The Memory Painter

*

Linz went to turn into her parking lot and saw Bryan waiting on her doorstep. She wasn’t ready to face him yet. What could she possibly say to him when she didn’t know what she believed?

He waved at her, but she backed away and drove off. Unable to think clearly, she drove aimlessly for an hour until she found herself pulling up in front of the gallery. There was something she needed to see.

Last night she had dreamed she was the girl in Bryan’s painting of the Treasury at Petra. The boy standing on the mountain had been her lover and was soon to be her husband. The music he played on his pan flute was an ancient melody passed down by their ancestors, a call to the heart. It had been the same song that Bryan had played to her that day in the Square.

In the dream, Bryan had been the boy and it had all felt so real. It had been so … lovely waking up from the dream cocooned in a feeling of warmth and joy. For the first time, she began to really consider what Bryan had been insisting all along—that perhaps Juliana hadn’t been her only previous life.

Linz sat in her car, unable to open the door and go inside. A part of her didn’t want to see the painting. She leaned back with a sigh, but then jolted upright when she recognized the car parked twenty feet away.

Without questioning her actions, she drove away before she was discovered. It was her father’s.

*

Conrad walked arm-in-arm with Penelope around the gallery. A stranger would have assumed they were father and daughter.

“Linz didn’t tell me you were stopping by.” She teased, “I would have raised the prices.”

“And I would have paid.”

“Don’t let Derek hear you say that.” She patted his arm affectionately.

Conrad stopped to study a lush and detailed depiction of the Shogun’s court in feudal Japan. Lords in ceremonial kimonos were gathered around two men, who were fighting. One man had a sword in his hand. Conrad looked at the signature, which was written in Japanese, and the twist of a smile appeared on his face. “What do you know about the artist?”

“Umm, not much,” Penelope replied. “Just that he’s from Boston. But his paintings speak for themselves. They’re gripping.”

Conrad’s gaze swept the gallery. His face remained unreadable. “Yes, they are.” He nodded to the painting of feudal Japan. “Is that one available?”

Penelope couldn’t contain her pleasure—he had chosen the most expensive piece in the show. “It is. The painting is based on the story of the forty-seven Ronin. Do you know it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Quite well.”



THIRTY

The drive home from Linz’s passed by in a blur. Bryan was so devastated that he could barely function. Linz had seen him waiting for her and had just driven away.

By the time he arrived, his initial hurt had turned to anger. When he walked into his place and saw Michael and Diana’s things, he picked up the nearest box and flung it. He kicked two more, sending their contents scattering, and began to hurl Michael’s books against the wall. He only stopped when the Dictionary of Neuroanatomy broke the lamp.

He went into his studio and sat on the floor. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Closing his eyes, he sensed the figures in all of his paintings looking down at him, whispering encouragement. He couldn’t let Linz’s inability to accept the truth derail him. His trip to Newfoundland had brought him closer to something, and he needed to figure out what it was.

His thoughts returned to his meeting with Dr. Hayes and then settled on Claudette and Martin. What were the odds that their life’s work would be pyramids—and the Great Pyramid in particular—and that they would move to St. John’s only months before his arrival? He decided to research them and was surprised by the number of links that popped up.

Bryan clicked on a link with the caption: “Leading pyramidologists launch multidisciplinary study.” A student had recorded a lecture they’d given at the University of Paris and posted it online.