I looked at the next canvas. Different date, same small signature in the corner: a single initial and a number that corresponded to the order of completion, I realized, as I moved through the room. They were numbered. Forty-three paintings. I counted them twice.
A door on the far side of the great room led into a hallway, and the hallway opened into a kitchen with a large central island and windows that looked out over the terraced gardens. On the island was a pitcher of water, a clean glass, and a bowl of fruit. Not decaying, not dusty. Recent.
Someone had been here within the last day or two.
The thought arrived without alarm, which surprised me. I should have felt unsettled by evidence of an unknown presence in an unknown house. Instead I felt something closer to anticipation, the sensation of a story already underway, waiting for you to catch up to the part it was keeping for you.
Beyond the kitchen was a study.
