Phantom Pleasures - Chapter Three
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
Okay, now we’re getting down to business. I loved yesterday’s chapter because so much happened…but today’s is crucial to the story arc in so many ways. Enjoy!
If you’re just joining us…welcome! The excerpts started on Monday, so if you click here, you’ll be able to start from the beginning and work your way back here for the latest installment. And don’t forget to comment in today’s thread for your chance to win a $20 gift card from Amazon.com!
“There’s no one here, ma’am.”
Alexa glanced over her shoulder, her lips pursed and her jaw tight as the Coast Guard seaman shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with breaking the news. The discovery wasn’t unexpected. The minute she’d squeezed through a crack in the wall, broken through the sixty-year-old padlock on the front door and witnessed six decades worth of dust and sand on the cracked, stone floors of the castle, Alexa had known no one had been inside.
No one corporeal, at least.
At Jacob’s insistence, she’d allowed the crew of the closest Coast Guard UTB to escort the boat they’d chartered to the island and search for possible trespassers. Now that they’d completed their mission, she wanted them gone. She had exploring of her own to do, starting with the lone furnishing–a painting hanging alone on the landing above the grand staircase.
A painting that had captured her interest as if the man in the portrait had reached out from the canvas and was even now, curling his fingers in a silent, rhythmic beckoning.
She gave the seaman a curt nod and returned her gaze to the portrait. Despite the dust and the cobwebs, the man in the oil on canvas was nothing short of magnificent. Piercing eyes the color of a storm-tossed ocean–a swirling mix of green and gray–stared straight into her. His hair, long and deep chocolate brown, seemed to have caught an unexplainable wind in a drawing room decorated with candle and torchlight. As if wet, his stark white shirt and scarlet waistcoat molded to his skin. A single droplet of water slid down his square jaw, threatening to splash down at any moment.
The artist’s realism stunned her. The plush face of the cat on his lap. The velvety folds of the cloak tossed carelessly across the back of an ornate chair. Even the fired tips of the candles in the sconces blurred as if photographed rather than painted. The fact that the portrait was the only furnishing in the castle further piqued her interest. Had the mysterious builder in the forties reconstruct the abandoned German castle simply to house a single piece of artwork that no one would see?
“Time to go, Alexa,” Jacob announced after the rest of the Coast Guard contingent congregated in the foyer.
“No,” she said.
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