I slipped the painting back with the others in its lot as Desirae pulled me into a narrow space in the corner, tucking us between wrapped canvases and cardboard. Two large-scale paintings leaned together, tenting over us as we slid deeper into their shadow. With our bodies pressed together, our breathing fell in sync as a set of keys jingled at the door. My heart hammered in my chest, but I couldn't separate my own beats from hers.
Shelves rattled as the door swung open and a high-pitched voice whined with flirtation. "Now you want to help? Where have you been?"
Lips smacked as feet shuffled along the floor and a strong floral perfume wafted through the air. I squinted hard at the dim reflection in a glass cabinet across the room, unable to make out much except two bodies stumbling in our direction.
I looked back up at Desirae, feeling her fingers firm against my hips. I hadn't even noticed my own wrapped around her arms. Her muscles tensed as I loosened my grip.
"Maybe they'll think we had the same idea," she whispered.
"It'd be better to not leave them with any doubt."
Her eyes shifted away from the opening and fell over me. The corner of her mouth twitched with a smirk. As my fingers slid up her shoulder to the back of her neck, she leaned closer.
Beyond us, papers shuffled and something hit the floor with a soft thud as the table creaked.
"Artie is so gonna haunt your ass for that," the woman laughed again.
My ears pricked, hearing the distinction of her nickname and I expected the glassy, hollow voice of Landon to reply. Instead, it was raspy and slurring with a Sicilian accent. "Minchia, she already is. I can't stop seeing her everywhere."
"That's Rafael," I whispered, tilting my head to hear better. The woman's voice sounded extremely familiar, but without a face, I couldn't picture her.
"Rafael Cassini? That's interesting..." Desirae hummed. "I believe that's the curator who he's screwing around with."
"It's not even finished," Rafael's tone shifted. Without seeing him, he almost sounded like his father. "You know she wouldn't want that."
"Artie wouldn't? Or are you still hung up on—"
"Basta."
As Rafael's heavy feet thudded past us, I tucked closer into Desirae. The French doors slammed shut, shaking the canvases against us. Through a crack between the paintings, I saw a head of silvery blonde hair reaching down to pick up Sunday Morning from the floor where it had apparently fallen. Deliberately, it seemed on Rafael's part. He was always looking out for me and I certainly didn't deserve his loyalty.
The woman's heels clicked across the floor going away towards the stage. Desirae and I both exhaled at the same time. I'd forgotten my arms were still around her. Dropping them to my sides, I took a step back.
"Think we're good?"
Desirae peeked around the corner of the canvases. I strained to hear the heels tapping against the stairs, fading beyond the stage. Another door shut in the distance. She nodded, but instead of leaving our canvas shelter, she turned back to me.
"Were they talking about you?"
But that faint chemical odor crept through the room and made my nose twitch, tugging my attention towards the stage. Each inhale made the hair on my arms bristle. "Do you smell that?"
"All I can smell is paint and varnish."
My eyes wandered back to Artie's in Sunday Morning. Something about them sealing our unfinished painting broke my soul.
"Listen, Kirby," Desirae whispered. "You surprisingly helped me a lot tonight. Probably more than you even know. So before I come to my senses, I'm going to start walking towards the stage and whatever you decide to do from here—"
"I got to see it one last time." I gave her my best fake smile. "I'm good."
"You're not good." Her fingers toyed with the gold wedding band on her necklace again. "I can see it in your eyes. The woman in that painting has stolen time and energy and love from—"
I cupped her hand to still her fumbling fingers against her chest. "I'm not looking to get any of that back. Not from Artemisia, at least."
She turned into me, but wouldn't meet my eyes. Like me, I could tell she was haunted by mementos; the ghosts of our pasts trying to get in between, hers literally clinging to her neck. Delicately, I traced my fingers up her gold chain, feeling her swallow hard beneath my touch. Her hand fell away from the wedding band and slipped down over my hip, sinking into the small of my back to pull us close again. Grief often had a way of disguising itself with lust.
As I tilted her chin up, she finally met my eyes again. Whatever this was—grief, lust, or maybe just loneliness—it connected us. But as I leaned in, she swerved at the last second and my lips brushed against her ear, surrounded by the soft smell of her perfume.
"Sorry," I murmured into the locs of her hair. "Did I read that wrong?"
"No." She shook her head against my cheek, still not releasing her hold on me. "Which is exactly why I need you to get your painting and go. I mean this with total sincerity, Kirby, I don't ever want to see you in this museum again. I can't see you. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Dropping my hand away from her, I nodded and broke free from her hold. "Loud and clear, Des."
A sigh left her lips, but I couldn't tell if it was relief or some kind of remorse. But what did it matter. She squeezed past me around the canvases. The sound of her heels disappeared towards the stage. Leaning my head against the wall, I gave her a minute before stepping out from the paintings.
As I walked over to Artie's watchful eyes, I listened for Desirae's footsteps or one of the side doors of the auditorium to shut, but it was quiet. Quiet enough I was sure she could probably hear my heartbeat pounding beyond the black stage curtain that separated us as I finally took Sunday Morning in my hands.
"Did Artemisia ever sculpt?" Desirae's voice trailed around the curtain.
I chuckled to myself as a mockery of Artie's Sicilian accent rolled off of my tongue like muscle memory. "Sculpture is something you trip over when you back up to look at a painting." She hadn't been the first to say it, but it was her go-to line anytime I wanted to hang out with the artists down in the sculpture barn at school.
But my humor quickly deflated when I noticed the painting behind Sunday Morning was a tonal study of Gabriel that I only now recognized as one from the banners out front. Lit with some bold Baroque shadows and highlights, his natural copper toned cheeks looked skeletal, a haunting foresight in chiaroscuro that made me shudder. In the banner outside, his head had been cropped out, just showing his flayed torso. Had it been deliberate on Landon's part?
And still, that peculiar odor persisted, but this time I could tell it wasn't some cheap, uncured varnish on the canvases in front of me. It was more like a resin, but there was something foul mixed in with it.
"What is that fucking smell?"
Leaning Sunday Morning back up against the other paintings, I pushed around the heavy curtains to find Desirae in between a set at the front of the stage, staring up at some upright form hidden beneath a drape. As I neared, the smell grew stronger, sharper, almost sweet and florally, stinging my eyes. And then I saw it. Just below the hem, a bare foot hung within the cloth's shadow; its ankle tattooed like mine with Artemisia's signature.
"Kirby, wait," Desirae warned. "Don't—"
But my fingers had already gripped the cloth and tugged.
As the sheet fell to the stage, my stomach churned with horror.
A gray pallid body mounted on a cross armature towered over us, forming the same composition as Artie's painting of Gabriel. The extremities had been cut from the torso, but reattached with stakes and thread that shimmered gold in the light. Just like the painting, his bare chest was stripped down to the muscular layer with his ribcage butterflied, flayed open. Flowers and preserved insects spilled down from the chest cavity, wrapping around the groin like a sash. Adorned with a crown of lavender and baby's breath, his skull topped the piece, looking down at us.
"Memento mori..." The words stumbled from my mouth, though I barely recognized my own voice.
The sweet, sickly smell of flesh, flowers, and formaldehyde burnt through my nose like a bad cut of coke. Mind numb, I felt myself being pulled towards the body, staring into the dark hollows of the empty eye sockets once again.
No detail had been overlooked as every flower reflected the species in Artie's painting. Foxgloves, peonies, and dahlias, all wrapped in vines of blooming clematis, blossomed against his body, blending the pastel tones of petals and pallor. Even the stage lighting highlighted him in the same contrast as the painting. Despite the bile settling along the back of my throat, the scene was grotesquely captivating, almost beautiful.
Unable to look away, I felt myself moving closer, completely disassociated from my own body like the severed one that hung before me. But just as I reached out to touch where Artie's signature bled black into his skin, a door slammed in the back hall.
Desirae swept me behind her, reaching beneath the leg slit of her jumpsuit to that black holster, withdrawing a gun. Before I could make sense of the situation, she had her phone to her ear and her gun scanning the curtained area.
"This is Special Agent 73189, codename Venus, I'm at the Bay City Art Museum..."
"Special Agent?" My eyes darted between Desirae and the twisted tableau in front of us as I tried to grasp onto the words that spilled from her mouth, barely able to find my own voice. "You're a fucking cop?"