Art in the Blood - Chapter Twelve
Jun. 12th, 2025 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo we've made it to the final chapter. And maybe some reveals!
So, last chapter ended with the idea that Jack was going to need some witnesses. Obviously, one will be Escott. The other, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Alex Adrian. Alex is maybe not in the best shape for all of this, admittedly. Jack admits to us that he's already asked a lot of him, and there's going to be more. He wonders how much Alex can stand.
Alex is already pretty useful, pointing out a servant's entrance to Reva and Brett's house. They go inside.
It's kind of a full circle sort of thing. The story, essentially, began here: the party, Bobbi performing and Jack meeting the artists. Now, of course, it's late at night and very empty.
They go to Leighton Brett's studio, where there are a line of wet canvases, covering many subjects. Jack investigates them, comparing them to smears on a palette. They seem to match, but Jack isn't an expert and figures they'd have to "work it from the fingerprint angle".
Around this time, Leighton Brett shows up. He's puzzled and curious but not hostile. It doesn't take long to put him under hypnosis.
Alex, by the way, watches "with caution" but isn't afraid. He asks if this is what Jack did with Evan, and how he's able to do it. But it's really not the best time to explain. (There is kind of a cute tangent about how Jack and Escott had speculated on it.)
They go back to looking at the paintings. Jack might not know what he's looking at, but Escott does. He finds that the supporting frame of one of the wet paintings is a different construction: homemade instead of commercial. Alex confirms that Sandra and Evan made their own canvases, as they couldn't afford to buy them pre-stretched.
Escott also notes that the fabric's weave pattern is different and there's some fingerprints in the paint. So this, obviously, is the missing painting from Sandra's home. And physical evidence of the crime.
So now, it's time for answers.
They question Brett about taking paintings from Sandra. He says he did, justifying it because they "were his". This puzzles our heroes, but Alex translates from artist to regular guy: the paintings were done in his style.
Brett, it comes out, murdered Sandra, because she'd "stolen from him". Basically, she'd been imitating his style to sell her paintings to local decorators and interior designers. Per Brett, she "stole [his] vision and method, [his] ideas, and sold them for pennies."
Alex ends up being very useful in this interrogation, because, as a pretty narcissistic guy, Brett latches onto him as the one who'd understand. Alex does understand, and he narrows in on why Brett really killed Sandra.
He demonstrates it by putting one of Brett's paintings next to Sandra's. Sandra's is the better work.
Brett then tries to pass the buck onto Jack. If you remember from the beginning: Jack is the one who'd noticed the painting in Gordy's office that looked so much like Brett's work (and remember, he'd liked Gordy's painting better). That had been one of Sandra's. Jack's innocent questions led to Leighton learning who sold the paintings, and from them, who painted them.
Fortunately, Jack doesn't get a chance for self-flagellation here, because Alex won't let Brett shift the blame. Whatever Jack had said, he never said to kill Sandra.
Brett starts apologizing for losing his temper, and then, to EVERYONE's surprise, he says that it's "just like before".
And that's when it comes out: Brett is the one who killed Celia too. Because he'd been the one that Celia was sleeping with. But Celia, after the confrontation with Alex, apparently had decided to go back to her husband. She'd written Brett a note, breaking it off.
They'd both been drinking, they argued, and Celia eventually passed out drunk. Brett took her home, left her in her running car with the break-up note - now interpreted as a suicide note.
Poor Alex flees the scene. Escott sends Jack after him, and stays to watch Brett. (Escott, it's noted, is pretty irked at having been hired by Brett to keep tabs on the murder investigation.) He puts Brett to work, writing his confession.
So Alex and Jack share a moment. Alex is pretty understandably overwrought. He asks if Jack had known about this. Jack had figured out Sandra, but not Celia. Alex compares Jack to "Nemesis", stating that it's the wrong gender but appropriate.
Jack admits that while he didn't know Brett killed Celia, he had been looking for her murderer. He tells Brett about Barbara's involvement, and how no one who knew Alex even casually had ever believed that he'd done it. And Jack never believed it was suicide. At least not since seeing Alex's portrait of her.
It might be worth unpacking this actually:
He’d painted the whole woman, her beauty, the guarded happiness, and the thin line of selfishness lodged in one corner of her mouth. In ten years that line would have taken over most of her face; in twenty, she’d have been quite ugly. The girl I had killed had been selfish, and I’d taken pains to make sure her death had looked like suicide. The parallel between her and Celia had gotten stuck in the back of my mind, so far back I hadn’t thought of it until now. I hadn’t wanted to think of it.
“Why?” he repeated.
Because by finding the truth behind one suicide and freeing Adrian of his guilt I could somehow expiate my own crime, or at least learn how to live with it as Gordy had advised me.
Because in my experience—and by now I did have experience—selfish people don’t kill themselves. They have to have help.
This is the first book in the series where the "mystery" isn't personal to Jack. But the previous books happened. And lines were crossed.
And Jack is very conspicuously avoiding even thinking about Laura's name. This book was something of a reprieve from the personal drama of the prior books...but I suspect that reprieve will not last.
Alex does pick up that there's more behind Jack's motives, but he's willing to accept Jack's explanation that it's important only to him.
Jack has one more offer for Alex: he can take the pain away. Alex can remember what happened, but it won't be quite so painful. And I feel like this might be a significant beat for Jack himself: this is an offer he can make freely. A choice he can offer Alex.
Alex turns him down, at least for now. He can stand it, and he thinks it'll be exorcised soon enough: when they turn Leighton Brett in to the police. Alex personally hopes for the Death Penalty. Understandably.
Their conversation drifts from Reva (Jack thinks this will be hell for her, Alex is a bit more dismissive - but he's going through his own shit) to Evan, and the chilling realization that Evan was going to be staying at Brett's. And he'd have recognized his sister's work. Since Brett clearly hadn't destroyed the paintings (they speculate that he intended to finish them and pass them off as his own work), then he'd probably intended to kill Evan too.
We end up with a bit of a time skip. Brett, we're told, is found guilty of first-degree murder for Celia and second-degree for Sandra. He does avoid the death penalty, because of his obvious contrition.
The downside to hypnotizing a confession out of a guy, I suppose. Escott and Adrian were the witnesses. Their story is that Escott, hired by Brett, became suspicious and started looking into things, and started working with Adrian. Brett crumbled quickly when they questioned him.
Jack thinks it's a lousy story, but every buys it. (Escott's view is that people will believe the most impossible things that they hear on the radio or see in the papers, and this fairly simple situation won't be interesting for very long.)
We learn that Brett's art got sold off - at a premium given his notoriety. Reva gave the gallery's commission to charity, but she's doing well. Per Evan (who is in this scene), she's promised to sell his work.
Actually, Bobbi and Jack are at Alex's studio to see the unveiled work. Apparently, after everything, Alex has finally been able to move past his artist's block. It's almost Christmas, and the painting of Bobbi is done.
And maybe there's a bit more to it:
Evan had promised that Adrian would do a painting that would knock our eyes out and he hadn’t exaggerated one bit. Bobbi’s vibrancy, beauty, and sensuality crackled off the canvas like electricity from a summer storm. It was the kind of painting that made you realize why people loved art for its own sake, but then it was by Alex Adrian, and I had expected nothing less than a masterpiece.
The one thing I didn’t expect to see was myself in the painting as well.
“What gives?”
Bobbi laughed at my puzzlement, and now I understood all her suppressed excitement. “Merry Christmas, Jack.”
Aw.
As in his original sketch, Adrian had her reclining on a low couch, loosely wrapped in some timeless white garment that clung to her figure. She looked like a slightly worldly angel about to become more worldly than heaven might want to allow. One hand rested along the top back of the couch and was covered by one of my own. I loomed over her in sober black, but he’d somehow managed to make me look ghostly and ethereal in comparison.
The background was dark, neutral chaos with my figure emerging out of the swirling non-pattern. Where my hand touched Bobbi’s I was quite solid and real. It should have looked ominous and threatening, but did not. This was what he’d seen that night months back in the garage when I dived out of thin air to save his life. He’d said it had been beautiful and here he’d found a place to record his vision.
I don't think Alex is in any other book, which makes me a little sad. I feel like he'd be a good addition to the polycule.
And thus, with a little deadpan banter, the story ends.
And I get to decide on what I'm reviewing in this slot next time.
So, last chapter ended with the idea that Jack was going to need some witnesses. Obviously, one will be Escott. The other, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Alex Adrian. Alex is maybe not in the best shape for all of this, admittedly. Jack admits to us that he's already asked a lot of him, and there's going to be more. He wonders how much Alex can stand.
Alex is already pretty useful, pointing out a servant's entrance to Reva and Brett's house. They go inside.
It's kind of a full circle sort of thing. The story, essentially, began here: the party, Bobbi performing and Jack meeting the artists. Now, of course, it's late at night and very empty.
They go to Leighton Brett's studio, where there are a line of wet canvases, covering many subjects. Jack investigates them, comparing them to smears on a palette. They seem to match, but Jack isn't an expert and figures they'd have to "work it from the fingerprint angle".
Around this time, Leighton Brett shows up. He's puzzled and curious but not hostile. It doesn't take long to put him under hypnosis.
Alex, by the way, watches "with caution" but isn't afraid. He asks if this is what Jack did with Evan, and how he's able to do it. But it's really not the best time to explain. (There is kind of a cute tangent about how Jack and Escott had speculated on it.)
They go back to looking at the paintings. Jack might not know what he's looking at, but Escott does. He finds that the supporting frame of one of the wet paintings is a different construction: homemade instead of commercial. Alex confirms that Sandra and Evan made their own canvases, as they couldn't afford to buy them pre-stretched.
Escott also notes that the fabric's weave pattern is different and there's some fingerprints in the paint. So this, obviously, is the missing painting from Sandra's home. And physical evidence of the crime.
So now, it's time for answers.
They question Brett about taking paintings from Sandra. He says he did, justifying it because they "were his". This puzzles our heroes, but Alex translates from artist to regular guy: the paintings were done in his style.
Brett, it comes out, murdered Sandra, because she'd "stolen from him". Basically, she'd been imitating his style to sell her paintings to local decorators and interior designers. Per Brett, she "stole [his] vision and method, [his] ideas, and sold them for pennies."
Alex ends up being very useful in this interrogation, because, as a pretty narcissistic guy, Brett latches onto him as the one who'd understand. Alex does understand, and he narrows in on why Brett really killed Sandra.
He demonstrates it by putting one of Brett's paintings next to Sandra's. Sandra's is the better work.
Brett then tries to pass the buck onto Jack. If you remember from the beginning: Jack is the one who'd noticed the painting in Gordy's office that looked so much like Brett's work (and remember, he'd liked Gordy's painting better). That had been one of Sandra's. Jack's innocent questions led to Leighton learning who sold the paintings, and from them, who painted them.
Fortunately, Jack doesn't get a chance for self-flagellation here, because Alex won't let Brett shift the blame. Whatever Jack had said, he never said to kill Sandra.
Brett starts apologizing for losing his temper, and then, to EVERYONE's surprise, he says that it's "just like before".
And that's when it comes out: Brett is the one who killed Celia too. Because he'd been the one that Celia was sleeping with. But Celia, after the confrontation with Alex, apparently had decided to go back to her husband. She'd written Brett a note, breaking it off.
They'd both been drinking, they argued, and Celia eventually passed out drunk. Brett took her home, left her in her running car with the break-up note - now interpreted as a suicide note.
Poor Alex flees the scene. Escott sends Jack after him, and stays to watch Brett. (Escott, it's noted, is pretty irked at having been hired by Brett to keep tabs on the murder investigation.) He puts Brett to work, writing his confession.
So Alex and Jack share a moment. Alex is pretty understandably overwrought. He asks if Jack had known about this. Jack had figured out Sandra, but not Celia. Alex compares Jack to "Nemesis", stating that it's the wrong gender but appropriate.
Jack admits that while he didn't know Brett killed Celia, he had been looking for her murderer. He tells Brett about Barbara's involvement, and how no one who knew Alex even casually had ever believed that he'd done it. And Jack never believed it was suicide. At least not since seeing Alex's portrait of her.
It might be worth unpacking this actually:
He’d painted the whole woman, her beauty, the guarded happiness, and the thin line of selfishness lodged in one corner of her mouth. In ten years that line would have taken over most of her face; in twenty, she’d have been quite ugly. The girl I had killed had been selfish, and I’d taken pains to make sure her death had looked like suicide. The parallel between her and Celia had gotten stuck in the back of my mind, so far back I hadn’t thought of it until now. I hadn’t wanted to think of it.
“Why?” he repeated.
Because by finding the truth behind one suicide and freeing Adrian of his guilt I could somehow expiate my own crime, or at least learn how to live with it as Gordy had advised me.
Because in my experience—and by now I did have experience—selfish people don’t kill themselves. They have to have help.
This is the first book in the series where the "mystery" isn't personal to Jack. But the previous books happened. And lines were crossed.
And Jack is very conspicuously avoiding even thinking about Laura's name. This book was something of a reprieve from the personal drama of the prior books...but I suspect that reprieve will not last.
Alex does pick up that there's more behind Jack's motives, but he's willing to accept Jack's explanation that it's important only to him.
Jack has one more offer for Alex: he can take the pain away. Alex can remember what happened, but it won't be quite so painful. And I feel like this might be a significant beat for Jack himself: this is an offer he can make freely. A choice he can offer Alex.
Alex turns him down, at least for now. He can stand it, and he thinks it'll be exorcised soon enough: when they turn Leighton Brett in to the police. Alex personally hopes for the Death Penalty. Understandably.
Their conversation drifts from Reva (Jack thinks this will be hell for her, Alex is a bit more dismissive - but he's going through his own shit) to Evan, and the chilling realization that Evan was going to be staying at Brett's. And he'd have recognized his sister's work. Since Brett clearly hadn't destroyed the paintings (they speculate that he intended to finish them and pass them off as his own work), then he'd probably intended to kill Evan too.
We end up with a bit of a time skip. Brett, we're told, is found guilty of first-degree murder for Celia and second-degree for Sandra. He does avoid the death penalty, because of his obvious contrition.
The downside to hypnotizing a confession out of a guy, I suppose. Escott and Adrian were the witnesses. Their story is that Escott, hired by Brett, became suspicious and started looking into things, and started working with Adrian. Brett crumbled quickly when they questioned him.
Jack thinks it's a lousy story, but every buys it. (Escott's view is that people will believe the most impossible things that they hear on the radio or see in the papers, and this fairly simple situation won't be interesting for very long.)
We learn that Brett's art got sold off - at a premium given his notoriety. Reva gave the gallery's commission to charity, but she's doing well. Per Evan (who is in this scene), she's promised to sell his work.
Actually, Bobbi and Jack are at Alex's studio to see the unveiled work. Apparently, after everything, Alex has finally been able to move past his artist's block. It's almost Christmas, and the painting of Bobbi is done.
And maybe there's a bit more to it:
Evan had promised that Adrian would do a painting that would knock our eyes out and he hadn’t exaggerated one bit. Bobbi’s vibrancy, beauty, and sensuality crackled off the canvas like electricity from a summer storm. It was the kind of painting that made you realize why people loved art for its own sake, but then it was by Alex Adrian, and I had expected nothing less than a masterpiece.
The one thing I didn’t expect to see was myself in the painting as well.
“What gives?”
Bobbi laughed at my puzzlement, and now I understood all her suppressed excitement. “Merry Christmas, Jack.”
Aw.
As in his original sketch, Adrian had her reclining on a low couch, loosely wrapped in some timeless white garment that clung to her figure. She looked like a slightly worldly angel about to become more worldly than heaven might want to allow. One hand rested along the top back of the couch and was covered by one of my own. I loomed over her in sober black, but he’d somehow managed to make me look ghostly and ethereal in comparison.
The background was dark, neutral chaos with my figure emerging out of the swirling non-pattern. Where my hand touched Bobbi’s I was quite solid and real. It should have looked ominous and threatening, but did not. This was what he’d seen that night months back in the garage when I dived out of thin air to save his life. He’d said it had been beautiful and here he’d found a place to record his vision.
I don't think Alex is in any other book, which makes me a little sad. I feel like he'd be a good addition to the polycule.
And thus, with a little deadpan banter, the story ends.
And I get to decide on what I'm reviewing in this slot next time.