Brushstrokes and Bloodstains: A Sadie Stewart Cozy Mystery by Dayton L.B

Author:Dayton, L.B.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pink Frog Publishing
Published: 2024-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: The Price

The painter from Gallery Copperfield is hunched over his paint buckets, but it seems like Sadie's appearance from behind the abandoned set pieces has cracked something in the man. Feverishly, he continues adding details to the feathers of the bird, but the bristles of the brush are thick and clearly not of the quality he is used to. He coughs out a sound of anguish when the feathers don't look as delicate as he intends for them to be but ends up as a smeared smudge instead.

His breathing is highly irregular, making his frame shudder with each inhale.

Sadie can practically taste the desperation that he feels, echoed so sharply in her own mind. She needs answers.

She quietly positions herself against the cardboard cutout of a jolly-faced sun that is a sibling to the moon Rakhi is vandalizing. Or perhaps, he is busy improving it beyond anything this theater has seen.

An immense tiredness settles in Sadie's bones as she sits a few feet away from the scrambling man. Almost as if his excess of manic energy is seeping all of Sadie's.

"What do you mean, Rakhi? When you say that it is your turn now?" Sadie asks gently. She doesn't want to risk angering him or making him shut down towards her. His eyes are wide and brimming with tears that fog up his glasses a little. He does not take a moment to wipe them clean.

He doesn't make any effort to answer her questions either, and instead asks, "The jewels. Where... Was it you?"

Sadie's eyebrows fly up. "Was it me that stole them? Not at all. I was hoping you would know something about it, actually. They just showed up in my gallery, and someone has taken Solomon hostage in exchange for them. Do you have any idea of how something like that could happen?"

Fear swirls in a black pit in her stomach. Solomon... She hopes and prays with every fiber of her being that he is okay, that he is somewhere safe and warm during this storm. If anyone did anything to hurt him, Sadie would...

She has to rub at her eyes to force herself to refocus, and not get pulled under by the weight of the anxiety.

When, again, he doesn't give any indication of answering her question, Sadie whispers, "You said—back in Gallery Copperfield, when I came by to do Solomon's pet portrait? You said that you've developed a smoking habit... Do you have any cigarettes on you?"

Rakhi lets out a laugh, that sounds wet and unmelodic. "I did not expect you to be asking me about that right now, Sadie." He glances at her sideways and adjusts the wrap around his wounded hand. "No. I don't have any cigarettes on me. Do you smoke?"

Sadie pouts a bit and shrugs, "I tried it for a while in junior year of college, but I don't know. I got a little bored of it, to be honest. Especially after my boyfriend at the time told me that my kisses taste like an ashtray.

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