Her face drains of color.
“You bite your lower lip when you’re concentrating. The inside corner.”
“You’re—”
“I know the exact sound you make when you’re trying not to cry.” Another step forward. Another step back. Her shoulders hit the wall. “I’ve heard it three times. Once after your mother called. Twice when you thought the fresco couldn’t be saved.”
She goes completely still.
The horror dawning in those green-gray eyes is exquisite. Like watching someone finally see a painting from the correct distance, where all the brushstrokes resolve into meaning.
“How long?” Her voice cracks. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Twenty-three days in Palermo. Six months before that, through other means. Longer, if I’m being honest.” I stop an arm’s length away. Close enough to catch her if she runs. Far enough to give her the illusion of space. “Your photograph on the grant application caught my interest. I’ve never beeninterestedbefore. Not like that. Not by a face on a page. I had to understand what made you different.”
“You’re fucking crazy.”
“I’m thorough.”
She backs toward the shelf she’s already emptied, hands flexing at her sides, that beautiful mind working even through the terror and rage. Every reaction teaches me something new about her.
“You’re out of books,” I observe.
“Fuck you.”
“Perhaps later. For now, I’d like to show you something.”
I turn my back to her, and walk out of the room leaving the door open behind me. She’ll follow. She’s got nothing else to do.
The hallway outside her room is seventeenth-century stone, original to the villa, the iron sconces restored rather than replaced. She doesn’t notice the architecture, her eyes are too busy looking for exits, measuring distances, noticing the guns of the two guards we pass.
Good. Keep looking. Learn the layout. It will make this easier.
I stop at a door halfway down the corridor. Push it open.
She freezes on the threshold.
The studio is small, intimate, with north-facing windows that cast perfect natural light across the wooden worktables. Her supplies are arranged precisely as she kept them in her apartment. The German graphite pencils ranked by hardness,the acid-free paper stacked by weight, the magnifying glasses, calipers, and fine brushes she uses for detail work. I’ve even left a Ming dynasty porcelain bowl filled with her blood oranges next to her worktable. A present from me to her.
“My—” Her voice catches. She steps inside despite herself, drawn to the familiar objects like a moth to flame. “You took mythings?—”
“I collected them. While you were resting.”
“While I wasunconsciousbecause youdruggedme?—”
“Yes.”
On the center table, laid out are three fragments of fifteenth-century plaster, each one carefully extracted from the damaged section of the cathedral’s east wall. Samples of the pigment. A cross-section of the original binding medium.
Her hands reach toward them before she catches herself.
“You went to the cathedral.”
“My people did. The restoration will continue without you, I’ve already arranged for a replacement specialist from Rome.”
She turns to face me. The rage is still there, but it’s colder now. More focused. “What?”
“Your apartment has been cleared. Your belongings are in storage, the personal effects, at least. The rest has been donated. Your landlord was grateful for the three months’ advance notice.”
