As a sequel to my last short story—The First Appointment– Dr. Geier and Dr. Lark could use your help to unravel the mystery contained herein….

Something Strange

Dr. Saul Geier leaned back in his leather chair, tamped fresh tobacco into his pipe, and struck a match. The scent of Captain Black filled the air as he exhaled a curling ribbon of smoke skyward. Across the mahogany desk, Susan Lark folded her arms and watched him, a flicker of amusement in her hazel eyes.

“So,” she said, “you’ve decided to take me under your wing.”

Geier huffed, shifting in his chair. “Hardly. You’re an annoyance I’ve chosen to tolerate. Against my better judgment.”

Lark smirked. “I’ll take it.”

The two of them locked eyes. Lark averted her gaze and continued, “How did you make out with that patient you told me about? The one who thought he could make himself invisible.”

Geier cleared his throat. “That’s a story for–.”

A heavy knock at the door interrupted their banter. Geier grunted and motioned for her to open it. A uniformed officer stepped inside, hat in hand, looking between them nervously.

“Dr. Geier?” the officer asked.

Geier tapped his pipe against the edge of his ashtray. “Who wants to know?”

“Detective Marco Vasquez, NYPD. We have an unusual case, and your name was recommended.”

Lark arched an eyebrow. “Recommended by whom?”

“Dr. Locke. He said you two might be interested in something… strange.”

Geier groaned. “I do not ‘do’ strange. I do rational, psychological.”

Vasquez hesitated. “Then you might want to hear this before you decide. A body turned up this morning in a SoHo art gallery. Locked from the inside, no sign of forced entry. The artist—a man named Thomas Quinn—was found posed in the center of the room, his hands arranged as if painting in mid-stroke. But there was no paint, no brush. Just… his expression, absolute terror.”

Lark straightened. “Cause of death?”

“Unknown. No wounds, no bruises, no drugs in his system, nothing physically wrong. And yet… he looks like he saw something that scared him to death.”
Geier’s lips pursed. “Now that’s intriguing.”

A Painter Paints

The gallery, an austere space on Broome Street, reeked of turpentine and tragedy. A cluster of uniformed officers stood near the crime scene, whispering among themselves. As Geier and Lark ducked under the crime scene tape and stepped in, a palpable tension filled the air.

The victim sat frozen on a stool, his back perfectly straight, arms lifted as if grasping an invisible brush. His mouth was twisted open, frozen mid-scream. His wide eyes, glassy and unseeing, locked onto an unseen horror.

Lark took a slow step forward. “This doesn’t seem like a typical murder.”

“Obviously.”

She grimaced. “If there are no external injuries, we have to consider psychological causes. Fear-induced cardiac arrest, perhaps? But what did he see?”

Geier circled the body, his gaze razor-sharp. “That is the question, isn’t it?” He pointed his pipe at the walls, bare except for faint imprints where paintings once hung. “Where’s the artwork?”

Detective Vasquez scratched his head. “That’s another strange thing. Every single painting in this gallery is missing.”

Lark’s brow furrowed. “Stolen?”

“No forced entry, no security alarms tripped. The gallery was locked from the inside. It’s as if the paintings… vanished.”

Geier nodded slowly, tapping his pipe against his palm. “And yet, the only thing left behind was the artist. Posed. As if mid-creation.”

“As if he was painting something… that killed him.” Lark’s expression darkened.

The investigation led them to Quinn’s apartment, a small but tastefully cluttered loft in the East Village. His sketchbooks lay scattered across a worktable, filled with frenzied charcoal illustrations of shifting, shadowy figures. Some bore monstrous, distorted faces—eyes hollow, mouths agape in silent screams.Geie

r flipped through the pages. “This man was drawing something repeatedly. Something he may have seen. Or thought he saw.”

Lark scanned the notes scribbled in the margins: It watches. It moves when I don’t. I must capture it before it captures me.

She swallowed. “This reads like paranoid delusion.”

Geier didn’t look up. “Does it?”

A chill ran down her spine. “Vasquez gave me the names and addresses of a couple of the artist’s patrons.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Geier said.

Just Black

Their first stop was a buyer’s residence on East 86th Street, a collector named Olivia Harrow. She greeted them at the door with wide, anxious eyes and ushered them inside without a word.

The walls of her apartment were lined with identical black canvases. Dozens of them, completely blank and as black as midnight in Montana. The sight unsettled Lark.
“These were Quinn’s?” Geier asked, running a hand over one. The texture was smooth—no paint, no trace of brushstrokes.

Harrow nodded. “They were stunning landscapes and portraits when I bought them. But overnight, they turned to this. Just black.”

Lark exchanged a glance with Geier. “Do you think—?”

“They weren’t stolen. They were… erased,” Geier said.

Lark shuddered. “Or emptied.”

Harrow wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t want them anymore.”

Geier studied the canvases with a frown. “We’ll be in touch.”

The Wexler Collection

They had the name of the last buyer of Quinn’s work. A collector named Daniel Wexler had recently acquired one. They took the elevator to his penthouse apartment. The elevator doors opened to a two-story atrium topped with a stained-glass dome.

“Hello. Anybody home?” Lark shouted.

No answer.

Geier looked at Lark and shrugged.

As if drawn by a magnetic force, they stepped through the atrium and were pulled into a cavernous living room.“Hello. Anybody home?” Lark repeated.

Silence except for the crackle of logs burning in a massive stone fireplace.

They looked up and there it was…

Above the fireplace. The painting still intact—until they realized the distorted face within was not paint, but human. A soul, screaming silently.

Quinn had discovered a way to imprison entities within his art, but the last one had fought back. When he painted it, it refused to be trapped. Instead, it had claimed him.

As they stared at Wexler’s painting, the shadows within flickered.

“Dr. Geier,” Lark whispered, “I think it knows we’re here.”

Geier sighed and dropped his pipe. “Then let’s see if we can finish what Quinn started.”

Lark swallowed hard. “And how do we do that?”

Geier stepped forward, studying the painting with narrowed eyes. “We need to complete it.”

She hesitated. “Complete it? As in—?”

Geier turned to see an artist’s palette with paints resting on a stool in front of the beastly work.

He handed her a paintbrush and grabbed a nearby chair. He helped her step up onto the chair so she could reach the painting. Then he handed her the palette covered in dabs of assorted colors. She seemed unsteady at first but then gained her balance.

“Quinn must have started something he couldn’t finish. If these creatures were imprisoned, we need to close the last open door,” Geier said.

Lark eyed the brush as if it were a loaded gun. “And what happens if we get it wrong?”

Geier smirked. “Then I hope you’re faster at running than painting.”

She dipped the brush into the nearest shade of black and, with a trembling hand, reached toward the distorted face. The shadows shivered in response. She began to paint as if some invisible power was guiding her fingers. She covered the left half of the grotesque face with broad black strokes.

Without turning around, she said, “Dr Geier, how is this?

Dead silence.

She turned to face a quiet, empty room. “Dr Geier?”

He was gone.

Alone with this?

She turned back and gasped. It couldn’t be! Her brush dropped to the floor.

The right side of the painting still showed one teary eye. The face had morphed….

The face was that of Dr. Saul Geier.

-END-

What happened to Dr. Geier? Who is the mysterious assailant?
Stay tuned here for Chapter 3: The Third Appointment.

If you enjoyed this story or think you can solve the mystery, please leave a COMMENT below.

You can get the other 29 stories in The Last Appointment: 30 Collected Short Stories as an eBook or paperback at Amazon

Catch up on my original fast-paced thriller NOT SO DEAD and the Sam Sunborn Series
They are available on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com
Or my children’s adventure book: Nougo and His Basketball.

And read for FREE some of Charles Levin’s short stories:

I’m Processing
Books Unread
Nora Delivers the Package
The Permission Slip
10 Life Lessons I Learned from Playing Poker
Missing the Ghost in the Palace Theater
Moon Landing Memories
Word Drunk

Oh, and please do join the Mailing List for future stories and posts