Page 39 of Jagged

"Vhils," she repeated, turning to face me now.

"Can't say I know anyone by that name. Why?"

"He's a street artist." She pulled her phone from her pocket to show me images of a portrait on a sandy street. When she zoomed the photo in, I could see the drill marks in the plaster relief forms of old walls.

"Incredible." I accepted her phone when she handed it to me and explored the gallery of his work. "I feel like I've seen this before but didn't really pay attention."

"He's a Portuguese street artist. When I was in Lisbon, I saw his work and made an effort to find it in other places when I visit."

"Does he have work here in Seattle?"

"I'm not sure. He does in Boston and L.A. I think he did a show at the Seattle Art Museum recently," she burst forth, in a pressured ramble that shared details so quickly I fought to keep up. She broke into a speech about his history, his shows all over the world, where he studied in London, the photo of him in The Times, and his mission to reveal the stories inside walls all over the world. "His birth name is Alexandre Manual Dias Farto," she said, with an accent that I thought gave his name the perfect authentic sounds. But what did I know anyway?

The information flooded me, filling up every crevice of my brain space while I looked through the photos until I came across one of her standing beside one of his pieces. The bright sunny nature of the photo, her summery outfit, and the sandy concrete street reminded me of some of Tatiana's pictures when she took Reagan to see her grandmother last year.

"Is this in Lisbon?" I asked, turning the phone to show her.

"Yes," she answered, simply.

She didn't seem to care that I'd stumbled onto photos of Vhils' work with her in them. As before, the first thing I noticed was her hair and the happiness that seemed to accompany her smile. A closer up photo revealed the deep markings in the concrete beside her as she squinted her eyes against the sun. Her hazel shone a bit greener in the light, flecked with deeper brown. With a mildly tanner complexion seemingly after time spent at the beach, the tiniest bit of freckles coated the bridge of her nose.

I swiped the photo when I noticed myself noticing that I was noticing too much, only to reveal a few more photos of similar caliber in different places around Lisbon. I recognized some of the landmarks that Tati pointed out to me ages ago.

The final photo revealed a QR code, and my name under it. I glanced at her, but she wasn't watching me anymore. Instead, she focused on the scrolling text on the monitor beside us. I lowered her phone, lifted mine, then scanned the code.

On my screen, some sort of form opened up. With a crinkled brow, I watched as an animation began.

This will take two minutes, the screen read. Click okay to continue.

I glanced at Clem, then pocketed my phone before handing hers back. "Vhils is really talented. My best friend Tatiana's family is from Lisbon. Her daughter is there now with her grandmother."

Clem accepted her phone without so much as blinking. "It's lovely there. We lived there for a few years while my mother worked."

"What was that like?"

"Much different than here."

"Tati says the same thing…" I looked toward the door when our conversation slowed to an uncomfortable lull. "I better go."

"I will text you when I have the results. It's a big search and might take some time." She turned to me then, her gaze meeting mine briefly. "Bye."

"Thanks. Bye." My hand wiggled in an awkward wave as I backed out of the room, and I groaned on the way out.

Chapter Six

I couldn't wait to get home and click okay. My heart beat frantically and I worried that I'd violated Clementine's phone. Should I have been looking through it like that? Did she intend for me to see those photos and the QR code? It didn't seem right, and yet I couldn't stop thinking about it. Seeing her in the pictures a million miles away on another continent seemed strange to me as well. The images played over and over in my mind and suddenly I wondered who snapped them to begin with. Who was she with in Lisbon? Was it her mother? Another family member? Someone else?

Whatever.

I needed to stop ruminating.

After returning to the precinct to finish out the day and review the results generated by Bryant, I didn't get home until well after eight. A pizza sat on the kitchen counter, still lukewarm, surrounded by empty dishes filled with crusts and sauce. Two beers accompanied glasses of iced tea with rims coated in condensation from the melted ice.

I stole a slice, biting into it just as the sounds of Tatiana's moans filled the space we shared. I chuckled around my food and glanced at the loft space above us that she called her room. One flight of stairs led up there, but there weren't any walls to muffle the sound. Reagan usually shared the space with her, but sans child, sexuality liberated itself. My room sat off the large living room, across from the art-filled area where Tati worked each day. From the doorway of my room, I caught a glimpse of her shadow as it bounced above the bed. I closed my eyes, retreating to my room blindly. Hearing it was one thing, seeing my two besties bumping uglies was another.

I closed the door behind me, which did little to muffle the sounds, then tossed myself on the twin bed. In the small, closet-sized space cluttered with band posters and clothes, I leaned against the cold brick wall at the head of my bed and whipped out my phone. Sometimes I liked the smallness of my room. It wrapped around me the same way it had a decade ago when we decided to rent together. Tati's loft space wasn't much bigger. The only thing that fit was her mattress and a small lamp.

The window at the foot of my bed allowed the gentle breeze to waft in the fragrant petrichor belonging to the ever-present rain of late. With my phone in my palm and pizza in my mouth, I immediately opened the link I stole from Clem's phone.

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