The Law of Nines Read online

  Alex set the rolled-up canvases on the bench to his right, on the side away from her. He placed the painting on her lap.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “A gift.”

  She stared at him a moment, then pulled off the brown paper.

  She looked genuinely stunned to see the painting. She lifted it reverently in her hands. Her eyes welled up with tears.

  It took her a moment to find her voice. “Why are you giving me this?”

  Alex shrugged. “Because I want to. You thought it was beautiful. Not everyone thinks my work is beautiful. You did. I wanted you to have it.”

  Jax swallowed. “Alex, tell me why you painted this particular place.”

  “Like I told you before, it’s from my imagination.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said rather emphatically.

  He paused momentarily, surprised by her words. “Yes it is. I was merely painting a scene—”

  “This is a place near where I live.” She touched a graceful finger to the shade beneath towering pines. “I’ve spent countless hours sitting in this very place, gazing off at the mountain passes here, and here. The views from this hidden place are unparalleled—just as you’ve painted them.”

  Alex didn’t know what to say. “It’s just a painting of the woods. The woods can look much the same in one place as another. A species of tree all look pretty much the same. I’m sure that it simply reminds you of this place you know.”

  With the edge of a knuckle she wiped a tear from under an eye. “No.” She swallowed and then pointed to a spot he clearly recalled painting. For some reason he’d put extra care into the trunk of the tree. “See this notch you put in this tree?” She glanced up at him. “I put that notch there.”

  “You put it there,” he said in a flat tone.

  Jax nodded. “I was testing the edge I’d put on my knife. The bark is thick there. I sliced paper-thin pieces of it to test the edge. Bark is tough, but is easier on a freshly sharpened blade than other things, like wood, might be.”

  “And you like to sit at a place like this?”

  “No, not a place like this place. This place. I like to sit at this place. This place is Shineestay.”

  “Shineestay? What’s that mean?”

  “It’s an ancient word that means ‘place of power.’ You have painted that exact place.” She looked again at the scene and tapped a spot to the side of the sunlit glen. “The only minor difference is that there is a tree, here, near the side of this open area, that you have not painted. This is the exact same spot, except for that one tree that’s missing.”

  Alex felt goose bumps tickle the nape of his neck. He knew the tree she was talking about. He had painted it.

  He had originally painted it exactly where she was pointing, but while it might have been right in such a forest, it had been compositionally wrong for the painting, so he had painted over it. He recalled at the time wondering why he’d painted it in the first place, since it didn’t fit in the composition. Even as he looked where Jax was pointing, he could see the faint contour of the brushstrokes of the tree beneath the paint that now lay over it.

  Alex was at a loss to explain how it could be the place she knew. “Where is this place?”

  She stared at him a moment. Her voice regained a bit of its distant, detached edge. “Alex, we need to talk. Unfortunately, there is a great deal to say, and like the last time, I can’t stay long.”

  “I’m listening.”

  She glanced at passersby. “Is there somewhere not far away that’s a little more private?”

  Alex pointed down the hall. “There’s a restaurant down there that’s nice. The lunch rush is over, so it would be quiet and more private. How about if I buy you lunch and you can tell me what you have the time to tell me?”

  She pressed her lips tightly together a moment as she considered the place he’d pointed out. “All right.” He wondered why she was being so cautious. Maybe she had a grandfather like Ben.

  As they stood, she held the painting tightly to herself. “Thank you for this, Alex. You can’t possibly know what this means to me. This is one of my favorite places. I go there because it’s beautiful.”

  He bowed his head at her kind words. “I painted it because it’s beautiful. That you like it is a greater reward for me than you could know.”

  He still wanted to know how he could have painted a place she knew, a place she knew so well, but he sensed the tension in her posture and decided to go easy. She’d said that she wanted to explain things, so he thought it best if he didn’t intimidate her out of wanting to do so.

  Alex picked up the rolled canvases and then tucked them under an arm as they started down the hall.

  “How did you come by the name Jax?”

  She brightened, almost laughed, at the question. “It’s a game. You toss jax on the ground, throw a ball up in the air, and then try to pick up the jax and catch the ball in the same hand after it bounces once. It’s a simple child’s game but as you try for ever more jax it requires a sharp eye and quick hands. Certain people were amazed at how quick I am with my hands, so my parents named me Jax.”

  Alex frowned as he tried to reconcile the story. “But when you were born you couldn’t have played anything yet. A kid has to be, what, five to ten years old before they can play that kind of game? How could your parents know you were going to be quick with your hands when you were just born?”

  She stared straight ahead as she walked. “Prophecy.”

  Alex blinked. “What?”

  “A prophet told them about me before I was born, told them how everyone would be amazed at how quick I would be with my hands, how it would first be noticed because I would be a natural at the game of jax. That’s why they named me Jax.”

  Alex wondered what kind of weird religion her parents belonged to that put that much stock in the words of prophets. He thought that if her parents expected her to be quick with her hands then they would encourage her to practice and as a result she would end up quick. He wanted to say so, to say a lot of things, ask a lot of questions, but a growing sense of caution reminded him to take it easy and let her tell her own story. So he kept his questions on the light side.

  “But Jack, like in jacks, is a boy’s name.”

  “The boy’s name Jack is spelled with a k. My name is spelled with an x. J-A-X comes from the game of jax, not the boy’s name.”

  “But the game is called jacks, J-A-C-K-S.”

  “Not where I come from,” she said.

  “Where’s that?”

  “You wouldn’t know it,” she said after a moment. “It’s a long way from here.”

  For some reason she had avoided answering his question, but he let it go.

  As they strolled down the hall he watched her out of the corner of his eye. He often watched people, studied their posture, their natural way of moving, their attitude expressed through the way they carried themselves, to help him accurately paint the human form.

  Most people when in public conveyed either a casual or a businesslike attitude. People were often focused on the place they were headed, never really aware of anything along the way. That tunnel vision affected the way they moved. Those projecting a businesslike attitude held their bodies tight. Others, being self-absorbed and out of touch with their surroundings, moved in a looser fashion. Most people were self-absorbed, unaware of who was around them or of any potential threat, and their body language betrayed that fact. In some cases that casual attitude drew dangerous attention. It was what predators looked for.

  Most people never consciously considered the reality that bad things happened, that there were those who would harm them. They simply had never encountered such situations and didn’t believe it could happen to them. They were willfully oblivious.

  Jax moved in a different way. Her form, unlike the tight businesslike posture, carried tension, like a spring that was always kept tight, yet she moved with grace. She carried herself with confidence, aware
of everything around her. In some ways it reminded him of the way a predator moved. Through small clues in her posture she projected an aura of cool composure that bordered on intimidating. This was not a woman whom most men would approach lightly.

  In fact, that awareness was what he found the most riveting. She watched the people moving through the halls—every one of them—without always looking directly at them. She kept track of them out of the corner of her eye, measuring each, checking each one as if for distance and potential threat.

  “Are you looking for anyone in particular?” he asked.

  Absorbed in thoughts of her own, she said, “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “A different kind of human.”

  In an instant Alex yanked her around a corner and slammed her up against the wall. He hadn’t intended to be so rough about it, but the shock of hearing those words tripped something within him and he acted.

  “What did you say?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  He held her left arm with his right hand. The painting was pressed between them. His left forearm lay across her throat, his hand gripping her dress at her opposite shoulder. If he were to push, he could crush her windpipe.

  She stared unflinching into his eyes. “I said I was looking for a different kind of human. Now, I suggest that you think better of what you’re doing and carefully let go of me. Don’t move too fast or you’ll get your throat cut and I’d hate to have to do that. I’m on your side, Alex.”

  Alex frowned and then, when she pushed just a little, realized that she was indeed holding the point of a knife to the underside of his chin. He didn’t know where the knife had come from. He didn’t know how she had gotten it there so fast. But he did know that she wasn’t kidding.

  He also didn’t know which of them would beat the other if it came down to it. He was fast, too. But it was not, and had not been, his intent to hurt her—merely to restrain her.

  He slowly started to release his hold on her. “My mother said the same thing to me a few days ago.”

  “So?”

  “She’s confined to a mental institution. When I visited her she told me that I must run and hide before they get me. When I asked her who it was that was trying to get me, she said ‘a different kind of human.’ Then the report came on about those two officers being murdered. It said they were found with their necks broken. My mother said, ‘They break people’s necks.’ Then she retreated into that faraway world of hers. She hasn’t spoken since. She won’t speak again for weeks.”

  Jax squeezed his arm sympathetically. “I’m sorry about your mother, Alex.”

  He glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. No one was. People probably assumed that they were two lovers whispering sweet nothings to each other.

  His blood was up and, despite her calming voice and her gentle touch, he was having trouble coming back down. He made himself unclench his jaw.

  Something between them had just changed, changed in a deadly serious way. He was sure that she felt it as well.

  “I want to know how it is that you said the very same thing my crazy mother said. I want you to tell me that.”

  From mere inches away she gazed into his eyes. “That’s why I’m here, Alex.”

  10.

  THE DOOR TO THE REGENT GRILL, covered in tufted black leather, closed silently behind them. There were no windows in the murky inner sanctum of the restaurant. The hostess, a pixie of a woman with an airy scarf flowing out behind, led them to a quiet niche that Alex requested. With the exception of two older women out in the center of the room, under a broad but dimly lit cylindrical chandelier, the restaurant was empty of patrons.

  Empty or not, Alex didn’t want his back to the room. He got the distinct feeling that Jax didn’t, either.

  They both slid into the booth, sitting side by side, with their backs to the wall.

  The padded, upholstered walls covered with gold fabric, the plush chairs, the mottled blue carpets, and the ivory tablecloths made the restaurant a quiet, intimate retreat. The location in back felt safe in its seclusion.

  After the hostess set the menus down and left and the busboy had filled their water glasses, Jax again glanced around before speaking.

  “Look, Alex, this isn’t going to be easy to explain. It’s complex and I don’t have enough time right now to make it all clear for you. You need to trust me.”

  Alex wasn’t exactly in an indulgent mood. “Why should I trust you?”

  She smiled a little. “Because I may very well be the only one who can keep you from getting your neck broken.”

  “By who?”

  She nodded toward the rolled-up canvases on the bench on the far side of him. “By the people who did that to your paintings.”

  His brow twitched. “How would you know about that?”

  Her gaze turned down to her folded hands. “We caught a glimpse of him doing it.”

  “‘We’? What do you mean, we caught a glimpse of him doing it?”

  “We were trying to look through the mirror in Mr. Martin’s gallery. We were trying to find you.”

  “Where were you when you were ‘looking’ through the mirror?”

  “Please, Alex, would you just listen? I don’t have the time to explain a hundred different complicated details. Please?”

  Alex let out a deep breath and relented. “All right.”

  “I know that the things I’m telling you might sound impossible, but I swear that I’m telling you the truth. Don’t close your mind to what is beyond your present understanding. People sometimes invent or discover things that expand their knowledge so that they accept as possible what only the day before they had thought was impossible. This is something like that.”

  “You mean like how people used to think that no one would ever be able to carry around a tiny little phone without it having to be connected to wires.”

  She looked a little confused by the analogy. “I suppose so.” She turned back to the subject at hand. “One day I hope I can help you better grasp the reality of the situation. For now, please try to keep an open mind.”

  Alex slowly twirled the stem of the water glass between his thumb and first finger, watching the ice remain still in place as the glass spun. “So, you were saying how you were looking for me.”

  Jax nodded. “I knew that you had a connection to the gallery. It’s how I knew where you were today. I had to hurry if I was to catch you. Because we had to hurry we couldn’t prepare properly and as a consequence I don’t have much time here.”

  Alex wiped a hand across his face. He was starting to feel like maybe he was being played for a fool. “You need a room with my mother.”

  “You think this is some kind of joke?” She looked up at him with fiery intensity. “You have no idea how hard this is for me. You have no idea the things I’ve been through—the chances I’ve had to take to come here.”

  She clenched her jaw and swallowed, trying to keep her voice under control. “This isn’t a joke, Alex. You have no idea how afraid I am, how lost I feel here, how alone, how terrified.”

  “I’m sorry, Jax.” Alex looked away from the pain in her brown eyes and took a sip of water. “But you’re not alone. Tell me what’s going on?”

  She let out a calming breath. “I’ll do my best, but you have to understand that for now I simply can’t tell you everything. It isn’t just that I don’t have the time to explain it all right now, it’s also that you aren’t yet ready to hear it all. Worse, we’re in the dark about a lot of it ourselves.”

  “Who is this ‘we’ you keep mentioning?”

  She turned cautious. “Friends of mine.”

  “Friends.”

  She nodded. “We’ve been working for years, trying for years to figure some of it out. They helped get me here.”

  “Get here from where?”

  She looked away and said simply, “From where I live.”

  Alex didn’t like her evasive answer, but he decided that ther
e was no harm in just letting it play out for the moment.

  “Go on.”

  “We finally came to a point where we thought it would work, so despite the risk we attempted it, but we don’t yet know how to make it work reliably. Not like the others do.”

  “You mean work to get here, to where I live, from where you live?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What would have happened if you hadn’t gotten it right, if it didn’t ‘work’?”

  She stared into his eyes for a long moment. “Then I would have been lost for all eternity in a very bad place.”

  Alex could tell by the tension in her expression how real the peril was—to her, at least—and how much the thought of failure frightened her. Considering that this woman was not easily intimidated, that in and of itself gave him pause.

  He was about to again ask who the others on her team were when a waitress came up to the table and smiled warmly. “Can I get you two something to drink? Maybe a glass of wine?”

  “I could really use some hot tea,” Jax said.

  The tone of that simple request revealed how weary she was, and how close she was to her wits’ end.

  “I’m fine with water. The lady doesn’t have a lot of time, though.

  Maybe we could order?” He turned to Jax as he picked up a menu. “What would you like? Chicken? Beef? A salad?”

  “I doesn’t matter. Whatever you’re having is fine.”

  It was clear that she didn’t care about food, so Alex ordered two chicken salads.

  As the waitress left, Alex’s phone rang. He reflexively asked Jax to excuse him a moment as he pulled the phone out of his pocket.

  “Hello, this is Alex.”

  He’d thought that maybe it was Mr. Martin calling to say that he’d changed his mind. Instead, Alex was greeted with garbled noises. He heard a strained, disembodied voice torn by howling that sounded like it said, “She’s there. She’s there.” Otherworldly whispers and strange, soft moans underlay the crackling static.