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“Why,” Angel says, “do I get the feeling that you’d say no to a million dollars?”

Because the pictures aren’t done. They’re not perfect. People can’t see them, not yet. There are more she hasn’t even started. Misty can’t sell them because she needs them as studies for something bigger. They’re all parts of something she can’t see yet. They’re clues.

Who knows why we do what we do.

Misty says, “Why are you offering me so much money? Is this some kind of test?”

And Angel zippers open his camera bag and says, “I want you to see something.” He takes out some shiny tools made of metal. One is two sharp rods that join at one end to make a V. The other is a half circle of metal, shaped like a D and marked with inches along the straight side.

Angel holds the metal D against a sketch of a farmhouse and says, “All your straight lines are absolutely straight.” He sets the D flat against a watercolor of a cottage, and her lines are all perfect. “This is a protractor,” he says. “You use it to measure angles.”

Angel sets the protractor against picture after picture and says, “Your angles are all perfect. Perfect ninty-degree angles. Perfect forty-five-degree angles.” He says, “I noticed this on the chair painting.”

He picks up the V-shaped tool and says, “This is a compass. You use it to draw perfect curves and circles.” He stabs one pointed leg of the compass in the center of a charcoal sketch. He spins the other leg around the first leg and says, “Every circle is perfect. Every sunflower and birdbath. Every curve, perfect.”

Angel points at her pictures spread across the green sofa, and he says, “You’re drafting perfect figures. It isn’t possible.”

Just for the record, the weather today is getting really, really pissy right about now.

The only person who doesn’t expect Misty to be a great painter, he’s telling her it’s impossible. When your only friend says no way can you be a great artist, a naturally talented, skilled artist, then take a pill.

Misty says, “Listen, my husband and I both went to art school.” She says, “We were trained to draw.”

And Angel asks, was she tracing a photograph? Was Misty using an opaque projector? A camera obscura?

The message from Constance Burton: “You can do this with your mind.”

And Angel takes a felt-tipped pen from his camera bag and gives it to her, saying, “Here.” He points at the wall and says, “Right there, draw me a circle with a four-inch diameter.”

With the pen, without even looking, Misty draws him a circle.

And Angel sets the straight edge of the protractor, the edge marked in inches, against the circle. And it’s four inches. He says, “Draw me a thirty-seven-degree angle.”

Slash, slash, and Misty marks two intersecting lines on the wall.

He sets on the protractor and it’s exactly thirty-seven degrees.

He asks for an eight-inch circle. A six-inch line. A seventy-degree angle. A perfect S curve. An equilateral triangle. A square. And Misty sketches them all in an instant.

According to the straightedge, the protractor, the compass, they’re all perfect.

“Do you see what I mean?” he says. He pokes the point of his compass in her face and says, “Something’s wrong. First it was wrong with Peter, and now it’s wrong with you.”

Just for the record, it seems Angel Delaporte liked her loads better when she was just the fat fucking slob. A maid at the Waytansea Hotel. A sidekick he could lecture about Stanislavski or graphology. First she’s Peter’s student. Then Angel’s.

Misty says, “The only thing I see is how you can’t deal with my maybe having this incredible natural gift.”

And Angel jumps, startled. He looks up, eyebrows arched with surprise.

As if some dead body just spoke.

He says, “Misty Wilmot, would you just listen to yourself?”

Angel shakes his compass point at her and says, “This isn’t just talent.” He points his finger at the perfect circles and angles doodled on the wall and says, “The police need to see this.”

Stuffing the paintings and sketches back in her portfolio, Misty says, “How come?” Zippering it shut, she says, “So they can arrest me for being too good an artist ?”

Angel takes his camera out and cranks to the next frame of film. He snaps a flash attachment to the top. Watching her through the viewfinder, he says, “We need more proof.” He says, “Draw me a hexagon. Draw me a pentagram. Draw me a perfect spiral.”

And with the felt-tipped pen, Misty does one, then the next. The only time her hands don’t shake is when she draws or paints.

On the wall in front of her, Peter’s scrawled: “... we will destroy you with your own neediness and greed ...”

You scrawled.

The hexagon. The pentagram. The perfect spiral. Angel snaps a picture of each.