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No one’s paying attention to me, so I make a run for it.
40
MELODY
Idon’t know what I was expecting, but the small glass storefront of Wild Oak Art isn’t lining up with my imagination. I pay the cab driver and cross the sidewalk. There’s anopensign hanging on the door, so I just… go in.
There are a bunch of white walls with mounted artwork. When I don’t immediately see anyone, I head down one of the aisles slowly. I can’t stop staring at the art. Some are mixed media, some just one type of paint.
It’s… interesting.
Footsteps precede someone, and then a woman rounds the corner. “Sorry, I was in the back. Can I help—Melody?” She stops short and gapes. “What are you doing here?”
I shrug to hide my apprehension. “I came to visit.”
“You’re okay…?”
“Yeah.” Do I tell her I have no idea who she is? Fuck it. “Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Shelby Armstrong.”
Armstrong.
I automatically take a step back.
“We’ve only met once. Most of the correspondence for your art has been through our husbands. Mine is Henry’s brother, Frank.”
Frank Armstrong. Henry’s brother.
No wonder he sent me here.
I clear my throat. “Of course. It’s nice to see you again. I’m sorry I’m a bit hazy on the details, but I just wanted to get a handle on things while Henry’s away,” I lie. “Could you fill me in?”
“Of course.” She gestures for me to follow her to the back, behind a tall standing desk with a slim tablet beside a medium-sized monitor. She clicks on the tablet and brings up a few pieces of art.
Seven in total, in tiny thumbnail-sized images.
“These were the pieces Henry had given us to sell,” she explains. “You can click on each one and it’ll give you the details. Where or to whom it was sold, how much it sold for, when we paid, and the commission details.”
“You get a commission off of… my price?”
“Yes, of course. We’re doing the leg work of marketing your art.”
My art.
I squint at the tablet screen. “May I?”
She hands it over.
I wander away from her and click on the first one. It was sold a year and a half ago. It’s a side portrait of a young girl and labeled as mixed media. What that might be, I have no idea. Perhaps the sellers got more information. It sold for over a thousand dollars to someone in Florida.
I swipe to the next, and it says,Sold in a groupunder it. No more details. So I keep going, counting five total.
Then the name beneath it:Jacob Rhodes. His Denver, Colorado address.
My throat closes.
I swipe again, and I might actually pass out.
