Clutching his leash, she slipped into the gallery, too.
For a moment, she paused.
Don’t go in alone! What’s the matter with you?
Technically, she wasn’t alone; she was with Wolf. And it was broad daylight. Besides, this was Niles’s gallery and she’d been here dozens if not hundreds of times.
“Niles! Your door is open,” she called.
There was no answer. Wolf stood in the middle of the floor as if he was confused. Then he leaped forward and around one of the display walls, moving toward the back.
And Danni followed.
* * *
Quinn rode with Larue, who’d already been on his way to get him when he called.
Backup teams were behind them, and the closest car in the vicinity of the house had already been sent to secure the Tremé neighborhood house where Mason Bradley lived.
Quinn felt like a fool. The first place to search for someone connected to the painting, someone other than Hattie, should have been the gallery. Of course, that would’ve meant taking a careful look at Niles Villiers, but Danni had known Niles a long time; she’d done shows at his gallery.
And it wasn’t Niles Villiers’s DNA they’d found on the knife.
It had been Mason Bradley’s.
Mason Bradley—an artist known for his exceptional work restoring the art of others!
The presence of his DNA in the system—because of a DUI several years before—was fortuitous, to say the least. Mason must’ve forgotten about that little transgression....
As they drove, Quinn took out his phone and tried Danni’s cell again. She didn’t answer but Billie did.
“Danni is still out, Quinn. And she left her phone behind.”
“Where the hell did she go?” Quinn muttered.
“Since Wolf’s gone, too, I’m assuming that she’s got him out for a walk—just like I told you ten minutes ago when you left.”
He quickly explained to Billie what he’d learned and then said, “She doesn’t know, Billie. She doesn’t know about Mason Bradley or what forensics have shown.”
“She can handle it, Quinn. I’ll have her call you. Or I’ll ask her to stay here and wait for you—or...I could just tell her. Whatever you want.”
“Just tell her. She’d be furious if you knew something and didn’t spit it out. We’re not going to play guessing games. But...don’t let her run down to see Niles, okay? Ask her to stay in the house.”
“It’s bad news about Mason, but she can handle it,” Billie repeated.
“Danni’s going to be fine,” Larue told him, making a sharp turn.
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry, though. She considered the guy a friend.”
Larue pulled his unmarked car up to the curb, jumping out, armed and ready. Quinn was on the sidewalk just as fast. There was already a patrol car there, and an officer hurried to tell Larue that he had a man around back.
As the backup cars jerked to a halt on the sidewalk, street and lawn, Larue shouted orders for them to take their positions, two teams on either side of the house, backup for the rear door. Larue walked to the front door, banging on it, and shouted, “Bradley! Mason Bradley, this is Lieutenant Jake Larue, NOPD. Open up!”
Larue waited, glancing at Quinn.
Larue knew his duty and his job, and he’d always been a courageous cop. But they both understood that a cop without a sense of fear was a dangerous cop.
And they had every reason to suspect that Mason had either killed—or been an accomplice in killing—many times over.
Silence greeted them from the house. Jake shouted out his identity again, warning that they’d break in. “You’re surrounded, Bradley! Open the door.”
They waited some more. Again, no response.
Larue offered Quinn a tight-lipped grimace. They’d done this together in the past. They’d been partners. Now, in an odd way, they still were.
Larue counted silently. On three, Quinn threw his shoulder and all his weight against the door, smashing it open.
Larue moved ahead of him, ready to shoot.
But there was no one there.
The men at the rear of the small house had heard their entry and responded by breaking through the back door. Quinn obeyed Larue’s hand signals, moving from room to room.
Shouts of “clear” resonated through the house.
Mason Bradley wasn’t home.
It was, however, an interesting house.
There were canvases everywhere, all in different states of completion. Mason Bradley hadn’t kept a studio, per se. He’d worked anywhere and everywhere. There were easels set up in the parlor, dining room and kitchen and in the three small bedrooms upstairs. Palettes filled with different colors and shelves of paint lined every room. Some canvases were covered; most were not. Some were beautiful images of historic buildings caught in the perfect light. Some were likenesses of people, including well-known historical figures, and others who were probably alive and well and walking the streets of New Orleans. Bradley was good at faces.
Larue didn’t hide his disappointment. “Where the hell is Bradley? It’s too early for him to be at work,” he muttered.
“Maybe not,” Quinn said. “On the other hand, he might have headed out and stopped for breakfast, gone for a walk or to watch the sunrise over the Mississippi.”
“Or maybe he knew we had evidence on him—and he’s skipped out,” Larue said disgustedly.
“Maybe. You have officers stationed around the Quarter?”
“Yeah, and they’ve been watching the gallery on Royal since I called you.”
“Then we’d better get over there.”
“I have a feeling he’s gone, lit out,” Larue said. “Damn, and we moved so fast! I can’t believe he’s not here.”
“You know what else isn’t here?” Quinn asked.
Larue shook his head.
“The Hubert—the Henry Sebastian Hubert painting, Ghosts in the Mind,” Quinn said. “The real one, I mean,” he added wryly. He’d explained their earlier mistake on the drive over.
“You thought it would be here?”
“I’d hoped...”
“Yeah, I know you want it, and you want to...whatever. But Mason is a killer. A flesh-and-blood killer,” Larue said.
Quinn didn’t disagree; he’d never be able to entirely convince Larue that a painting could play havoc with human lives.
“Well, let’s get moving.” Jake nodded and ordered one of his officers to keep a team on the house, just in case Mason Bradley returned.
He and Quinn started back to his car.
As they reached it, Larue’s phone rang. He answered it and listened in terse silence. “On my way” was all he said.
When he ended the call, he looked at Quinn. “There’s some trouble on Royal Street. There’s—” He broke off, then said, “There’s someone dead in the Image Me This gallery.”
* * *
Wolf would never have led her into danger, Danni knew.
He was too good a dog, too good a guardian.
He had led her forward because the danger was gone. It had come, taken its toll and now it was gone.
Death had come.
And the killer had gone.
Danni sat on the back gallery floor next to the corpse of Mason Bradley. If the killer had remained in the gallery, Wolf would have warned her—and led her out.
He sat dutifully a few feet off, waiting. He knew not to trample a crime scene; he’d been a police dog at one time.
He wouldn’t leave her—unless he was forced to. And then, Danni thought, pity the person who tried to force him.
But there was a dead man here. And Wolf knew that the dead had to be discovered.
She hadn’t brought her cell. Finding the body, she’d used the store phone to dial 9-1-1 and she’d also tried to reach Quinn. There must’ve been officers close by, since there was always a police presence in the Quarter, and with what had been happening, she was sure that Larue had doubled their numbers.
Within a few seconds, the gallery was crowded with police. Then they backed out, securing the crime scene.
She didn’t move; she was still sitting in the same spot where she’d waited for the officers. The woman in charge of the forensics unit was Grace Leon and Danni knew her; she was a friend of Quinn’s. She told Danni just to sit tight while they put some controls in place.
It was then that Niles Villiers arrived at his gallery. The police, Danni was certain, had tried to keep him out, but Niles made it in. He gasped and went dead silent looking at his friend and employee on the floor. The horror on his face was unmistakable.
The next arrivals on the scene were Quinn and Larue. Quinn’s eyes sought hers and she gave him a nod, telling him she was okay. She thought she was; she hadn’t become hysterical and run shrieking into the street. She’d called the police. Maybe it hadn’t registered yet that a friend had been brutally killed.
Viciously knifed. Slashed to ribbons.
She hadn’t realized the extent of his wounds at first. Her initial instinct had been to try to save Mason, which was why she was down on the floor next to him.
There had been no saving him.
Mason stared up at her with only one eye; the other had been slashed into a dark crimson and black pool. She had touched him, his shoulders, his back, moving him when she was trying to see if he could be saved.
At the moment, she just felt numb.
Her friend was dead. Butchered.
Quinn and Larue and the first officer on the scene were talking but she couldn’t seem to make out their words. Grace Leon came over to her, giving her a hand to help her rise, walking her carefully from the scene—making sure she didn’t step in any of the congealing blood.
Grace brought her over to Quinn and Larue.
“How did you happen to find him?” Larue asked.
“I was walking Wolf,” she said dully. “The door to the gallery was slightly open. I called out when I entered...but no one answered. I probably would’ve just left if Wolf hadn’t been so insistent. I didn’t immediately see the body—Mason—because he was behind the wall where paintings are hung. Wolf charged forward—and I went with him. And I found Mason.... I called 9-1-1 and I tried to call Quinn but his line was busy.”
“I was probably calling you,” Quinn murmured.
“This just beats all to hell,” Larue said.
“The killer is out there.” Danni turned to Quinn. “A...living killer.” She turned to Larue next. “Have you gotten anything yet? Anything at all from the alley, Cosby Tournier or his friends?”
Larue shot Quinn a quick glance. “She doesn’t know?” he asked.
“I hadn’t reached her,” Quinn said. “I was with you! Remember?”
Danni looked from one of them to the other. They were behaving very strangely.
Another man had been killed.
A man who’d been a friend of hers...
“Doesn’t know what?” she demanded. “Tell me!”
“We were out trying to arrest Mason Bradley this morning,” Quinn said quietly.
“The blood on Michel Dumont’s knife was Mason’s, Danni.” Larue was also keeping his voice low.
Danni blinked. That was...not right. Mason was lying on the floor. Dead.
She heard a cry. Niles Villiers suddenly went down on his knees, shaking with sobs. Perhaps he’d been in shock, too numb to react at first.
And now it was sinking in.
Danni walked up to Niles and placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. She shook her head at Quinn. “Mason?” she mouthed.
“I’m sorry, Danni.”
“But...he’s dead now. A victim, too.”
“I don’t know who killed Mason Bradley, Danni,” Larue told her. “But I do know that Mason Bradley was in that alley, that he attacked Cosby Tournier and in that attack, he was wounded.
She stared at them both, wide-eyed. “A test could have been compromised. It could have been faulty. Something must’ve been wrong with it. Mason is dead.”
“Yes, and I’m the investigator working on his death,” Larue said. “Tell me again exactly what happened this morning.”
Danni glared at him, her anger rising. Her emotions were heightened now. Sooner or later, numbness wore off and then...
She felt like screaming, just as Niles had screamed.
“I was walking Wolf. He started getting agitated when we reached the gallery. Like I said, the door was ajar—so I went in, calling out to Niles and Mason. Wolf ran to the back and...I found Mason. I did move him slightly, trying to check for a pulse, a heartbeat. I called the police. I tried to call Quinn. I’ve already told you all this. I went back to sit with Mason, because—” She broke off. She had to inhale deeply. “Because I couldn’t believe he was dead.”
As she finished speaking, Ron Hubert arrived with his bag and a crew. His face was gray. As he approached, a female officer and a paramedic led Niles away, presumably to be treated for shock. Danni gave him a final hug.
“Another one?” Ron said once the small group had passed by. “Mason Bradley. Slashed to death.”
Larue nodded. “The rest of the facts about his death will come from you.”
“No murder weapon?” Ron Hubert asked.
Larue shook his head.
Ron walked toward the body but stopped abruptly.
Danni realized that he was standing in front of the last giclée copy of Ghosts in the Mind.
She hadn’t even noticed it.
And now she couldn’t bear to look at it. Neither, it seemed, could Ron. He turned away, muttering to himself. “Blasted thing—should’ve been lost forever after World War II.”
“Mason was knifed to death,” Danni said. “Maybe the woman in the ‘fog’ instigated Mason to kill and then ‘disappeared.’ She had a knife. She tried to kill Cosby last night.” Danni closed her eyes. “Mason is...dead. I don’t understand why...”
“Could be revenge,” Larue told her. “Or vigilante justice. Perhaps someone who suspected he was the killer—and was afraid we’d never catch him. Danni, I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m sorry to say I believe your friend was involved in the other killings. It also seems that he wasn’t alone. Now we have to find out who killed him.”
“Do you need us anymore?” Quinn asked.
“I’ll need a statement.”
“She’s given you her statement. I want to get Danni out of here now. You don’t make others stand over a damned body once they’ve reported it, Jake. Come on. We’ll just be down the block.”
“Go,” Larue said.
Ron looked up from the body. He nodded solemnly at Quinn.
“What did that mean?” Danni asked, speaking to him alone as they walked toward the gallery entrance.
“It means he’s going to get that autopsy done quickly so we can leave on time tonight. Wolf, come on, boy—let’s go.”
An officer in uniform let them duck beneath the crime scene tape stretched across the doorway.
“We’re still going to Switzerland—tonight?”
Quinn took her by the shoulders and said, “Tonight. Danni, it’s more important than ever that we burn the bodies of the dead at the House of Guillaume. Now that we understand a little more about how the painting works... We know its evil comes from the people portrayed in it. They have to be destroyed, and quickly.”
Chapter Eighteen
THERE WAS NO real opportunity for Danni to discuss anything with Quinn alone. Ron was, of course, aware that Mason Bradley was dead; he’d been at the scene. But they had to let Father Ryan and Natasha know, as well as the others. None of them seemed to grasp the fact that forensic evidence proved Mason had been the one with the fog/woman/ghost who’d attacked Cosby Tournier.
“It makes no sense,” Natasha argued. She and Jez had arrived together.
This time, Danni really wanted to cry when Wolf left with Jez. She’d come to realize how much she hated being away from the dog.
But Wolf couldn’t go with them
.
It seemed incredible, even bizarre, that they were still taking off, still going to Europe, when she’d just found a friend dead. In a pool of blood. And even though she recognized that Mason Bradley certainly had the talent to paint the excellent copy of Ghosts in the Mind that had deceived Quinn, she didn’t want to accept that he could’ve done what everyone seemed to believe he’d done.
“He wanted to be famous,” Billie told her. “He desperately wanted to be famous. Maybe that was the promise in the painting for him. And it’s logical in a way. As we know, Hubert wanted to be famous, too. He was getting there, but probably felt it wasn’t happening quickly enough. He wanted to be part of the ‘in crowd’ that meant so much to him. Play ghost games with Byron and friends. Fame would do that for him. Mason was similar, I think. He was tired of working on other people’s art—the painting promised him his own rise to fame.”
She knew that Billie was right. She’d often complimented Mason on his restoration work and the copies he did of renowned paintings, marveling at his ability to imitate others.
“True artistry is in new style and individual creation,” Mason had said.
He’d wanted to create for himself—and he had done so. He’d somehow, ironically, created life. Or a form of life.
Just as Mary Shelley had created her Frankenstein—from nightmares and the world that surrounded her.
When Jez had taken Wolf, and Ron had arrived and they were only waiting for Father Ryan, Quinn came up to Danni’s room as she packed a few last-minute toiletries.
He slid his arms around her. “I’m really sorry.”
She was surprised to find herself easing away from him; she didn’t want more sympathy. She wanted to understand.
“So, did he have the original? Did he steal the painting and hide it in his house somewhere?”
“No.”
“Someone else has the painting—and that means someone else is really behind these killings.”
He hesitated before answering her. “Danni, obviously I don’t think the characters in the painting can run amok on their own. I do think that requires an ongoing supply of blood. So, they need a willing assistant—just as Stoker’s Dracula did. But whether it was his hunger, desire and cruelty behind the ‘awakening’ of the painting, I don’t know. Either the painting turned on him—perhaps because he’d failed it somehow. Or his...accomplice failed him. Like I said, Danni, I’m sorry about all of this. But I’m absolutely convinced that Mason Bradley was involved.”