Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“I’m going to do my best to make sure your Luna has a safe place to grow up,” I vowed.
“I believe you.” Rose stepped away. “And tell Zoey that I’m back and want to be involved when the time comes. I can work with the academics to ensure we have adequate medical care in all our bases.”
She walked toward the hallway, and I was left alone listening to the hum of conversation around me.
“He would have liked this. Alvis always loved a party,” someone was saying.
I let the conversation flow around me, but I didn’t hear anything interesting. I found myself wandering toward the back of the apartment. I’d been in Alvis’s studio the night of his murder, but I’d only done a cursory search. I slipped inside, feeling like an intruder.
His private studio was bigger than any room in this place, with the exception of his great room. There was a magical window that no one had shut down. In the next few days I was sure one of the witches would come through and snuff out the magics, or perhaps they would simply repurpose the space. For now it felt like a peek into the male’s soul. Soft light infused the room like some spell had managed to capture the perfect morning illumination. Out the window I could see a pastoral scene that gave me the impression of a warm spring day, and for some reason it felt like another time. Perhaps the 1800s. This might be a memory from an old lover’s mind, something that connected them and made him feel like a piece of her was still here with him.
I was getting thoughtful in my old age, or maybe it was pregnancy, but I felt for Alvis as I stood there in his studio. I hoped that there was some heavenly plane where souls were reunited. The idea of eternal peace didn’t make sense to me, but if it did to Alvis and his Marie, then I wished it for them.
There were no notebooks or journals here. Only paints and brushes and canvases. He had one on an easel, the painting half covered with a cloth. A familiar darkness peeked out from beneath, the cloth slung in a haphazard fashion, which was odd to me. Everything else in the room was perfect, as though Alvis was almost pathologically neat. But the canvas cloth was only halfway on.
I pushed the cloth aside, and I was right about the familiarity. The whole canvas was dark as night, painted with the same almost glowing-from-the-inside paint Relda had been using. He’d used the dark paint as the background and had started working in stars at the top of the canvas.
“I don’t like that one.”
I turned, surprised someone could sneak up on me, but then Luna was pretty small.
And sometimes small creatures knew big things.
“What don’t you like about it, sweetie?”
She had a banana in her hand and cocked her head slightly. “It hums most of the time. Sometimes I think it screams so loud I can hear it in my mama’s clinic.”
Oh, I was interested in that bit of information. I didn’t question what she was saying, didn’t shove it to the side or write it off as childish imagination. Nope. Luna was a werecreature—a bat. I wouldn’t question her ears any more than a wolf’s nose. “Is it humming right now?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s like someone turned it off.” She walked further in the room and stared at it for a moment. “But sometimes when I walk by, I can hear it humming.”
“And sometimes it screams?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Do you remember the last time you heard it scream?”
Another nod.
“Was it the day Alvis died?”
One more nod.
I gently placed the cloth back on the canvas, making sure it was completely covered this time.
I had one more piece of the puzzle, and I knew who I needed to talk to next.
Chapter Fourteen
“What is it supposed to mean? The painting screams?” Fenrir hurried to keep up with me. He still had a sandwich in his hand. When I’d explained I was going to speak with Relda again, Fen had given me a nod like he would happily see me later.
“It means Luna hears something the rest of us can’t.” Evan had not been as easily left behind. She’d immediately stood and said good-bye to her friends. Including Fen, who had looked longingly at the buffet and finally begrudgingly grabbed some sandwiches as he hustled to follow Evan.
“She can hear the painting?” Trent hadn’t wanted to leave either, but both wolves seemed to understand when it was time to follow the women in their lives. He’d stuffed a couple of shrimp down his throat as we’d walked out. “I can’t hear anything. I’ve got excellent hearing. How about you, Fen?”
“I don’t hear anything at all. Not that I would say sounds particularly like a painting,” Fen managed around a mouthful of tea sandwich. They were tiny, so Fen had eaten a lot of them. “But I wouldn’t know what a painting sounds like. I skipped art class. Have we considered that Luna is like what? Four?”