37

That Jack Sullivan still lived filled him with fury. He’d been careless. He wouldn’t be careless with the detective again.

His art was more important than a handful of lives. Art at the level where he practiced it had to be protected.

He was living his dream at last, living to his full potential, and nobody was going to take that away from him. He’d always wanted to be an artist.

His father hadn’t approved, had refused to pay for art school. And the art school hadn’t given him a scholarship, unable to understand his art. He’d accepted then that they couldn’t have taught him anything anyway.

In hindsight, the rejection had been lucky. Anyone could be trained to a fair level of competence in anything, but creative genius was born. Structured instruction would have imposed restrictions on his vision.

The old fan chugged on in its valiant effort to distribute the heat from the antique woodstove in the corner. He didn’t really feel the cold. Creating always filled him with fire.

He manipul