CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
ELENA

After a few minutes, we were given a manila envelope by a security guard. The envelope looked innocent, just like a plain envelope that you buy from any office supplies’ store, except that this one had my name boldly written on it and it felt so creepy.

"Should we be concerned that someone knows my address now?" I inquired while Alexander inspected the envelope with extreme interest.

"Perhaps. But first, let's check inside before we panic."

"I don't panic. I do strategic concern."

"Naturally, you would." Alexander's lips curled at the corner despite his patent tension. "Extremely different things."

He carefully opened the envelope, and we both looked in. What he extracted made my heart sink—a bundle of newspaper cuttings, some aged to yellow, others more recent.

"Newspaper articles?" I leaned in as Alexander spread them out on his dining table. "About what?"

The headlines on these newspapers gave me goosebumps:
'LOCAL HEIRESS STILL MISSING.'
'MARGARET MORETTI: THREE YEARS WITHOUT ANSWERS.'
'FAMILY OFFERS REWARD FOR INFORMATION.'

"These are all about Margaret," I muttered as I picked up one of the clippings. The picture was of a lovely woman with dark hair and a friendly smile. "It seems like we have a busy person gathering reports on her disappearance."

Alexander's expression was solemn as he scrutinized each clipping. "Some of these are from papers I've never seen before. Small-town papers, regional magazines. Someone has definitely been very thorough."

"Thorough in a creepy stalker manner, or thorough in a useful manner?"

"That is something we need to know."

I stared at the photo of Margaret in one of the articles, "Alexander, doesn't this ring a bell?"

"What do you mean?"

"The strange photograph we discovered in my studio when we returned from Italy—somebody had left it for us to discover it too, don't you recall?"

Alexander's expression turned serious. "You think it's the same person?"

"It has to be," I said to him, shifting nearer to him in quest of his warmth. "The question is whether they are attempting to help us or scare us."

"I think that the anonymous message senders typically have something on their minds."

"Ever the optimist," I murmured, leaning into him and appreciating the sturdy comfort of his presence.
"So, who do you think our secret benefactor is? Someone Margaret knew?"

"Perhaps. Or someone who has been following us."

"Terrific. Secret admirers are always a thrill, especially when they get mixed up with missing persons cases." I grabbed another clipping, this one spotlighting a photo of Margaret at a fund-raising event. "She was beautiful."

"She was," Alexander said to me, his arm tightening around my waist. "But she was also stubborn and independent, determined she could do everything for herself."

"Are you using me to remember your missing cousin? Because that would be either really romantic or really disturbing."

"I'm implying that the two of you share the same dangerous mix of fearlessness and curiosity that gets people noticed."

"Noticed by individuals such as our unnamed newspaper collector?"

"Amongst others."

I was just going to respond when I noticed something in one of the photos. Not Margaret this time, but the background. "Alexander, come see this."

"What am I looking at?"

"Doesn't that building at the rear of Margaret here look familiar?"

Alexander leaned in closer, studying the photograph. "Hard to tell from this angle."

"No, see the architectural details. The stonework, how the windows are set." I gestured to particular points. "I've painted this building before."

"What do you mean, you've painted it?"

"It was in one of my 'impossible' paintings—the ones where I somehow depict places I've never visited.”
A shiver ran down my spine. "I painted this very building, Alexander," I continued, "down to the masonry and the unusual spacing of the windows."

Alexander's body went motionless. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. I spent hours upon hours on those architectural elements, because they felt so important at the time." I looked up at him. "How could I have painted a building where Margaret had been photographed if I had never even seen this photograph before?"

"I don't know," said Alexander, his voice tight with worry. "But the implications give me the shakes."

"Which is?"

"That whoever sent this knows about your paintings. About your abilities."

The term hung in the air between us like a threat.
My odd ability to paint scenes I'd never experienced had been an intriguing oddity until recently.
It was starting to look like a bull's-eye painted on my back.

"Who do we call?" I said. "The police? Get more security? Or relocate to another penthouse?"

"First, let's figure out who sent this." Alexander piled the clippings on top of each other tidily. "Someone is trying to lead us to certain conclusions about Margaret's disappearance."

"Or somebody wants us to know they're watching us."

"Also possible."

I trembled, in spite of the warmth around Alexander's apartment.
"This is absolutely not how I envisioned our day off together."

“Hey," Alexander said, spinning me around to face him, his hands lightly on my shoulders.
"We'll work this out. Together."

"Promise?"

"Promise." He leaned in closer, his lips gentle against mine with persuasive pressure. "No one is going to hurt you, Elena. Whoever they are, whatever they want."

"My hero," I said, but the joke didn't even appeal to my own ears.

"Always," Alexander replied gravely.

We went through each clipping, searching for patterns or clues that would reveal to us the sender's identity for about an hour. Even though this was tiresome, Alexander's presence made it really endurable. With his arm draped around me, he would occasionally kiss my temple gently or press my hand when we stumbled upon especially disturbing headlines.

"You know what's weird?" I said, perusing a timeline that the sender had obviously created by organizing the articles in chronological order.

"Besides the apparent strangeness of someone following us around with newspaper articles?"

"The stories cover three years, but they are far from random. Somebody selected these specific stories about Margaret intentionally." I indicated the dates. "Look at the pattern."

Alexander examined my arrangement closely. "You're correct," he said. "These are not mere articles of her disappearance. They are individual reports that refer to individual details."

"Details regarding what?"

"Her artwork. Her travels. Where she'd traveled prior to her disappearance." Alexander's face became concerned. "Someone's charting Margaret's life with these articles."

"Why would they do that?"

"Perhaps they're attempting to discover what befell her. Or perhaps..." Alexander hesitated.

"Maybe what?"

"Perhaps they are attempting to find out something particular about her destination."

I was about to respond when something caught my eye and sent a chill down my veins.
In the corner of a very old newspaper photo, there it was—a place I knew all too well. Not from having depicted it on canvas, but from having stood in it.

"Alexander," I said slowly, my finger tracing the photo. "Isn't that?" while goosebumps crawled up my arms as I briefly went down memory lane.