“I’ve got her. Gave her an earful, and she calmed down. Not sure she’ll stay put, though.” He’d only talked her into staying until it was safe to get to Portland, not all week.
“Distract her with something. Make her help you with a project.”
“Distract her with a project?”
“Works every time,” Jack said.
“I’ll do my best. You—” He hated that he was about to ask this, but he had to know. “You swear to me you didn’t arrange this? Because you did tell them all you were going to make them face their—”
“I would not involve Christopher or any other child in this game.”
“If it’s not this, what are you going to do to Lucy?”
Jack’s answer was as infuriating as Hugo expected. “Nothing too sinister.”
“If you hurt her—”
“What? You’ll punch me in the nose? Call me out for a duel?”
“Keep your hair on,” Hugo said. “I’m only saying she’s a little fragile right now.”
“You like this girl, don’t you?” Jack sounded annoyingly pleased with himself, as if he’d masterminded the whole thing. “You have my approval.”
“I didn’t ask for your approval.”
“You have it anyway.”
Hugo ignored that. “You should know, I told her about Autumn. Had to. She was distraught, Jack.”
“It’s all right. She needed to know.” Jack was quiet a moment. Then, “Son, try to get her to stay another day at least, please. There’s someone coming tomorrow I want her to meet.”
“Who?”
“That is for me to know and for Lucy to find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Lucy came out of the bathroom, Hugo had disappeared. “Hugo?”
“Come hither!” he called back from the end of a short hallway.
Confused but intrigued, she followed his voice. “Come hither? Who says, ‘Come hither’？” she replied.
“I do. Are you coming hither yet?”
She reached a half-open door to what should have been a bedroom, but when she pushed it open, she found herself in Hugo’s studio.
“Fine, I’m hith—Wow,” was about all she could say. Lucy stood in the doorway, staring before stepping carefully inside. It felt like that moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy went from black-and-white Kansas to Technicolor Oz. Every single wall was covered, floor to ceiling, with paintings. The drop cloths covering the floor were stained every color of the rainbow. The few tables in the room were piled high with paints, brushes, water jars, and magic potions, for all she could tell. One ancient metal bookcase held what looked like a hundred well-worn sketchbooks. Even those were covered in paint.
Lucy had to ask, “Do you just stand in the middle of the room and throw paint over things when you get bored?”
“Yes.” Hugo was kneeling on the floor by a stack of canvases.
“Is this all Clock Island stuff?”
“More or less. Besides what’s gone to charities, I’ve kept every sketch, every photo, every cover painting, every single bloody note that Jack ever gave me about the paintings.” He pulled a yellow Post-it off the back of one canvas and showed it to her.
Lucy took it and read it aloud. “Spooky Ooooooooh not spooky AHH!” it read. “That’s not helpful.”
“Tell me about it.”
She handed the note back to Hugo, though she sort of wanted to keep it as a souvenir.
“Everything’s here or in storage in Portland,” Hugo continued. “Let’s just say Jack’s publisher impressed upon me years ago the historical and literary importance of…all this.” He waved his hand around.
“You just have them here all stacked against the wall? Not in plastic? Or locked vaults?”
“Only blankets,” he said, “and a very good dehumidifier.” Hugo tossed a few of the blankets off the painting stacks. “Oh, tea and biscuits over there. Help yourself.”
Lucy went to the one table that wasn’t covered in paint. “Biscuits? These look like cookies.”
“I’m going to teach you to speak proper English,” he said. “Cookies are biscuits. Biscuits are scones, but we eat them with clotted cream and jam, not gravy. Gravy is for meat, not biscuits.”
“That I can get behind.” Lucy picked up the mug. It was warm in her cold hands. She carried it around the room, feeling as if she were at the world’s smallest, strangest art gallery.
“I also have cheesecake, which in England we call…cheesecake.”
“You bake?”
“Never. Stole it all from Jack’s kitchen.” He picked up his own mug off the floor and stood up. “I’m the world’s worst houseguest. Hair dryer work?”
“All dry.” She playfully flipped her hair. “Thank you for lending me your, um, paintings’ hair dryer?”
“You can repay me by helping me here.” He gestured at the stacks of canvases leaning against the wall and piled on a cart. “Long story short, my ex-girlfriend works at a gallery, and she wants some Clock Island covers. Help me pick. I need five.”
“You want me to help you pick out paintings for an exhibit?”
“Nobody likes the ones I like, so I need a neutral opinion.”
Flattered, Lucy set her mug down and walked over to Hugo. “I don’t know how neutral I can be because I love all your work equally.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll send her this one.”
He held up a painting for the cover for A Dark Night on Clock Island.
“Not that one.” She waved her hand at the black-and-white painting. “Too dark.”
Hugo laughed and stepped back. “See what you can do then.”
Lucy knelt on the drop cloth. Luckily the paint was long dry. Slowly she flipped through the paintings, every one of them a book, every one of them a memory.
The Pirates of Mars Versus Clock Island
Goblin Night on Clock Island
Skulls & Skullduggery
The Clockwork Raven
The Keeper of Clock Island
She loved them all, and every kid who loved Clock Island would be thrilled to see the covers like these—painted on large canvases so you could see all the little details.
“Can I ask a personal question?” Lucy said while flipping through another stack of paintings.
“You can ask. No promise I’ll answer.”
“Is this ex-girlfriend who works at the gallery the original owner of the hiking boots you gave me?”
“Piper,” he said. “Here she is.”
He plucked a small portrait off the wall—a painting of a beautiful black-haired woman. She looked like a silver screen siren, like Elizabeth Taylor. Lucy wished she hadn’t asked. She felt like a plain Jane in comparison.
“Two men on an island,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I know about the death of a daughter. I guess she was the wife you lost? If she’s someone else’s wife, she must have gotten married.”
Hugo hung the small canvas back on the wall. “I wanted her to be my wife. Back then. She works at one of my favorite galleries in New York. That’s where we met. When I moved here to keep an eye on Jack, she came with me.” He paused. “I don’t think either of us realized how long it would take for Jack to come out of his depression. And island life isn’t for everyone. She managed six whole months out here before she couldn’t stomach it anymore. Hated being so isolated. Between her and Jack, I had to pick Jack.” He took the painting off the wall again and put it on a floor stack, as if he were done with looking at it every day. “She’s now happily married to a veterinary surgeon and has a gorgeous little girl. And I am very happy for her.”