take care of the police, and you’d think he was the mafia.
There was a rustling sound down the path, and Chip turned his chin in the direction of the trail.
Here they come.
As the first couple started toward him, Chip slid a broad stroke of purple across the white canvas, as lush and moody as the velvet curtains in his parents’ library. He smiled to himself and made a few more strokes here and there, zigzagging to follow the shadows of the hills beyond. Not too shabby.
Art wasn’t so hard. Just a little dip here, a little stroke there, and voilà. Masterpiece.
Chip heard footsteps stop behind him and felt heat rise on his neck. With purple already coating his brush, he moved over to the blue and hovered. What was he supposed to do now? The few times he’d painted in childhood he dipped his brush into water to rinse off the paint, but—he cast a quick glance to his neighbor and didn’t see any 24-ounce cup of murky water at his feet. There was some little glass bowl it seemed, but . . .
Forget it.
Chip dug the brush into the blue and made broad brushstrokes above the purple.
The people moved on.
This was fine, he told himself, trying not to pull at the neck of his suit coat as he glanced backward and saw several more people—no one he recognized, thank goodness—coming his way. This was fine.
That was the beautiful thing here, after all. He didn’t have to actually paint beautiful art, per se. He just had to remember what to say about beautiful art. After all, if someone could get away with putting a red circle on a canvas and hanging it in the Smithsonian, he could certainly get away with a few—albeit crude—purple and blue strokes. Some people appreciated the abstract. He’d fit in perfectly with them, if only he could remember his research notes.
Chip flicked his wrist over and nudged his watch an inch aside with the butt of his long brush. He had scribbled notes to himself on the inside of his arm, key words like emulsion and Suprematism. He pushed his sleeve back down and looked again to his canvas.
Twenty minutes later, his brush murky brown, he heard the familiar tinkle of a laugh behind him.
He jerked his head up.
There, thirty feet down the path, was his mother taking the lead as she, with both determination and steady grace, walked the dirt in cream-colored high heels. Her long cream kimono swished around her knees as she held a clipboard and chatted amiably whenever her group paused to admire an artist at work. Represented were a few bald heads he’d come to recognize over the years, those often dragged onto the board by overzealous wives. His mother turned her head as she pointed and said something to her companions, and there, shifting into focus, was the perfectly curled blond hair of Ashleigh, who was standing with hands clasped in front of her, an eager pupil.
Perfect.
Chip dropped his brush and palette on the ground before popping up his jacket collar, jamming his chin to his neck, and striding in the opposite direction toward the bench near the trees.
How on earth was a six-foot-three-inch man supposed to hide in plain sight? He was kidding himself to even try. His mother and his girlfriend would both recognize him a football-field length away. He turned his direction by degrees as he walked and, after glancing backward, stepped off the path and came to a hedge of trees and briar bushes. A slumped barbed-wire fence followed the line of trees, and beyond that several horses stood at the top of a hill, munching at grass. With care he walked around the briars and slipped through the fence. The horses didn’t look up.
This is still fine, he told himself, pulling his hands out of his pockets and wrapping them around his coat. Perfectly fine. Everything was going exactly according to plan. He’d just have to settle behind a sturdy tree and wait them out. Maybe sit down somewhere. Of course, the trees didn’t obscure him all that much. If he was spotted, he could always claim to be on a contemplative walk. Yes. That was it. Work had been particularly trying, and he needed a moment to reprioritize his life. His mother, who went to one of those sensory float tubs every Tuesday, would understand.
The volume of the group grew as they strolled closer, and Chip sat at the base of the biggest