I’m realising my goddaughter is a smart cookie. She’s cleared up so no one could stumble across her plans.
“No,” Elijah says, rubbing his forehead.
“Where’s her artwork? She was going to show it to me. We just never got time.”
Elijah freezes.
I incline my head.
“Where’s her artwork, Eli?”
He turns on his heel, and I follow behind him. He leads me upstairs, pausing outside a door with a security keypad.
A lot of security for a storeroom.
He turns to me and opens and closes his mouth.
“Pen, look. What I said earlier?—”
I hold up a hand. “Let’s just concentrate on finding Lottie. She’s all that matters right now.”
Without another word, he enters a code and pushes the door open.
It’s the smell that hits me first. Oil paint and turps.
Canvases line two walls. Not just a single canvas but hundreds.
“Holy shit,” I say, moving further into the room. “Are these all Lottie’s?”
I turn to face Elijah, who’s stood awkwardly in the doorway.
“No,” he says, running a hand through his hair, his eyes not quite meeting mine. “Most of them are mine.”
If he came over and shoved me, I could not be more surprised.
“Yours? I…”
I turn around and move towards the wall. There must be hundreds of paintings stacked up. Not just doodles but amazing paintings.
I spin to face him. “But—I.”
“Remember that little paint-by-numbers set you bought me?”
My jaw drops.
“These are a little more than paint-by-numbers, Eli,” I say, turning back to the paintings lining the walls.
These are good, I mean really good. Elijah is an artist and a talented one. Somehow, I’m less surprised than I should be.
He chuckles. “Just a little.”
“Well, don’t think you’re getting away with this,” I say to him. “I need to know more, but now we need to concentrate on finding Lottie.”
“Her paintings are over here,” he says, moving towards the corner where there’s a separate setup. “She prefers watercolours.”
I stare at the artwork. Lottie, like her dad, clearly has a talent for art. No wonder she went to art school over the summer. This needs to be nurtured. I think back to the stick painting of Lottie’s I still have on my refrigerator.
“She’s good,” I say.
