Page 51 of Over Her Dead Body

It is not a painting about a kitchen. Or burning fields.

It is about the moment before a woman leaves and the people left behind spend the next fifty years arguing about why.

A painting like this survives because someone needed to point at it and say: that was my mother before she left, that was the house before the fire, that was the summer no one talks about.

Art is never just art.

It is confession with good lighting.

“Lydia Voss,” I say. “Painted in 1968. One of her domestic interiors, though that undersells it. Voss used interiors the way other painters used battlefields.”

Reid turns toward the canvas.

Not toward me.

Mercy, apparently, has excellent tailoring.

“She makes the room feel trapped,” he says.

“She makes the woman feel trapped,” I say. “The room is just honest enough not to pretend otherwise.”

Genevieve’s smile sharpens.

Celeste’s does not move.

Todd leans closer to read the label, the safest decision anyone has made all night.

“Voss liked refusing the obvious answer,” I add.

Genevieve sighs. “A quality I’ve always admired in art. Less so in people.”

Reid studies the painting with the calm attention of a man who did not recently walk out of a Lisbon building wearing blood on his cuffs.

His head turns slightly. Not enough for the room. Enough for me.

“I prefer pieces with complicated histories.”

No one else reacts.

Celeste studies the label. Genevieve watches Reid. Todd looks relieved we have returned to nouns he recognizes.

Owen is still watching my hand.

I set the champagne down on the nearest tray before I break it.

“Then you’ll do well here,” I say.

Reid’s eyes come to mine, and for one stupid second I wonder when he got so good at being someone else.

Then Celeste touches my elbow, and I move because that is the only thing keeping me from doing something I’ll regret.

“Philip is hosting a smaller group at his house after this,” Celeste says. “Martin should see the companion study before he makes a decision. You should be there.”

The companion study.

There is no companion study in the public file.

Genevieve looks at me, amused.