Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,16
toward the top of the roll, which reached a good two feet above Lisa’s head. “Eight feet, at least,” I said. The outside of the roll was covered in muslin. I pulled away a piece of the fabric to find the unpainted border of the canvas beneath it. I touched the canvas, gingerly, afraid it might disintegrate beneath my fingertips and steal my job and my freedom from me before I even began, but the canvas felt firm to my touch.
“Well,” Lisa said with a reluctant-sounding sigh. “Might as well get a look at this thing.”
I watched her disappear through an interior doorway to another part of the gallery, calling the name “Oliver.” Soon she returned with three men, two of them wearing sweaty sleeveless tees and multipocketed khaki workpants, the third in a green T-shirt and jeans. They looked at me and I felt their scrutiny. The two in the workpants were about my age, the third closer to thirty. They were the first men I’d seen besides prison guards in over a year. Their presence, their earthy scent, their very existence—especially the green-eyed blond guy who, except for his man bun, looked a lot like Trey—felt intoxicating. All my nerve endings were suddenly on fire.
“You the painter?” one of them asked. He was as dark skinned as Lisa and wore dreadlocks pulled together into a long plait down his back.
“Yes,” I said.
“Morgan is the art restorer,” Lisa corrected him. Hearing the falsehood out loud made me wince. “Morgan, this is Wyatt.” Lisa nodded to the guy with the dreadlocks. She looked at the phone that seemed perpetually glued to her hand, but kept talking. “Wyatt’s head of construction,” she said. “And this is Adam, second in command.” She pointed toward the blond guy, whose left arm, shoulder to wrist, was encircled by the tattoo of a snake. Not very subtle, I thought. “And this is Oliver Jones, our curator in charge of the art.”
Oliver was the older of the three by eight or nine years and he held his hand out to me with a smile. “Welcome,” he said. “Glad you’re here.” He was tall with a techie look about him. Fair skinned, his cheeks boyishly tinted with pink as though he’d just come in from the cold. Angular features and thick dark hair that swept his forehead. Behind his black horn-rimmed glasses, his eyes were so blue I wondered if he was wearing tinted contacts.
“Hi.” I shook his hand, and when I let go, my gaze returned to Adam. He really did look like Trey. It wasn’t just my imagination trying to torment me. He had Trey’s not-too-tall, not-too-short build. Trey’s broad chest. He stared at me. I was used to it. It was my hair. Shoulder length, deep bangs, naturally blond. From the time I was very small, I’d felt its power—the only power I’d had.
I pulled my gaze away from Adam, annoyed with myself for feeling any attraction to him. I should be repelled instead. I turned back to the rolled canvas. “Can I see the mural?” I asked.
“Mm,” Lisa said, glancing one more time at the phone in her hand before she lowered it to her side. “Let’s get that thing opened up.”
The men moved as a group toward the rolled canvas.
“Better get out of the way,” Wyatt said, and Lisa and I moved back toward the door.
“I’ve been so curious to see this thing,” Oliver said as the three men tipped the rolled mural onto its side and moved it into the center of the room. He pulled a utility knife from his jeans pocket and cut the straps holding the canvas in place. Then the three of them began slowly unrolling the canvas over the floor.
“The paint’s on the wrong side,” Adam said as the back of the canvas was revealed.
“No,” Oliver said. “Actually, whoever rolled this did it the right way. Paint side out. Covered it in muslin to protect it.”
“I remember my father telling me it had originally been rolled paint side in, though,” Lisa said. I glanced at her and could see that she had a death grip on her phone. She was as worried as I was about what we would find. “I don’t know for how long,” Lisa continued. “Hopefully it didn’t do too much damage.”
The men had finished unrolling the canvas, which had been wrapped around an enormous, thick, sturdy cardboard tube. Adam and Wyatt rolled the tube aside.