The Art of Deception

was just as real, just as vital, as the physical. And it was just as impossible to reclaim. She, thinking of the night, knew that she had no desire to go back. Now they would both move forward to whatever waited for them.
    Rising, she prepared to face the day.
     
    Upstairs in Fairchild’s studio, Adam studied the rural landscape. He could feel the agitation and drama. The serene scene leaped with frantic life. Vivid, real, disturbing. Its creator stood beside him, not the Vincent van Gogh who Adam would’ve sworn had wielded the brush and pallette, but Philip Fairchild.
    “It’s magnificent,” Adam murmured. The compliment was out before he could stop it.
    “Thank you, Adam. I’m fond of it.” Fairchild spoke as a man who’d long before accepted his own superiority and the responsibility that came with it.
    “Mr. Fairchild—”
    “Philip,” Fairchild interrupted genially. “No reason for formality between us.”
    Somehow Adam felt even the casual intimacy could complicate an already hopelessly tangled situation. “Philip,” he began again, “this is fraud. Your motives might be sterling, but the result remains fraud.”
    “Absolutely.” Fairchild bobbed his head in agreement. “Fraud, misrepresentation, a bald-faced lie without a doubt.” He lifted his arms and let them fall. “I’m stripped of defenses.”
    Like hell, Adam thought grimly. Unless he was very much mistaken, he was about to be treated to the biggest bag of pure, classic bull on record.
    “Adam…” Fairchild drew out the name and steepled his hands. “You’re an astute man, a rational man. I pride myself on being a good judge of character.” As if he were very old and frail, Fairchild lowered himself into a chair. “Then, again, you’re imaginative and open-minded—that shows in your work.”
    Adam reached for the coffee Cards had brought up. “So?”
    “Your help with our little problem last night—and your skill in turning my own plot against me—leads me to believe you have the ability to adapt to what some might term the unusual.”
    “Some might.”
    “Now.” Accepting the cup Adam handed him, Fairchild leaned back. “You tell me Kirby filled you in on everything. Odd, but we’ll leave that for now.” He’d already drawn his own conclusions there and found them to his liking. He wasn’t about to lose on other points. “After what you’ve been told, can you find one iota of selfishness in my enterprise? Can you see my motive as anything but humanitarian?” On a roll, Fairchild set down his cup and let his hands fall between his bony knees. “Small, sick children, and those less fortunate than ourselves, have benefited from my hobby. Not one dollar have I kept, not a dollar, a franc, a sou. Never, never have I asked for credit or honor that, naturally, society would be anxious to bestow on me.”

    “You haven’t asked for the jail sentence they’d bestow on you, either.”
    Fairchild tilted his head in acknowledgment but didn’t miss a beat. “It’s my gift to mankind, Adam. My payment for the talent awarded to me by a higher power. These hands…” He held them up, narrow, gaunt and oddly beautiful. “These hands hold a skill I’m obliged to pay for in my own way. This I’ve done.” Bowing his head, Fairchild dropped them into his lap. “However, if you must condemn me, I understand.”
    Fairchild looked, Adam mused, like a stalwart Christian faced by pagan lions: firm in his belief, resigned to his fate. “One day,” Adam murmured, “your halo’s going to slip and strangle you.”
    “A possibility.” Grinning, he lifted his head again. “But in the meantime, we enjoy what we can. Let’s have one of those Danishes, my boy.”
    Wordlessly, Adam handed him the tray. “Have you considered the repercussions to Kirby if your…hobby is discovered?”
    “Ah.” Fairchild swallowed pastry. “A straight shot to my Achilles’ heel. Naturally both of us know that Kirby can meet any obstacle and find a way over, around or through it.” He bit off more Danish, enjoying the tang of raspberry. “Still, merely by being, Kirby demands emotion of one kind or another. You’d agree?”
    Adam thought of the night, and what it had changed in him. “Yes.”
    The brief, concise answer was exactly what Fairchild had expected. “I’m taking a hiatus from this business for various reasons, the first of which is Kirby’s position.”
    “And her position as concerns the Merrick