Twice His, Once Deceieved

First Thaw

Alexander's:

She was still talking about the painting.

Alexander had asked where she'd been a simple question, the kind he'd ask any household staff member and somehow it had turned into this. Sandra standing in his living room, coat still on, describing a piece she'd seen at the Hartley Gallery the way other people described near death experiences.Her hands moved when she talked. He hadn't expected that."It was positioned so the light changed everything," she said. "If you stood left of center, the figure looked submerged. But if you moved right" She shifted her weight, demonstrating without thinking about it. "It was ascending. The same brushwork. Completely different emotional truth depending on where you stood."Interesting." The word came out before he could stop it.Sandra blinked. As if she'd forgotten he was capable of one.She wasn't wrong about the painting. He knew the series Moreau's trilogy, shown twice in Europe before Julian Cross brought it stateside. Alexander had seen the first piece in Geneva three years ago, stood in exactly the spot she was describing, felt the same jolt of recognition. He said none of this.He watched her instead, which was easier and considerably more dangerous."The owner was interesting too," she added. The animation in her face shifted slightly careful now, gauging his reaction. "Julian Cross. He has a good eye." "I'm aware of Cross." Alexander kept his voice neutral. "He has an excellent reputation." "He offered me his card. For future openings." "Did he."Not a question. He knew it didn't sound like one. He watched her register the flatness of it and draw her own conclusions wrong ones, probably, or maybe exactly right and he turned toward the window before she could read anything else in his face.

The garden lights were on. He'd had them installed three years ago and rarely looked at them."Are you hungry?" he asked. "Catherine left something. "I ate near the gallery." "Good."

A pause. He heard her shift behind him the small, almost inaudible adjustment of someone deciding whether to stay or go."Thank you," she said finally. "For asking."He didn't turn around. "It was a practical question." "I know." Another pause. "Goodnight, Alexander."Her footsteps moved toward the stairs. Quiet and even, the way she moved when she thought no one was tracking her.He was always tracking her. That was the problem.He poured two fingers of scotch and didn't drink it.She'd described that painting for six minutes. He'd counted, without intending to. She'd used the words luminous and intentional and emotionally dishonest that last one about a separate piece, something she'd dismissed in two sentences with the confidence of someone who genuinely knew what she was talking about.She had a degree in art history. He'd read the file. He'd dismissed it as background noise.He picked up the glass, set it back down.Herald appeared in the doorway at precisely the wrong moment, the way Herald always did."She's upstairs," he said, answering a question Alexander hadn't asked."I can see that."

"You watched her for four minutes before she noticed you were listening."I was in my own living room."Herald's expression was carefully blank which, after twelve years, Alexander could read perfectly. It was the expression that meant he had something to say and was calculating the odds of Alexander throwing him out...Say it, Alexander said."She's not what you expected."

"She's fine."That's not what I said."Alexander finally picked up the scotch. "Go home, Herald."

"I live here during the week."Then go to your room."Herald went. Halfway down the hall, he stopped."She called you cold, by the way." His voice was conversational. "In her first call with her friend. Catherine mentioned it."I am cold."

"You asked her if she was hungry."It was...."

"A practical question. Yes. Goodnight, sir."

Alexander stood alone in the living room for a long time after that.The test was supposed to be simple. Present Sandra Holt with a masked stranger, see who she confided in, see what she revealed, measure her character against the space she was given. Two weeks, maybe three. Enough data to know whether she could be trusted.She'd described an ascending figure in a painting and made him forget, for approximately thirty seconds, that he was supposed to be measuring anything at all.He finished the scotch. Went upstairs to his wing. Changed clothes.

Pulled the mask from the drawer.He'd give it twenty minutes. Just to check in. Standard maintenance of the test.He told himself this was purely strategic. He told himself it clearly and with conviction and he almost believed it.

Sandra was already on the balcony when he climbed up from the side terrace. She was leaning on the railing with her coat still on, looking at the garden lights she'd said she loved that first night before she'd known he could hear her."You're late," she said, without turning around.He settled against the railing beside her. "You were counting." "I wasn't." A beat. "Maybe."

The night was cold and clear, the kind of San Francisco cold that came without warning and stayed. She'd tucked her chin into her collar. He could see her breath."Tell me about your day," he said.She turned then surprised, the way she always was when Zane asked something Alexander never would.And she told him everything.The gallery. The painting. The owner with the good eye and the warm handshake. The six minutes in front of a piece that showed two different truths depending on where you stood. She talked the way she'd talked in the living room, hands moving, voice lifting on the words she meant most.Alexander stood beside her and listened to his wife describe their living room conversation to him as if he hadn't been standing in it.As if he hadn't been listening then too."...and my husband was there when I got back," she said. The warmth in her voice shifted. Not gone, just recalibrated. "First time he's asked where I've been."How did that feel?" "Strange." She considered. "He seemed almost...." She stopped. "Never mind. He went back to normal before I could figure it out."Alexander looked at the garden lights. "What does normal look like?"

"Polite," she said. "Distant. Like I'm staff he doesn't want to fire."The words landed without drama. That was the worst part she wasn't angry, wasn't performing hurt. She was just describing what she saw. Accurately."Maybe," he said carefully, "he doesn't know how to be anything else yet."She was quiet for a moment. "That's a generous read." "Is it wrong?"She looked up at him at Zane's mask, at the eyes behind it that were his own eyes, seeing her clearly for the first time. "I don't know," she said. "I hope not."

He stayed another hour. He told himself he'd leave at the fortyminute mark, then at the fifty.

When she finally went inside cold, she said, not tired she paused with her hand on the door.

"Same time tomorrow?" "Yes," he said. No hesitation. No calculation.She smiled the unguarded one, the one she didn't seem to know she had and went inside.Alexander stood on the balcony alone and looked at the garden lights he'd installed three years ago and never looked at.He looked at them for a long time.