Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [94]
It was a ghastly scene, even to a man used to violence, mostly because it was viewed through the eyes of a woman who loved the victim—through the eyes of Judith. He knew she wasn’t finished with it because she hadn’t signed her name. It didn’t matter how much he told himself it was Judith’s feelings, his heart nearly exploded in pain. Looking at her eyes, the guilt there, the anger and grief, he felt a murderous rage begin to smolder in his belly, growing stronger the longer he stared at the painting. He needed to make this right for her.
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he covered the painting. He’d told her he was her man. He was certainly capable of vengeance. Her brother hadn’t been tortured to extract information vital to the safety of a country; it had been done as a lesson. He knew he was justifying his own life, his own terrible sins, but at this point, he couldn’t change what the men who had shaped his life had made him into. He could do this for her and if anyone deserved to suffer before he died, it was Jean-Claude La Roux.
In the center of the room a dark cloth covered a large object. The cloth seemed to stir, although there was no way for a breeze to have moved it. The slight ripple of the fabric drew his attention. The room whispered, an insidious buzz in his ears, never quite grew loud enough for him to make out words.
He walked around the object, which nearly came up to his chest. He used the tips of his fingers to remove the cloth. The kaleidoscope was large, almost as big as a telescope to view the night sky, and sat on a tall tripod. Four individual sealed cells were stacked in a black canister and a fifth, which she appeared to working on, was on top. He assumed each cell represented a year gone by without her brother’s killer paying adequately for his crime, yet when he picked them up, he couldn’t make out the images inside of them.
Puzzled, Stefan examined each cell from every angle, laying them out carefully in order. His mind always remembered the smallest detail, but he was still methodical, always double-checking the small things, taking no chances anyone would feel his passing. No real phantom could afford to overlook the tiniest detail.
He turned the first cell over and over. It was filled with mineral oil and sealed, clearly finished but no matter how much he shined the penlight on it, he couldn’t make out the objects that should be floating around inside of it. He frowned, his mind working at the problem. She wouldn’t have empty cells, but she’d found some way to protect what was inside them. Just viewing her kaleidoscope studio had taught him that cells were very personal. Each item chosen was selected with meticulous care and meant something important.
Judith told stories with her kaleidoscopes. She brought peace and joy into people’s lives all around the world. The scopes were more than art, they were useful for medical issues, bringing down blood pressure and aiding an autistic child or adult to find a healthy escape. Stefan studied the large kaleidoscope again. What was she telling? And how?
The kaleidoscope itself was much larger than he’d seen in her other studio and that had to be significant in some way. The outside was powder-coated over metal rather than a wrap of some kind. The color seemed an unrelenting black, but there was something about it that made him think, just like the cells, she’d hidden something from view.
Again he checked the room with his penlight. He was missing something important. It was difficult to think when the room was so alive around him. Emotions battered at him and every lungful of air was difficult to draw in, seething with bright hot rage. His belly coiled into tight knots and blood thundered in his ears, howling through his mind, thundering for revenge.
A portable ultraviolet light sat on the workbench, near her rolling chair.