Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,44

me feel that way. Then my gaze traveled to the grungy seventy-one square feet I had left to clean and I groaned, rubbing my shoulder. This would take me forever, and it was only the first step in the restoration. I would have to pick up the pace.

I didn’t eat lunch with Adam and Wyatt and the other construction workers on the front lawn, despite their invitation to join them. I wasn’t ready to make idle conversation with anyone—did I still know how? I noticed Oliver didn’t eat with them, either. He stayed in his office, the door closed. So I walked to a nearby café called Nothing Fancy, savoring the music of Post Malone and Maroon 5 in my ears. I ordered a takeout chicken-salad sandwich and sat on a bench outside to eat it. I thought about the AA meeting I’d attended the night before. It had felt strange, being at an AA meeting with a group of nonprisoners, not to mention being in a meeting with mostly men. I hadn’t shared. Hadn’t uttered a word except when I asked the guy leading the meeting if he’d sign the form proving I’d attended. I was done with drinking, and listening to everyone’s sad stories only irritated me. I hadn’t had a drink in fourteen months. Even without the monitor on my ankle, I knew I was finished with it.

By four o’clock, I’d cleaned twelve of the squares and my work had given definition to part of a fishing vessel in the upper left of the painting as well as to the right arm of the hunky blond guy in the lower portion. Slowly, I came to realize the man was not holding a length of wood as I’d originally thought, but rather an ax, and something was dripping from the blade. Sap? I gently moved my cotton-tipped dowel over the lowest corner of the blade and gasped. The glistening drops were bright red. They could only represent one thing: blood. I stood back from the mural, clutching the dowel in my hand. Only a third of the man’s face had been cleaned and the paint was partly abraded, but I could see that he smiled. That he was handsome. That he seemed completely oblivious to the blood dripping from his ax. I felt a little sick. I thought of the newspaper image of Anna Dale. What had gone on in that strange head of hers?

I was dying to show what I’d uncovered to Oliver, but he was shopping for supplies, so I continued working. An hour later, I realized that I was no longer hearing the background sounds of hammers and saws and the pop of nail guns. I pulled out my earbuds and could tell that the guys were finishing up in the rear of the gallery. I would keep going, though. I had plenty more to do and nothing waiting for me back at Lisa’s.

Wyatt came into the foyer as I wound a fresh piece of cotton on the pointed end of the dowel. His dreadlocks were loose now, hanging long over his shoulders.

“Damn, girl, that’s rad,” he said, checking out the cleaned portion of the mural. “I had no clue that thing was so trashed.”

I felt myself beam. “Totally changes it,” I said.

His grin turned to a frown and he moved nearer to the painting. “Is that blood on his ax?”

I nodded. “I think our artist was a little whacked.”

“Ya think?” he said, then looked at me. “We’re all goin’ over to Waterman’s for a drink. Come with us?”

Oh, hell no, I thought. I could imagine the seductive smell of the place. The beer cold and foamy in tall glasses. Watching everybody drink while I nursed a Coke. Not a good idea.

“I can’t,” I said. A guy at the AA meeting had talked about focusing on his accounting business to keep from drinking. “I’m going to do some more work here.”

“All work and no play…” Wyatt teased.

“I know.” I smiled. “Have a good time.”

Another half hour passed before Oliver walked into the gallery, a soft leather briefcase in his hand. He stopped in the middle of the foyer to look at what I’d accomplished.

“That … is … awesome,” he said, loudly enough for me to hear with my earbuds in. “What do you think?”

I pulled out my earbuds. “I think I need to find a massage place,” I said with a laugh.

“You deserve it,” he said. “Seriously, great work today. Have you found any flaking