How many will it take for Officer Hawks to get the evidence he needs?
Cole says Hawks isn’t even following Shaw. He’s tailing us instead.
I’m dreading Shaw crashing my show. He wasn’t invited, but I’m sure he’d love to turn up to gloat in our faces again.
I hate him. I hate that he’s roaming around unchecked, more vicious and violent by the day.
I could have saved this girl. She was twenty-four, a year younger than me. A med student, apparently.
If I’d agreed with Cole right away then Shaw might already be dead. He never could have snatched her from whatever sidewalk or alleyway he found her.
My refusal of violence was a pillar in my own sense of self. The evidence that I was a good person.
Now I wonder if I’m just a coward.
The idea of facing Shaw, of taking real action against him, terrifies me. I never stopped having nightmares of the night he grabbed me. I’ve never felt more afraid than when his bull-like body hurtled toward me, too fast to run or even to scream before he hit me so hard it felt like my head exploded.
This time, Cole will be with me.
But even Cole isn’t looking forward to the battle with Shaw. He knows better than I the level of Shaw’s brutality and cunning. It won’t be easy to catch him off guard.
If I do nothing, as surely as the sun rises, I’ll see another article about a murdered girl.
“Cole,” I say, breaking the still silence.
Immediately he replies, “Yes?”
“We have to kill Shaw.”
He lets out a small breath of air that might be amusement.
“I know that. I’ve known it all along. You’re finally catching up.”
“Well, I’m here now. How do we do it?”
“You’re not ready yet.”
This is so infuriating that I roll over in a huff, leaning on my elbow, trying to make out his expression in the dark.
“What are you talking about?”
“If you’re agreeing that we need to do this, then you’re going to help me. We have the best chance of success working together. But you’re not ready.”
This is outrageous. I’ve finally agreed to do what he wants, and now he’s fucking with me.
“You think you’re going to train me? Like fucking Miyagi?”
“I’m going to prepare you.”
I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. And I’m not sure I want to find out.
“We don’t have time for that! Shaw’s going to kill another girl. Or me!” I say, hoping that will spur him along.
Cole lets out a sigh.
“You are thinking in normal-person terms. That is not how Shaw or I think. Our time horizon is infinite. Now that the element of surprise is gone, he doesn’t care if it takes a week, a month, or twenty years to destroy me. In fact, he would prefer to prolong it. He enjoys the game, that’s the entire point …”
It gives me a chill realizing that while Cole and I are coming to understand each other, it is still Shaw with whom he shares the most similarity of mind.
“I don’t want to watch the bodies stack up,” I tell Cole. “We have to do something.”
“We will,” Cole assures me. “Very soon.”
My show takes place two weeks before Christmas.
It’s the first time my art will be displayed all on its own, unable to hide amongst other paintings.
I feel the sickest sense of dread as Cole and I drive to the gallery in Laurel Heights, wondering what will happen if no one attends.
I once saw an author sitting alone at a table in Costco with a towering stack of books, and not a single person interested in having one signed. Her look of hopeful anticipation as I approached, followed by crushing disappointment as I walked past, is still one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.
I don’t want to be that author.
“Don’t worry,” Cole says, squeezing my thigh as he turns the wheel with his other hand. “These things are always packed. Especially when I hire even better caterers than Betsy, with enough champagne to drown a horse.”
“That actually comforts me,” I laugh. “If the paintings are shit, at least the food will be good.”
“I would never let you down with food,” Cole promises solemnly. “I know it’s your top priority.”
“I better quit making it my top priority. I think I’ve gained eight pounds since I moved into your house.”
“I like it,” Cole says. “It’s making your tits bigger.”
I slap his shoulder. “Shut the fuck up!”
Cole grabs a handful of the breast in question, sneaking his hand down the front of my top faster than I can smack him away.
“I’m gonna feed you so much fucking cheese,” he teases me.
I can’t stop laughing.
“Please, no. I’ll be four hundred pounds.”
“I want to drown in your breasts. What a way to die.”
We pull up to the curb, too soon for me to spend any more time worrying.
I’m relieved to see that the gallery is already packed with people, including Sonia manning the door in a gorgeous shimmering cocktail dress, and Frank and Heinrich lurking right behind her.
Heinrich pops out to pull me into an embrace. Frank does the same, after giving Cole a stare that is half admiration, half lingering nervousness.
“Thanks for coming!” I cry, hugging them both hard.
“Joss and Brinley are here, too,” Frank tells me.
I assume that means Joanna isn’t. I didn’t expect anything different, but it still stings.
The gallery throbs with the playlist I spent all week picking out.
Cole encouraged me to choose the music myself, even though I wasn’t sure anybody else would like it.
“Who gives a shit,” he says. “It’s what you were playing when you painted the pieces, so the songs will match the work. They already go together, whether you meant them to or not.”
He’s right.
Heart Shaped Box – Neovaii
Spotify → geni.us/no-devil-spotify
Apple Music → geni.us/no-devil-apple
As a cover of Heart-Shaped Box pours out of the speakers, the creepy music-box backing track perfectly suits my oversized painting of a charred teddy bear, glass eyes melted, fur still smoking in places.
I hadn’t realized ‘till this moment how the painting’s title echoes the lyrics of the song:
Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet
Cut myself on angel hair and baby’s breath
This one hurt me the most to paint. It’s just a fucking bear, but I was overwhelmed with guilt that something I had loved had met such a bitter end. I almost didn’t finish, putting the painting aside, then changing my mind, turning it around again, and setting it back on the easel. I tilted it, I Remember and I Don’t Forget.
This series includes eight paintings in all, each larger than the last. I want the viewer to feel dwarfed by the canvases, overwhelmed by them. Like they themselves have shrunk down to child-size.
I painted at a speed I never could have imagined when I had to squeeze in my art between endless work shifts, already exhausted by the time I lifted brush to canvas.