Page 12 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

All of the paintings fromEnmeshmentwere there in the loft, unsold, unloved. All except for one.

Calla handed her a mug of chamomile. “Behold: the evidence of genius. The deluded artist on a crazed spiral.”

“You’re not crazy.”

“Tell that to the press.”

“I didn’t know you kept the paintings.”

“No one else wanted them. Bad investments don’t tend to sell well. That’s what I am now, the worst investment.”

“AndClio?” Goddess of history. Portrait of Vivi.

“Rotting in a dumpster on the South Side, I’d guess.”

Wine soaring through the hushed gallery. A push, a rip, a show abruptly ended. Later, cold wind pitching across Vivi’s cheeks like a slap, her breath caught in smoke and regret.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Vivi. “Your show?”

Calla’s jaw hardened. “I’m good.”

“And Wayland?”

“In South America, screwing some nubile young muse. I don’t want to talk about him either. Show me what you got, Bee.”

Vivi handed her the phone with the photos of the strippedBlue Mirrorand explained what she’d found. She could feel her sister’s mountingexcitement next to her, the way she bounced on her heels. Calla’s energy had always been a dervish in a room, sweeping everyone else up with it.

“So I’m right!” she crowed. “Lýhas got to be connected to our family. That woman, Vivi, she looks just like you. The freckle!”

Vivi’s hand rose to touch it involuntarily. “Slow down. We don’t know anything.”

“You thinkBlue Mirrorwas the offering from the letter?”

“No, I don’t. It was never missing or hidden.”

“But the women were.”

“Then what does the sundial have to do with anything? No, the offering has to be something different. Dad didn’t leave anything else in the shed?”

“Nothing except more printouts of K. P.Lý’s paintings, like I told you. Maybe Dr. Quân will know more. You took a class with him, didn’t you?”

Paul Quân, hotshot Surrealist scholar and Yale-educated, tenured professor at Rathmore. Vivi had never forgotten his bombastic manner. He once threw a pencil at a master’s candidate who’d confused Modigliani and Magritte. His grading was famously harsh, but she had somehow scraped an A- in the class, the highest mark anyone had gotten out of him in years. Still, her final paper had bled with insults written in his heavy, red scrawl.Don’t be dense.UNCLEAR.Have you ever even SEEN a painting, Miss Nguy?n?The thought of facing him again made Vivi break out in phantom hives.

“I looked Quân up. He’s currently working on a collection of correspondence from Emil Blanc, a man about town in 1930s Paris, friend to all the bohemian artists.” Vivi paused. “I also read that Blanc was K. P.Lý’s agent back then. Before he disappeared.”

“Which means Quân might know aboutLý.”

“He might be able to authenticate the handwriting in the letter, at least. But I don’t know that he’d be inclined to share his research. He’s a genius, but he’s famously mercurial.”

“Aren’t they all.”

“A few years ago, he wrote a paper aboutLý’s use of blue. It was pretty obscure, but it means that he knewsomethingaboutLý. Maybe Dad came across the article andthatpiqued his interest.”

“Dad? Who never even picked up a book?”

“He never looked at a painting either, that I know of—but here we are. Maybe he had more time in retirement. Here, I printed out Quân’s article for you. And I checked out this book on the Surrealists from the Forster resource library. It has a few mentions ofLý. We need to learn everything we can.”

Calla waved her away. “And we will. Dr. Quân is giving a public lecture on campus tomorrow. I registered us both. We can speak to him there. See what he and Dad talked about.”