Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries) by Rosie Claverton Read Free Book Online

careful with your phone,’ he continued. ‘Or answer the landline.’
    She’d left the telemarketing software running again, comparing voice imprints to a series of harassing phone calls received by a local businesswoman. She’d have to put her private work on hold if she was taking on the museum case, of course. Murders tended to consume her entirely.
    Except, this time, it wasn’t the dead man’s face that haunted her, but the delicate features of a woman who’d died a century earlier.

Chapter 8
Memento mori
    ‘The Blue Lady’ was staring at Truth.
    She rested on an easel against the wall, out of direct sunlight and shrouded in netting. She couldn’t stay furled in a couple of old bin liners, despite how much Truth itched to stuff her back into the darkness. Instead, she looked at her captor through her veil of white lace. She didn’t accuse or judge, but her blank eyes were worse than any condemnation. She was vapid, empty. She thought nothing, knew nothing. What a worthless subject.
    What had Renoir seen in her? What did so many morons see in her?
    Perhaps it was their reflection staring back that fascinated them. They saw something of themselves in the nothingness of her face, her soul. They came every day in droves to coo and cluck over her, pretending to know something of Impressionism, claiming they loved ‘The Blue Lady’ to complete strangers and then forgetting about her for another year.
    Maybe that was why
La Parisienne
repulsed Truth, who was nothing like the sheep who crowded those marble spaces with wide eyes and slack jaws. Beneath a quiet veneer, Truth was so full of thoughts, ideas, opinions, colour and contrast. But no one saw that.
    They saw this hollow girl painted in brightest blue and assumed she had colour. They saw her and failed to see Truth.
    But now they had to look. She had wagered freedom to finally be seen, to stop disappointing. Not in some gallery among so many other so-called masterpieces, but standing alone. The robbery was already in all the newspapers, a nationwide sensation – but that did not thrill her the way it might some. Only one person’s opinion mattered, a good opinion that could never quite be gained.
    But that security guard – why was he there? Why had he come running? Why couldn’t he have stayed away? She was now stained with his blood, a black spot that could not be removed, like Shakespeare’s haunted woman.
    Yet Truth was no further down the road to salvation. Trapped in limbo, only the waiting remained, draining life and colour as it eked out from hour to hour. She could wait a lifetime, but not with the harlot’s eyes burning a hole through the thin shield of the netting.
    At least the dappling of red on those bluest of blue skirts made something interesting of her. Until it was painstakingly expunged from the oils, the whore restored to her former vacuous vanity. How easily the physical stain could disappear, yet the guilt beneath wore on.
    Until that time, Truth was forced to look on the silly little girl in the portrait. But it would be worth it in the end – to finally be recognised, respected.
    Visiting Swansea Prison felt like stepping back in time, retreading the steps of his past but rewriting the ending.
    Jason had been banged up here twice before and he’d more than learned his lesson the first time. Being beaten to within an inch of your life tended to condition a person against risking a repeat experience. The second time was also his fault, but only in near-fatal stupidity rather than criminality. It had all come out in the wash for him, but he saw the scars their misadventure had left on Amy, on Owain.
    Every time he visited Lewis, it was as if a shadow fell over him, a heavy cloak of dismay and failure.
You’re back
, the walls whispered.
You will never really leave us. Once a thief, always a thief.
Only when he escaped could he truly breathe again.
    A few guards recognised him but he didn’t acknowledge their smiles or scowls.