“Out on the street,” Martin answered. “Watching people.”
She grimaced as she pictured herself looming over pedestrians. She wassoending up on the neighborhood Facebook group.
“We’ll be there in ten.” Her chair scraped back. “Please don’t let anyone else see it. I’m begging you as a fellow human.”
“I’ll do my best.” This time there was definitely a chuckle in his voice.
The call ended.
Lillian was already reaching for her bag. “What’s the emergency?”
“A portrait of us is terrifying our neighbors.”
Claire shot to her feet. “Should we call Rafael?”
Bea shook her head. Rafael was in back-to-back investor meetings. This was manageable. It was art. Art was flat. How heavy could it be?
They were halfway to Bea’s building, power-walking, when Bea rounded a corner and ran straight into someone solid.
She bounced back. “Sorry.”
Laurent Duret steadied her. Cassian stood beside him, dark glasses spotless. Three days together at Westhelm and she hadn’t heard him laugh once. Anne Shirley would have labeled him ‘not a kindred spirit.’
Laurent’s gaze swept Bea’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Bea exhaled. “We have a situation involving life-sized iconography outside our apartment.”
“Oil?” he asked, putting one hand in his pocket.
“I don’t know.”
“Called Griffin?”
She shook her head. “He’s in meetings.”
Cassian turned. “Let’s go.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“We’re coming,” Laurent said, already moving.
Lillian seemed less than enthusiastic about this development.
“And here come the well-dressed cavalry,” Claire intoned, trotting along beside them. “I feel safer already.”
Laurent’s mouth twitched. “You narrate often?”
“Only when the plot thickens.”
They reached the end of the block together, and then Bea saw it. “Ohno.”
“Sweet mercy,” she heard Claire whisper.
Martin was on the sidewalk, arms spread wide in what could only be described as an act of faith. The portrait loomed behind him. Subtle it was not. Even at this distance, the scale felt nothing short of confrontational.
Someone across the street slowed and took a photo. Bea committed to ignorance.
Relief washed over Martin’s face when he spotted them. “You’re here.”
