Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,134

asked. “He never even met me. If he heard about me from one of my teachers, he didn’t hear anything encouraging.”

“Maybe that’s how he knew you needed his help. You know how much he liked fixing people.” He set the journal on the table next to his computer. “Think about it, Morgan,” he said. “You came here scared and unsure of yourself, kind of angry, a little screwed up, feeling put upon, and—face it—not very interested in restoring this painting.” He nodded toward the mural again. “Not interested in restoration at all. Now you’re hooked, aren’t you? Hooked on Anna Dale. Hooked on the whole process. And you’ve done an awesome job.” He smiled. “The student has become the master.”

I felt the blush creeping up my neck to my cheeks. I didn’t buy that last compliment, but he was right about the rest of it. “Thank you,” I said. I looked past him to the journal. “I just wish we knew what happened to her.”

“What do you mean, what happened to her? How does the journal end?” He picked up the journal but I stopped him before he could begin flipping the pages again.

“From the beginning,” I said. “You have to understand what she went through.”

The sound of slamming car doors—most likely from Wyatt and Adam’s truck—echoed through the foyer. They were going to help Oliver with the installation of the art today, while I continued working on the mural. I should have spent the night painting instead of reading. I glanced at Oliver. “Gotta get to work,” I said, and I crossed the foyer to my paints and brushes and the strange mural I had come to love.

Chapter 60

August 3–4, 2018

I worked on the mural all that day and into the evening while the guys hung paintings throughout the gallery. Oliver had read the journal early that morning and whenever he passed through the foyer, he and I would speculate about what might have happened to Anna. It was an intellectual exercise for Oliver, I thought, but for me, it was something more. I found myself choking up as I inpainted the scratches on the little skull in the window of the Mill Village house, thinking of the confusion and anguish Anna had experienced as she painted it.

Lisa arrived at six thirty carrying two huge boxes of pizza, designed, I was sure, to keep us all working in the gallery without a good long dinner break—not that I’d planned to break for dinner anyway. Oliver took the boxes from Lisa and set them down on the folding table, and I swiveled in my seat to face them.

“Oliver and I have something mind-blowing to show you,” I said, paintbrush and palette still in my hands.

“What?” Lisa looked even more frazzled than usual. Her linen business suit was wrinkled and a lock of her hair was coming loose from the ponytail at the nape of her neck.

Oliver handed her the journal. “You need to read this,” he said.

I set down my brush and palette and got up from my chair to walk toward them. “Saundra brought it over,” I said, “along with these sketches of her family that she thought were Jesse’s.” I handed the sheaf of sketch paper to Lisa. “But they’re not Jesse’s,” I said. “They’re actually Anna Dale’s.”

“What?” Lisa asked. “Why would Saundra have anything of Anna Dale’s?”

“You have to read the journal,” Oliver said.

Lisa looked annoyed. She glanced at her phone. “You’ll just have to tell me what it says,” she said, setting down the journal and the portraits. “I don’t have time to read anything right now.”

“The journal’s incredible, Lisa,” I said. “It explains all about the—”

“Not you.” Lisa waved a hand toward me. “You keep working. Oliver can tell me.”

“I can talk while I work.” I walked back to my seat in front of the mural, and Oliver and I told Lisa the whole story of Anna Dale in Edenton.

“My God,” Lisa said when we’d finished. By that time, she’d stopped looking at her phone every few seconds and was sitting in Oliver’s chair, leafing through the sketches. “I wonder what ever became of her?”

“Wish we knew,” Oliver said.

“Well,” she said, getting to her feet. “No point in wondering about it right now. We have bigger things to deal with at the moment.” She turned to Oliver. “Do you have all the … the write-ups about each piece ready to go?” she asked.

“They’re all ready to slip into their frames and get on the walls,”