Retribution (36 page)

She turned and put a hand back, catching the rolling table the artist had his supplies stowed in and on, her fingers moving through the items, her attention still fixed on the blank wall. She sorted by touch, found what she wanted, a handful of marking pens, grasped them, and approached the wall. She put her left hand in front of her as though she could not quite see the wall, but must find it by touch. Once the palm of her hand rested on it solidly, she popped the lid from the marker. It bounced carelessly on the floor and rolled away without a single reaction from her.

Charlie took a deep breath and began to sketch. The marking pen ink flowed as she drew without hesitation, and John watched, having seen nothing like it before, though he was reminded of the single black ink drawings of Japanese brush paintings. She started high, arms above her head, and sketched downward till she was kneeling on the floor, finished, moved a panel over and began the process again. How she knew, without seeing, when the marker gave out on her, John could not have guessed, but she did, and popped another lid off, discarding the used marker without a look back.

Once or twice she paused, and put the side of her face to the wallboard, as if she could hear the surface tell her what it wished placed upon it. Out of the flowing lines, one of the panels she filled with a sketch of him, bare-waisted, blue-jeaned, shoeless, running with Jagger. Though she sketched impressionistically, with as little absolute detail as possible, there was no doubt in his mind it was him, and it made him flush a little to see it.

Clarkson looked at him briefly, then turned away, to watch Charlie, for she had literally painted herself into a corner. Faint rivulets of sweat ran down the front her shirt, and she was breathing hard, and John looked at his watch, realizing he had been almost in as much of a trance watching her… and nearly two hours had stolen by.

Clarkson said, "That's enough, Charlie, don't you think? You're done now."

She gave no sign of hearing, running her hands to the corner and across the adjoining wall which had already been hung with artwork… masks and collages, among other things, the objects d'art rattling under her touch.

She withdrew, then paced to the easel where a landscape-sized canvas sat. She reached into the drawer and began to fetch out tubes of acrylics, setting out primary colors and mixing others. With the same quickness she'd used on the wallboard, she began to sketch on the canvas, blocking out the basic picture she prepared to paint. She picked up an aluminum rod, set it diagonally across the canvas and rested her wrist on it as she drew out the detail.

The phone rang. It startled John. He looked at it and saw the second line button blinking. Whoever called knew the main line was going to the mailbox, and also knew the second number.

He bent over the desk and picked it up.

Quentin said tersely, "They've found Valdor's rental car less than a block from the gallery. Get out, and get out now."

John dropped the phone. "We have to go." He reached for Charlie. "Dr. Clarkson, somebody potentially very dangerous to Charlie is in the area."

He touched her and something shocked him, like a jolt of static electricity, but sharper, and he let out a short cry at the same time as she did. For a moment, her eyes blinked, and he knew she saw him. He stopped dead when he saw the canvas sketching….

The lights went out. Jagger yelped. John realized that Valdor was not only close, he was there. He heard the swoosh and had a forearm half up to protect himself when something cold and hard struck him hard enough to drop him to his knees.

Panting, he dragged himself to one side, and the second blow grazed him. Sharp pain sent him down face first, dazed but not out. In the moment or two it took him to get his senses back, everything had become silent.

* * *

The lights came flooding on. Janie stood in the doorway, her light, frizzy red hair drifting like a cloud about her startled face. "Oh, my God," she said in horror.

Federico Valdor lay spread-eagled on the floor, a box cutter buried in his throat, a pool of crimson gushing to frame his head and shoulders.

Of the good doctor and Charlie, there was no sign at all.

John held the bottle of refrigerator-cooled water to his head, wincing at its unyielding hardness but thankful for its chill, his other ear cradled to the phone.

"What do you mean… the doctor has her?"

"Quentin, Clarkson has her. I don't have time to explain now. If he stays in the area, where might he take her?"

"Why would he take her anywhere?"

"I don't know. But I do know Valdor was here… and he's dead. There was no way I could stop the massive blood loss. The doctor is gone, and so is Charlie. It could be self-defense or…" Ruby paused. The nagging image of that canvas stayed with him. The painting she had been about to do. That was missing also, as was Jagger.

Janie stood by the desk, dancing lightly, singing a nearly inaudible song to herself. She bent over to pick up the aluminum bar and held it lightly, looking at the flecks of blood and hair on it. "The mahl bar is ruined," she said absently.

Ruby looked at it. The contact with his head had been enough to bend it slightly.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Quentin told him. "There's only one place I can think of he might go."

"And pray to God you're right."

* * *

Midnight left, as it always did, Charlie a remnant left behind, disoriented, stale, helpless. Jagger had his head on her knee, and raised it, nudging at her. She blinked, and pulled his warmth close to her. Her throat hurt, and as she took a deep breath, she realized she sat in the rear seat of a car.

She looked at the back of her physician's head. "Dr. Clarkson?"

He turned briefly. "Charlie, how are you?"

"I am…" she took a deep breath. "I am alone." She sat up, more alert. "Where's John?"

"There was some trouble at the gallery. He suggested I take you away for a bit while he settled it." Wade skillfully maneuvered the big car up the winding Laguna Road.

"Where?"

"The Lavermans. I'm sure you've been up here before."

"Once or twice." She felt uneasy. She looked at her hands. Small dots and lines decorated them. She examined them. They looked as though she had been using marking pens… quickly, without heed to being meticulous. She smelled her fingers, and the smell was unmistakable. What had she done?

They reached the crest of the hill. Wade pulled into a drive and got out. He opened the back door and urged both of them out. As she started to the front door, her hand on Jagger's harness, she saw the doctor lean back into the car and pull a canvas out.

She halted at the entryway to the house, the elaborate Chinese red carved door, for luck, Louise Laverman had always said. Wade carried the canvas so she could not see the face of it. "What is going on?"

"You were having a seizure. John got word that Valdor was in the neighborhood. He suggested I pack you out as soon as possible. Apparently Valdor's been stalking you." Wade got out a set of keys, hefted them, picked out a key, and opened up the Lavermans' front door. "George is in no shape to be hospitable this evening, nor is Louise, I'm afraid, but we can wait here until things shape up."

She followed him in. "What's wrong with George?"

"He died this afternoon. Keeled over on the seventh hole, I'm told. Louise is in the bedroom. I have her sedated. She took it very hard."

Charlie stumbled. Jagger groaned as she bumped him, forcing him to misstep on his sore pads. "He's dead?"

"Yes."

"I knew he'd been ill, but he still seemed so vigorous—" Charlie paused, the shock taking words away from her.

Wade Clarkson, however, did not seem to be concerned. He crossed the vast house until he reached the formal sitting room. Charlie trailed after him. The only two paintings of the trilogy Retribution sat on exhibition easels. She paused, looking at them.

Louise had brought them down for a showing at their anniversary dinner… a dinner which would now never take place because George had died.

The doctor began dragging the easels apart, setting one on either side of a Chippendale antique chair. He had the unframed canvas in his hand and set it on the seat of the chair, still turned about.

"What are you doing?"

He looked at her, and smiled.

"You did more than tell me about Midnight, you showed it to me yourself. I feel honored, Charlie, to have seen you at work."

A wrongness prickled at her, turning her cold. She gripped Jagger's harness. "Does John know where I am?"

"We really didn't have time to discuss that. He wanted me to bring you somewhere safe." Wade perched on the edge of another chair. "Do you realize what an extraordinary individual you are, Charlie?"

She listened, almost afraid to breathe.

"I knew it when I saw your paintings, of course, but I had no real idea of the breadth of your scope till you began painting again."

She decided she did not want to take credit for her art. "It's not me, you know it's not. It's that… thing… growing inside me."

Clarkson continued to smile, the professional, clinical smile that did not reach his deep blue eyes. "You have no growth, Charlie. The second reading came back clear, with the determination that the first reading had been a False Positive."

"A what? What are you talking about?"

"A False Positive is when an MRI gives an erroneous reading for a lesion or cancer growth. Our imaging equipment at the clinic is a little more powerful. It showed you as clear."

"I don't understand."

"You are not afflicted. You don't need my skills as a surgeon. But you need me, Charlie, and I need you. Look."

And he turned about the unfinished painting, set up between the two paintings of Retribution.

Staggered, Charlie backed into the wall, dropping Jagger's harness.

His artistic eye could not be faulted. If ever she had painted the third painting of the trilogy, this would have been it.

A rising angel, from ashes, its wings outflung… those wings suggested in the paintings to either side of it, their feathered tips….

There was more, of course. Hands being washed in what looked like blood from a bleeding heart.

And still more.

Clarkson stood. "You understand me, my skill, my work, better than anyone I have ever met except perhaps for Abby."

His words drew her shocked stare from the sketched out painting and she knew she looked into the eyes of a murderer. She recoiled and felt herself moving out onto the patio. He stood between her and the front door, blocking her, trapping her.

"What do you want from me?"

"What anyone wants from an artist. I want your vision, Charlie. I want that singular, gifted view you have of the world." Clarkson raised a hand. "I have been out there alone… for a long time now. I did not think I would ever find anyone who understood, until I saw your paintings." He brushed his hand over his dark hair, and his blue eyes looked at her with an expression of infinite gentleness. "Show me what you see. Paint for me. Find that divine spark and let me see it. Guide me."

She backed up another step. Jagger's low thundering growl began to rise slowly in his throat. "You kill people."

"I am a physician. I hold life in my hands every day. And there are times when you have to say to yourself, 'Should this life continue? To what lengths should it suffer and strive? Is it worthy of another's life so that it can go on?' And it begs judgment of me… anoints me so that I can save others… sometimes I have to take that sacrifice." He made a motion of washing his hands, a ritual ablution, as though cleansing and rinsing them through water, ending with his hands in front of him, elbows bent, fingers upward. "Those who died, deserved to. And they died so others could live. My hands…" He lifted them, observing them. "Blessed with the warmth of their sacrifice."

Charlie shuddered. She could see the crimson running down, like water, flowing over his hands and dripping to the patio. She felt her throat tighten. Jagger whined sharply.

He smiled at her. "It is a burden few could share. But you can look into a soul and tell me, be my beacon, show me who needs to die so that others may live."

She stepped back abruptly. Midnight pressed close to her; she could feel its suffocating presence, but it was not one voice. It was a multitude, crying to her, begging her.

She understood at last what had afflicted her life. A haunting… come to her… an appeal for truth, for help beyond the ordinary borders of mortal life.

"I paint," she said shakily, "to give the murdered a voice. I see… so that they can speak." She reached down and with two quick jerks, ripped open the velcro straps on Jagger's harness, freeing him, pointed at Clarkson, and ordered, "Take him down!"

Jagger leaped, his body a golden flash. Wade moved aside, his hand sweeping down in a clubbing motion, brutal, unafraid. He struck. Jagger yelped and fell heavily to the patio, moved once, and lay still.

Charlie stood alone. He watched her carefully without seeming to note that she waited for him to make his next move.

"It would have been nice," he said, "to have shared the rest of the journey with you."

She knew then he was going to kill her as well.

Charlie looked at Jagger, who lay on the deck motionless, his tail flat and his eyes unmoving. Her throat tightened. She thought she saw his ribs lift slightly with a breath. Charlie closed her eyes. She dare not think the dog could save her now.

She gathered her strength to do whatever she had to do. A breeze came up the cliff, smelling of the ocean. It chilled her but she was already too cold to shiver. She took another swaying step.