Steve turned off the ignition and sat for a moment in the silence of the garage. His body felt more than tired; in the past seventy-two hours he had functioned on caffeine, adrenaline, and will. He replayed the words at the precinct: “You broke the case.”
He stepped out of the car, keys in hand, rolling his shoulder to work out the soreness, and opened the door.
The house was off-kilter.
He surveyed the kitchen. There was an untouched mug of tea on the counter. The sink overflowed with plates. At the far edge of the island, three of Melinda’s glass palettes stood propped against a mixing bowl.
“Mel?” he said.
No reply.
He moved down the hall. He noted the scatter of objects along the path: a paint-stained rag, two empty seltzer cans, and a wooden yardstick that had been bent. The carpet bore a series of small, dark stains.
The living room was in complete disorder. One of the armchairs had been overturned. Two of Melinda’s smaller paintings, both studies for a larger work, lay face-down on the rug. The shelf above the TV was empty of all the framed photos it usually carried.
The TV was on, but the remote wasn't immediately visible. The window was open two inches, the edge of the curtain dancing in the draft. Steve closed it.
Someone was muttering in the studio. He moved up the stairs.
He reached the door of the studio and found it ajar, light coming from within.
He pushed the door open.
Melinda stood in the center of the room, arms wrapped tight around her torso, hair wild instead of in its usual knot. Her robe was streaked with smears of paint.
She did not look at him. Her eyes were trained on the wall, where a blank canvas had been affixed by hundreds of strips of blue painter’s tape, crisscrossed in a disorganized mess.
Steve saw crumpled tubes, snapped pencils, two smashed jars of turpentine. An entire basket of brushes had been dumped onto the floor.
He took a step toward her. "Melinda."
She still didn't look at him.
He stopped a safe distance away.
"Mel. Hey. It's me."
Finally her head turned, eyes finding him but not focusing. "Did you lock the door?" she said.
"Yeah, I locked it."
She shook her head like a swimmer trying to drain water from her right ear.
Steve waited, fighting the urge to rush to her.
"Something happened," she said.
"I can see that."
She laughed hysterically. "They got in."
"Who?"
She gestured wide. "All of them. Donna. Her people. The intern. They moved everything when I was at the gallery. I came home and it was all off by a degree. Every brush, every pigment. She switched them."
He nodded. "How about we sit down. Is that okay?"
She looked at a chair that was still upright. She shook her head. "They did something to the chair."
"Alright. Just take my hand, then."
Melinda watched his hand for a long time. Finally, she reached for it.
"Let's go downstairs," he said. When she nodded he led her gently toward the hall.
On the lower landing, they navigated around the battered remains of a frame, glass shattered. In the dining room, on the table, was a row of four coffee mugs, each half full. On each, a sticky note.
Ignoring the sticky note scribbles, Steve guided Melinda to a chair.
"We're safe," he said. He crouched next to her.
Her hands twisted the fabric of her robe.
"Tell me what happened," he said gently.
She stared at nothing. "It started after you left," she said. "I couldn’t get my next painting right. Not like the other one. Not like the masterpiece. I tried, but it wasn’t working. Then I called Donna. She said all these things but none of them meant what they meant. She told me to come tomorrow, but I knew if I left it’d all be gone, or different. So I brought my magnum opus in today. She said she didn’t want it, but then she tried to move it, to touch it. I had to get between her and the painting. The security people came. I broke something. It was glass. Then they took me out. They kept saying, 'We’re just trying to help.' But they weren’t. They were trying to get me away."
Steve reached across her shoulders. She recoiled at first, then let him hug her.
"You came home after?"
She shook her head. "I drove around. I didn’t want them to follow me. I parked at the grocery store for an hour. Then when I got back here, I saw it was already too late."
She looked down at her hands.
"It was all contaminated," she said.
Steve released her and stood up.
"I’ll check the rest of the house," he said. "You stay here."
She nodded.
He moved through each room. In the downstairs bathroom, he found the medicine cabinet open, its contents dumped into the sink. The shower curtain was torn free of its rings and lay bunched in the tub.
In the laundry room a bottle of bleach had been upended.
In the bedroom, the mattress was pulled off the frame, and on the bare wood slats, Melinda had arrayed a series of objects: a paintbrush, a butter knife, two nails, and a single white envelope.
Steve opened the envelope. Nothing inside. He set it down.
In the studio, he carefully gathered the largest shards of glass, throwing them in the rubbish can. He righted the chair.
He returned to the kitchen. Melinda was sitting just as he left her, but her eyes were now closed.
He watched her for a long time, then pulled up a chair beside her.
She opened her eyes.
"I think I need help," she said.
He nodded. "We’ll call Dr. Doris in the morning. Maybe sooner."
"I’m sorry," she said.
"I know," Steve said.
He reached around her shoulders, and this time she leaned in.
They sat like that for a while.
"Let’s try to sleep," he said. "We’ll clean up tomorrow."
She nodded again, and he led her gently up the stairs.
He watched her curl up, pulling the blanket over her shoulder, and waited until her breathing deepened. He rose, padded out, and shut the bedroom door behind him.
He made his way to the bathroom.
He exhaled and began.
First, the pills. He gathered them into two piles. He hadn't recalled ever looking closely at Melinda's medication but now he noted how similar his pills looked to hers.
As he put each pile into its proper bottle, his mind went back to Saturday morning when they’d both noted they were out of pills.
It hit him. They’d swapped pills.
Steve pictured it: The bathroom light must've been a shock to Paul’s senses. Paul blinked, found his bearings, and turned to the task at hand. Unzip, aim, exhale.
Then, as Paul reached for the faucet, he knocked over the two pill bottles, which hit the floor with a plastic, staccato rattle.
“Ah, hell,” he muttered, then knelt down. On the floor, the bottles had popped their tops, the chalky white pills dotting the tiled floor. Paul gathered them clumsily, putting the pills in the wrong bottles.
Steve came back to the present. That's how it must've happened. How can they both not have noticed?
His mind ticked through the consequences: the surge of energy, the absence of anxiety, the ramped-up focus he’d ridden all week, enough to solve Keoni’s case. For Melinda, the same. She painted her masterpiece.
But then the side effects: fainting for him; paranoia for her.
He continued to set the bathroom in order. He rehung a fresh towel. He wiped blue pigment from the toilet rim.
Finally he snapped off the light, and walked down the hall.
In the bedroom, Melinda still slept.
Steve slipped under the covers and closed his eyes.
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