The Sketcher's Mark (Lara McBride Thrillers Book 1)

THE SKETCHER’S MARK

A Lara McBride Thriller

By

Chris O’Neill

Copyright 2013 Chape Works LLC, USA

All rights reserved

2
nd
Edition 2015

For Rochelle, a true Angel

Part One

ANGELS

Chapter One

PARIS

She had absolutely no reason to not trust the man drawing her portrait.  Janelle McBride was in her early twenties, last year of college studying marketing, no idea what to do once she graduated.  She was beautiful, even without make up, which she was today.  She’d got up late- the last day in Paris and it had been a heavy night drinking with fellow international travellers the night before.  She’d drifted in to the square behind the Pompidou Centre to pick up some souvenirs for herself and her sister, which were now stuffed in her backpack at her feet, when she’d seen the sketch artists across from the shops.  She had walked over, taken with the display that one of the artists had by his easel that looked down in to the square below where students sat obliviously eating, drinking, smoking, playing music and lost on their phones.

The detail in his work was amazing.  Her jaw was open when she saw it, struck by the sheer detail and mood of the pieces he had arranged in a square, a giant calling card on his easel that advertised his talent.  He must have seen the look on her face because she heard him chuckling.  The young women in the four sketches he had tacked to the back of his easel were so detailed, so
real
she felt she could almost reach in to the paper and caress their faces and feel their skin.  There was something… otherworldly about them.  As though he had drawn them in pencil and brushed them with a glaze of heaven. 

“Have a seat,” he’d said, motioning to the empty folding chair across from him.  She couldn’t quite see his face as he was partially hidden behind the easel.  His accent wasn’t French, it was somehow neutral with no way to tell whether English was his first language or not.  That intrigued her, just another element about being in Europe that surprised and impressed her.  It wasn’t like Los Angeles.  It had culture and sophistication, an intelligence that was imprinted in the DNA of the people who swept by her.  She was already smiling, ready to just congratulate him on his work and then head for the Metro to make it to the airport.  She had stepped around to the folding chair and he looked up at her and smiled as though he had just seen the woman of his dreams.  That impressed her even more than his work.  It was that look in his eyes that made her stay.

Her breath had caught in the back of her throat for a second and she felt the burn of guilt and shame for letting this emotion show externally.  Her sister was all about keeping emotions internal and had told her on many occasions that she should be more guarded with her feelings so as not to play her hand to those around her who would use the information to better manipulate her.  Her sister, the optimist.  His face was scarred.  He was a young man, in his thirties, lean, athletic, she could tell he was tall even though he was folded in to his own chair right now looking up at her with the most magnetic blue eyes she had ever seen.  He was strangely beautiful, just like his work, as though somebody had somehow conjured him out of flesh and bone just as he had conjured magical renditions with simple pencil and paper.  She was entranced.  Those eyes.  The handsome, perfectly angled face.  And those scars.

There were four of them.  Two were half circles like crescent moons across his cheeks, the other two were small straight lines and looked like lips waiting to be kissed.  They formed a tribal pattern, a skin tattoo.  They were brutally sexual, bold and confident- just like him.  His smile made everything else fade for her.

“I’m sorry. A childhood accident.  We’re all imperfect in some way,” he said, touching his face delicately, almost embarrassed.  That was it. She sat down.

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said. 

“Oh, please, you have no reason to be sorry.  It’s a perfectly natural reaction to something so horrific.”

He laughed and suddenly she felt like a teenager in high school when the captain of the football team, Bobby Lang, had sat across from her in the cafeteria.  She went with it.  She was on vacation, why not?  He was already moving the pencil over the canvass, his eyes locked on her, devouring her essence.  She could feel him doing it.  She felt more turned on now than she could ever remember having been before.  The experience was strange, invasive, arousing.  His eyes explored her face, taking in every detail.  It had been a long time since Janelle McBride had felt genuinely wanted by a man who took such a deep and focused interest in her.

“Will this take long?” she asked, ready to sit and wait forever if he asked.

“Greatness has no deadline,” he replied.

“Sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“So are you- or you wouldn’t have sat down.  How’s your trip going?”

“Great.  Today’s my last day.  I love this city.  I think I want to stay.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“Everything about this place is just amazing.  The architecture.  The food. Just the whole vibe of the place. It gets in your blood.”

“I know what you mean.”

“There’s so much culture here.  The windows on that church over there are older than my apartment building.”

“Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Ah.  How fitting.  The City of Angels.”

“Which is ironic since it has no soul.”

“I’ve never been so I couldn’t say.  Is that what you came to Paris to find?  Some kind of soul?  Are you a Lost Angel?”

“No, I came here to decompress.  My friends wanted to go to Cabo for Spring Break and that sounded like a nightmare.  I wanted some culture.  To get away.”

“From what?”

“Bad break up.  Best left in the past.  I don’t want to talk about negative things.  It’s in the past now.  Where negative things belong.”

“Did you come here on your own?”

“My sister told me not to and I almost brought someone with me, but, you know, I’m glad I didn’t because I’ve had the most amazing time.”

“Very brave of you.”

“At least this way I get to do what I want when I want and not have to listen to somebody whining all the time.”

“Hence the break up..?”

“You do therapy as well as sketches?”

“I should.  I hear it pays better.  How was your hotel?”

“Fine.  I checked out late, grabbed some touristy shit for the folks back home and now here we are.”

“Here we are, indeed.” 

His eyes pierced right inside her, seemed to know her already, understand her and see her completely.  And want her.  She really didn’t know how to respond.  She just focused on trying not to make a fool of herself.  She straightened up in the chair and brushed her hair from her face.  She wanted to play this cool, mainly to stop herself from doing anything stupid.  Where would this go, anyway, she was leaving in a few hours.  She checked her watch.

“Shit,” she uttered.

“What time is your flight?” he asked.

“Like, in two hours.  How long does it take to get to the airport?”

“About two hours.  You’re in the center of Paris and it’s about to hit rush hour.  I don’t fancy your chances.”

“Shit.  Excuse me for a second?”

She got up, pulling her cellphone from her pocket and stepped away from the man drawing her portrait.  She speed dialed a number.  The phone display said LARA.  She heard it ring.  Three times and she knew her sister wasn’t going to pick up. 

“You’ve reached Lara McBride.  Leave a message.” Lara, all business as usual, no fat on anything she did.

“Lara, it’s Janelle.  I think I might miss my flight.  You always say I do everything last minute and I hate it when you’re right.  I’ll call you when I get to DeGaulle. Love you, sis.”  She hung up and turned back to the sketch artist.

“I think I’ve almost got you,” he said and beckoned for her to come over.  She felt herself blush.

The sketch was immersive, almost three dimensional.  He had whittled this in no time at all and perfectly captured her presence, her features and then elevated them to another level.  He was masterful.  She was speechless.

“My god, that’s insane.  How do you do that?”

“I just draw people the way I see them.  I saw you as…”

“..angelic.”

“Yes.  I thought that was appropriate.”

“I wish I had a talent like this.  Must be why god put you on this earth.”

“We all have a reason.”

“I haven’t found mine yet.”

At the bottom of the sketch, he had made his mark with two initials.  “HH”.

“What’s that stand for?  Your name?”

“No.  ‘Heaven and Hell’.  My name is Luc.  But my ‘stage name’ if you will is Guillotine”.

“Guillotine?  That’s a little dark.  So is ‘Heaven and Hell’.”

“I believe both exist on earth.  People exist in one or the other.  I’ve always been fascinated by which one is the stronger.”

“Are you religious?”

“Only on Sundays.”

“Lucky for me it’s only Thursday.”

“And you’re about to get on a plane and fly out of my life forever.”

“Why is it you always meet the most interesting people just when you have to be somewhere else?”

“The Fates have a sense of humor.”

He took the sketch off the easel, rolled it up and tied it off with a small piece of string.

“A souvenir of your visit.  Perhaps you’ll think of me when you’re halfway across the world.”

She took the sketch and he began to pack up.  She picked up her back pack and unzipped the side pocket, pulled out a bottle of water and replaced it with the sketch.  She took a slug of the water, watching him fold the two chairs and easel. Of course, she knew she was just burning time while he packed up.  She didn’t want to leave yet.