“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Do you know where Mom is?”
“Mom?” Caroline asked in a whisper, the question directed at Simone, not Misty. Simone frowned. The hair and eyes were different, but she could see it now, around the jaw and cheekbones. She looked around the room again, not wanting to look at Misty. She could guess what had happened.
“Your mom brings you the Foam?” Simone asked. Misty didn’t move for a moment, then nodded. “Since you were little?” Again, a long pause, then a nod. Caroline stepped closer to Simone.
“Sometimes,” Misty said suddenly, as though she were in the middle of a conversation already, “I wanted to do other things. But Mom always said I was too good at painting. I had to paint.” She gestured sleepily with the hand that held the cigarette, then dropped it.
“So she brought you the Foam,” Simone said sadly, “and you got more when you painted.” Misty didn’t say anything but looked up again and, for a moment, seemed to see Simone and Caroline.
“So where’s my Foam? I finished the paintings.” Her eyes unfocused again, and her vision dropped back to the nothingness in front of her. Simone stepped around her and headed towards the table. Caroline followed her.
“Whose daughter is she?” Caroline asked.
“Linnea’s,” Simone said. She didn’t want to think about that now, though. She headed for the easel. It was covered. Behind it, in the shadows, leaning against the walls, was a stack of at least two dozen canvases, also covered. Simone heard a sudden scraping of a chair being pushed back and turned. Misty was looking around the room as though she’d just woken up there, taken from her bed. She was afraid.
“Where’s my mommy?” she yelled. “Mommy?” Caroline looked at Simone, clearly unsure of what to do and uncomfortable with being unsure about anything. Simone walked back over to Misty and pinned her arms at her sides. She was frail and went limp quickly, but she kept staring at Simone, her eyes huge and terrified.
“Your mom isn’t coming,” Simone said. “But that’s okay.” Better than okay, she thought, considering what Linnea had done. “This lady here is going to make a call, and some people are going to come and keep you safe and get you better.” She turned back around to Caroline, who was already dialing on her wristpiece. “Why don’t you sit back down?” She placed Misty back in the chair, where she shook like a sick dog. Simone hovered behind her, waiting for the shaking to subside, but it didn’t. She walked back over to Caroline, who was hanging up the phone.
“I called in a favor. I got a friend at the hospital to put her in their rehab program. Ambulance-boat will be here in a few.” She paused and looked over Simone’s shoulder at Misty, then back at Simone. “Her mother was her dealer?”
Simone nodded. “Used it to get her to focus on painting. A lot of artists use Foam for clarity. Linnea used it to make her daughter into a little forging machine. That’s probably how she made all her money back in Europe.”
Caroline took a deep breath and shook her head. “Sometimes I feel like we never really survived the flood, y’know? Like we’re all underwater.”
“Like we’re all drowning.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Simone put her hand on Caroline’s shoulder for a moment, then walked back to the covered easel. In the distance was the sound of the ambulance-boat’s sirens. Simone pulled the cloth off the easel and stared at the painting—the one people had killed and died for, the one that would “save” New York, if that was even possible. It wasn’t much, she thought. Just lines and colors. It didn’t resonate in her soul, give her an experience, bring a tear to her eye, the way Circe had. But it did tell her who had killed Henry.
FIFTEEN
OUTSIDE, THE DARK CLOUDS had reached the city, and a light rain began to patter on the windows. Caroline walked around the room, shutting the open windows. Then she came back to Simone. Simone ignored her and the EMTs who were trying to give Misty a shot of tranquilizer before taking her back to the hospital.
“You keep staring at that thing like you understand it. If you want to know where it marks, we have to find an old map and compare it to the new map to see where it is now.”
“No we don’t.”
“Why not?”
It was a painting of a smiling young couple looking at each other lovingly. The woman proudly held out a key. Her hair spun out around her and turned into streets. His jacket did the same. Parts of their bodies were missing, replaced by map, but their expression was clear, as was the loading dock in the background with the shipping crate on it—the box clearly marked with the C-Rail logo. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but, with the water at their feet, Simone could see how people could think of this painting as a treasure map. There was one other thing that was perfectly clear: his boots—old-fashioned rain boots, bright blue, with little ducks on them.
Behind her, Simone could hear Misty murmuring, “Nononononono.”
She called Danny. He didn’t pick up, but she left a message: “Can you find me the address for Louise Freth? ASAP. Thanks.” She hung up and turned around. Caroline was glaring. Behind her, Misty was backing away from an EMT with a jet injector. Simone knew she should help them—help Misty—but her body felt too heavy, almost soggy with sadness. She hadn’t expected much from Linnea, but it was a lot more than this. She had liked Lou, too. Maybe thought that when she was older, grayer—if she even lived that long—she’d be like her. Sad, maybe, but tough, and smoking real tobacco cigarettes.
Simone explored the room further. The dresser had some clothes in it, and a drawer with two plane tickets to the EU for Misty and Linnea Frost. Matching fake IRIDs, too. Good quality. Simone put them back and took a deep breath.
“You said you’d stop hiding things,” Caroline said. Simone turned around. The EMTs were closing in on Misty.
“I know. I’m just sad is all.” The EMT lunged at Misty with the injector; Misty dodged, but the other EMT grabbed her. She struggled animally, her moans primal and terrifying as the wail of a storm. Simone turned away.
“Who’s Louise Freth?”
“Henry’s partner. Older woman. I liked her. That’s her in the painting. I think that tunnel, if it exists, is in her apartment building.”
“So how does that tell you who killed Henry?” Simone made the mistake of looking back at Caroline. Behind her, the EMT with the injector pressed it to Misty’s throat, and she fell back limp in the other’s arms. Simone looked down to avoid watching them lift her body.
“Wait,” Simone called to the EMTs after she’d heard the knock of them laying Misty’s body down on a gurney. She walked towards them as they glanced up, then looked over at Caroline. They knew where the power was. “Can you put a sheet over her? And under the gurney, can you hide these?” She gestured at the forged paintings. “We need to smuggle them out.”
“Why?” Caroline asked. She was getting angry again.
“Because if I were Dash, I’d be following me. And all he wants is the painting. We’re going to smuggle all these out. Dash’ll come in, assuming we found the paintings, and not find them—I’ll take the chance to lose him. I’ll call Peter and have him meet you and the EMTs at the hospital to recover the paintings. Then you can decide what to do with them. I’m going to go see Lou.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know why she did this. I want to give her a chance to turn herself in.”
“She did it because Henry stole the painting from her, if it’s hers,” Caroline said, putting her hands on her hips.
“She’s not someone who would kill over a painting,” Simone said. Her earpiece buzzed, and she answered without checking the ID. Caroline crossed her arms.