31.

After he's done talking, Jude watches Sylvia drift to the corner of DuBois's attic and sit there in silence. Gatz, who Sylvia also insisted be present for these explanations and about which Jude was too tired to argue, drifts off into a similarly suspended state of being.

Jude can do nothing. He's said everything he can; he's said more than he ever wanted to. Now he just waits.

"You're...psychic," Gatz says, and Jude is glad something's broken the silence, even if it's erroneous. "That's what you're telling us?"

"It's not—psychic, necessarily," Jude amends. "I just get visions of the future sometimes; I always have, since I was a kid. I see something before it happens."

"Is that not the definition of a psychic?" Sylvia asks.

Jude sighs. "I'm telling you, it's a bit more complicated than that."

Gatz frowns. "I really don't see how it could be."

"Is it really important what we call it?" Jude asks, passing a rough hand through his hair in exasperation. "The point is I saw Indy go into that house, but I never saw her leave it. That's why I tried to stop her from going, but you both know Indy even better than I do. She was far too stubborn to listen to me."

"That's Indy for you," Gatz says. "Sylvia, try to get her on the phone. Jude, tell me more about what you saw, specifically. Do your visions always precede some sort of danger? Could it be...I don't know, benign?"

Though it's the last thing he wants to do—the energy running through his body is physical, itching beneath his skin—he forces himself to rest back against the windowsill. He considers it, every vision that has stolen his consciousness and the breath from his chest since the first time, when he was six years old. Slowly, he shakes his head. "No. They always happen before something goes wrong."

Gatz looks up at him with concern, just as Sylvia says, waving her phone in her hand, "I can't reach her. It goes straight to voicemail."

"Shit," Jude says. "Shit."

"Jude, hang on. Take it easy—"

"I'm going to get her. You both can stay here if you want, if you still don't believe me, but I—" Jude stops. The whir of the air conditioning wasn't this loud before, and certainly the glare of the sun through the windows wasn't enough to blind him a second ago. He splays a hand over his heart, feels his pulse rocketing. No. They rarely happen this soon after each other. He's grabbing at nothing, searching for anything to hold himself here, to fend off what he already knows is coming.

Jude?

Gatz's voice, he thinks, but it's all so far away.

"I'm..." Jude starts. He grabs for the window sill, but misses, collapsing to his knees instead. Any sensation at all has drained from his legs. "Stay back. I'll be okay, just stay back."

I'll be okay. It feels like a lie, but it at least is one he is willing to believe for now. The paralysis crawls up from his calves, pulls his stomach tight, squeezes the breath from his chest. Only when he's already gasping does the vision begin.

Percy finds the middle of the day the best time to be in his apartment simply because no one else is there.

Though Percy has met his roommate Josh before, of course, he's less a person than he is a presence, a vague sense of being that pervades their shared space before ten in the morning and after five in the evening. Percy likes it best when there is no presence at all, when he can drop his keys in the clay key bowl, hardened but never glossed, and kick his shoes off in front of the sofa and relish in the freedom of not being watched.

This is how he finds himself that afternoon, laid out against the cushions with his phone held above his face and the TV beside him on silent. He has work to be doing, for Dr. Clover's class, for countless others—even, if he admits it, work for Indy's sake—and yet since he collapsed here he's yet to find the will to stand.

He scrolls through his messages, his calls. A few texts from a girl whose name is familiar but whose face he can't remember. One from Gatz and Sylvia. Nothing from Indy since he saw her earlier. Something like worry builds in Percy's chest at that, but he ignores it.

He has three phone calls from his older brother, more from his mom. Percy pauses. There's five calls from Gatz, all within minutes of each other, starting nearly ten minutes ago.

How did I miss—

Percy jolts, nearly dropping his phone on his face when it begins to buzz yet again. This time, he picks up. "Gatz? What's the deal?"

"Open your fucking door, Percival!"

Percy sits up. "What?"

"Did I stutter?"

Still unsteady with disbelief, confusion a pressure behind his eyes, Percy swings to his feet, crossing the room to the front door. He pulls it open, staring at a wide-eyed Gatz with their phone still held to their ear, flanked on either side by Sylvia and Jude.

Now Percy's confusion is giving him a headache.

"Percy," Jude says, and as he does Percy notices how...ill he looks, his skin white as paper, sheened in nervous sweat, his breath leaving his chest in big huffs. "I'm sorry to barge in like this, but I have an important question."

Percy's defense mechanisms kick in, without much thought. He spreads his stance, blocking their way in. "I don't see why I owe you any—"

"Answer the man's question," Sylvia snaps. "It could save Indy's life."

Percy drops his stance again. "Indy? What about Indy?"

"There's a painting," Jude says, speaking fast. His balance tilts a little; he catches himself against the wall and waits a second before he stands up straight again. "A painting someone is looking for—and if we find it and bring it to them then they won't hurt Indy."

"A painting? Someone? Why is this all so vague?"

"The visions are always vague. It's like a jigsaw puzzle with only the outline pieces; I have to fill in the rest of the picture myself."

Percy just stares at him. Then he stares at Gatz. "What the fuck is going on?"

Gatz exhales, tossing a worried glance at Jude. They step inside, brushing past Percy, leaning back against his breakfast bar. "Jude gets visions of the future sometimes, usually when something bad is about to happen. They're very shitty and literally paralyze him so he's trying to find medicine to make it stop, but—that's not the point. The point is he saw that Indy's in trouble. Someone—"

"A cop," Jude interjects. "I saw a cop."

Percy inhales. The detective?

"A cop is holding her hostage right now, but what he wants is a painting," Gatz answers. "If we bring it to him we might be able to stop this. Whatever this is."

"We don't know why he wants it, why it matters so much," Sylvia says, reading the question on Percy's face before he can voice it. "But if it means Indy will be safe, then isn't listening to Jude's freaky psychic brain worth a shot?"

Percy rubs his eyes, half-hoping that when his vision clears again, the situation will have done the same.

It doesn't. He is no less befuddled, but he can't deny the rising anxiety in his throat. "Sure," he says, folding his arms. "A painting. But why the hell would I know where it is?"

"Because you do," says Jude, the edge of his voice rough with exasperation. "Because it's in the house you grew up in."

The narrow line between life and death quivers before Indy's eyes; she feels it in her muscles, a string pulling every one of them taut. Nothing has ever been clearer to her than this fact is, right now: if she moves, she dies.

"Detective Kelso," Indy says, swallowing hard. With the lights on now she can see the full scope of the paintings gathered here; from wall to wall the place is covered in bare canvases and framed art and boxes marked fragile in glaring red block letters. Her mind fires off a million questions, none of which, she assumes, she can afford the answer to.

"Now you call me detective," the cop scoffs.

"I don't know what's going on," Indy says, still not daring to move. She squints her eyes shut against the glare, struggling to gain her breath even as it quickens and quickens. "I don't know anything. Just—"

"Don't lie. We both know you're smarter than that," says Kelso. "You've known from the start that there was something off about Elizabeth's murder, and no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to get you off our trail."

Indy's eyes start to burn with early tears. "The invoice?"

"Easy enough to discard when you have access to the entire evidence room."

Indy inhales. "Why? What really happened? Why frame an innocent man for it?"

Kelso doesn't answer, and the silence threatens to eat away at Indy. Any second now he could decide this conversation is no longer one he wants to have, and simply end her life.

She hears him heave a long sigh, and then he steps out from behind her without lowering his gun. He's out of his uniform, in khaki pants and a polo instead, and though Indy could be imagining it, it looks as though there's even more gray hair at his temples. "There was never any way of keeping this from you, was there? I told Isaiah, the moment I heard about your little project..."

Isaiah?

"I'll explain," says Kelso then, "but in return, you'll do a favor for me. Does that sound fair?"

Indy blinks back the water that had pooled in her eyes. "Depends on what the favor is."

"It's not difficult," he says. "Now do you want to hear this, or not?"

Indy says nothing, just flicks her eyes at the muzzle of Kelso's gun, then back up at him.

He smirks a little at that. "Right. I suppose you're a bit of a captive audience," he says. Then: "You were right. Lamar Pine didn't kill Elizabeth Dobbs. Dean Ovenshine did."

Kelso reads the confusion on Indy's face. "Aiden Ovenshine's brother," he explains. "At the time, Dean owned the family art broking business. He and Elizabeth met at a charity gala, the proverbial sparks flew, and it wasn't long before they became lovers."

Do you love me enough to die for me? Indy closes her eyes, and she can see them, those words staring back at her from Elizabeth's journal. Her skin feels cold, so cold and prickly and foreign.

"There was another man who was an executive in the Ovenshine's business at the time. You might know him—Isaiah Clover."

Her eyes fly open again. "Dr. Clover?"

"That's the one," the detective answers with a nod. He sighs then, holding his hand to his forehead as if trying to remember something. "He and Dean were working on an experiment together, back in the day. How do we make art really move people? How do we make art an experience in which people can really see themselves, can really feel immersed? Or something like that. You'd have to ask Isaiah; he's the artsy one. I just do what he says."

Indy can feel the information starting to hurt, to press in from her temples like the pains of a migraine. Her pulse still rockets along beneath her skin. "Okay. What does this experiment have to do with Elizabeth Dobbs? With her daughter?"

Detective Kelso hesitates, not answering straight away. Slowly, his eyes shift towards the stack of paintings displaced by Indy's earlier rummaging. Indy watches his gaze, how it settles on the same painting that had stopped her.

No.

It can't be, can it?

"You figured it out, didn't you," says Kelso. There is no question, no inquiry to be found in his tone. His voice is flat with disappointment. "The moment Dean met Lydia he knew she would be perfect for the experiment, and it didn't take much convincing for the professor to agree."

"Tell me that isn't her," Indy says, her voice shuddering as she does. "Tell me that's not where Lydia has been, this whole time. Just—trapped in this painting."

Kelso holds her gaze. His grip on his gun remains steady. "The experiment didn't go perfectly. She was supposed to have a way out. They were always supposed to have a way out."

A wave of dizziness sets in, nearly knocking Indy from her balance. It's so much worse. It's so much worse than any of them thought.

"Elizabeth figured it out," she says, slowly. "She must have. She realized what Dean had done to her daughter, and she was going to say something. Is that why she died? Is that why Dean killed her?"

"Information in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing, Indy. It's crazy how one mistake can just ruin people, before they have any chance to set the record straight," Kelso answers, and Indy fights the urge to throw a punch at his face. "The Ovenshine business would've been finished. So Dean took care of Elizabeth, and Clover partnered with the force to help cover things up neatly. And for a generous donation, that's what we've done."

Indy can't keep her teeth from gritting. "By setting up an innocent man to die?"

Kelso shrugs. "He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"You piece of shit. All this for, what—to keep some modern day business empire alive? The Ovenshines get a second chance. The chance you stole from Lamar Pine."

"This is just the way of things. There are thousands of people out there like Pine. He's—"

"Replaceable."

A pause. "You said it, not me."

The ache in Indy's chest grows, festers, demands to be answered to, but she can't. At the end of it, the wall of truth facing her now says exactly that. This problem is too big. She can't do a thing.

"You should worry more about your own situation right now," says Kelso, stepping closer. "You're in the same position Elizabeth was forty-some years ago, but luckily for you we can't get rid of you. You have something Dr. Clover wants."

"I doubt that," Indy spits. "I didn't realize it until now, but the only thing that man has been trying to do is get me away from this topic. What he wants is my life, isn't it?"

"No," Kelso says. Again, he lets out an exhausted breath, like he's dealing with misbehaved children. It sends prickles of rage down Indy's spine. "He wants a painting. And you—or someone you know well—knows where it is."

Indy just blinks. "What?"

"Here," Kelso says, and steps forward, grabbing Indy's wrist tightly enough to make her squeal with discomfort. "Let's go on a little ride. I'll explain then."