn’t find anything. Then she hit on it. Caravaggio had painted the crucifixion of St Peter, who was crucified upside down. She had her third painting, and she knew what the killer was doing: he was copying masterworks of the past.
No, not copying. Adding to, recreating, and reinterpreting all at once. It explained the paint, the poses, and the way he hung his victims up like they were works of art. Paige knew now that they weren’t looking for a critic or someone who hated art; they were looking for someone who saw himself as an artist. Someone who thought of himself as belonging to the ranks of the greats. He would be targeting those he saw as lesser artists because he saw them as getting some small hint of recognition when he didn’t. Or perhaps with Aiden and Allison, he was targeting people he saw as impeding his progress.
Whatever the reason, Paige knew that she had to tell Christopher right away. She punched in his number on her phone, and he answered almost immediately. Paige didn’t even wait for him to speak. “Christopher, listen to me. It’s an artist, and I can prove it!”
