Page 149 of Ruthless Sin
I look at his face.
He waits.
I nod. I step into the hallway.
He walks half a pace ahead of me. Not leading. Not hurrying. The half-pace of a man who has learned where the edges are.
Through the central guest wing. Past Sofia’s door, closed. Past the corner that turns toward his side of the house.
I haven’t been down his hallway since the morning I walked out of his bedroom in his shirt.
His bedroom door is open.
It’s been open the whole time I haven’t been here.
We go through it.
His bed is made. The lamp on the desk is on. The drawer of the nightstand is closed. I don’t look at the drawer. I won’t.
He keeps walking.
To the far wall of his bedroom.
There’s a door on the far wall I haven’t noticed.
The door is painted the same color as the wall. The wood is the wood of the wall. The handle is plain brass, set flush. You wouldn’t see it unless you were looking.
I’ve been in this bedroom many nights and I’ve never seen this door.
He puts his hand on the handle.
He looks at me.
His eyes hold mine and he waits.
I nod.
He opens it.
The room inside is small.
Smaller than my bedroom. The size of a closet that was given a window. The window is high on the far wall, north-facing. The light through it is the late afternoon light I haven’t seen in this part of the house. The rest of his suite faces east.
Canvases stacked against the long wall. Faces against the wood. I count them without meaning to. Eleven canvases.
Brushes in jars on a small wooden table. The water has gone the wrong color. The brushes haven’t been washed in a long time.
Tubes of paint in a wooden box. The caps are dusty. The tubes crinkled. The paint inside has gone hard.
The smell is linseed oil and turpentine and the dust of a sealed room that just got opened.
An easel in the center.
One canvas on the easel.
The canvas faces the wall.
The back of the canvas has a strip of masking tape across the upper edge. His hand on the tape.
