“Okay,” he drawled. “What happened? Brian break up with you?” He could only hope.
Wiping her face quickly, Grace turned. “Brian and I are friends. That’s all.” Her eyes were red and puffy.
“You were hoping for more.”
“I always hope for too much,” she muttered and looked back at her desk. “No messages this morning. A few e-mails you might want to read.”
Roman didn’t move. “What are you hoping for?”
She looked at him, sorrow seeping into her eyes. “Wisdom. Sometimes you have to end a friendship so you can move on.”
Had Shanice come clean about her attraction to Brian? “Your best friend?”
“One of my best. I trusted her.” She shrugged. “Sometimes people aren’t who you think they are.” She gave him a beseeching look. “But I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Well, if you change your mind, I’m here.” He’d never made such an offer before and realized he sounded like Jasper. He winced inwardly, knowing he was ill-equipped to ask the right questions and give sage advice. Especially to a woman.
“Thanks, Roman.” She smiled, her eyes moistening. “God is going to have to work this out.”
Grace stopped by the studio an hour later to bring him a sandwich. When she approached the easel, he shook his head. “No peeking until it’s finished.”
“Am I going to like it?”
“Depends on whether you see what’s in it.”
“You’re being very mysterious.” She thought for a moment. “Ah. Hidden pictures.”
“Actually—” he wiped his hands on a stained towel—“it’s my first landscape.”
She chuckled. “I’ll believe that when I see it!”
That evening, Grace spooned chicken salad onto a plate, made herself a cup of tea, and checked Facebook on her phone. There was a trending article about the graffiti in a pedestrian tunnel in LA. The writer didn’t want the graffiti covered. Though it lacked the distinctive signature of the Bird, it might have been done by the longtime infamous and unidentified West Coast graffiti artist.
Something clicked inside Grace. There was a link to a related article, this one including a picture of a demon’s face. Several citizens had been interviewed, all saying they didn’t like walking through that tunnel with grotesque faces and flames at the end. “It feels like you’re walking into hell.”
Again, that click.
Opening her laptop, Grace did a search on the Bird. Numerous hits came up, including speculation about work in Europe. People had been trying to figure out the Bird’s identity for more than a decade. One article reported that his signature, BRD in black letters made to look like a blackbird in flight, always appeared in the lower left corner of his pieces. Grace’s heart began to pound. She remembered the living room wall at the Mastersons’。
Grace pulled up images of the Bird’s work. A man mooning a surveillance camera. Petroglyphs of women in high-heeled, red-soled shoes carrying shopping bags and strutting along the walls of a subway tunnel. A pregnant girl wearing a Save the Whales T-shirt as she opened the front door of a Planned Parenthood clinic. Two peace protesters in a street brawl. A priest with his foot planted on a treasure chest. She scrolled down to the demon faces in the pedestrian tunnel.
Clicking on one photo, she sent it to Roman’s office e-mail address, intending to print it out in the morning.
Lord, I know it’s Roman. What do I do with this information?
Grace barely slept. When she entered the main house the next morning, heavy metal music blasted from the bedroom housing Roman’s exercise equipment. Curious, she went down on her knees and pulled the black sketchbook out from under the couch. Flipping through the pages quickly, she found the last pages covered with demon faces. She shuddered as she put the sketchbook back.
She went to the office, where she did another computer search, printing out articles on the Bird and pictures of his work. Putting all the papers into a file folder, she headed down the hall to talk to Roman.
She froze in the doorway, seeing Roman straddling the weight bench, his biceps and back muscles bulging, his skin glistening. She took a slow breath and tapped on the door. He didn’t hear her over the rock music as he continued repetitions with the metal cable pulley system. He might be the one sweating, but she was beginning to feel the heat. She walked over and shut off his music.
“Hey! You’re early.”
“I’m on time.”