Free Make Me Whole by Marguerite Labbe Page A

quit sleeping around, where had that left him? Alone again.
    He flipped on the monitor at his desk and accessed the camera in the new exhibit room. The statues hadn’t moved and remained solitary except for the first. He could solve last night’s dilemma by looking at the camera recording, but God help him, he was afraid. He didn’t know what he would see. He didn’t even know what he wanted to see.
    The same argument played over and over in his mind. If he had imagined it, how had Lykon appeared? And how come only he and Nick noticed the changes?
    Galen stared at the statues until his temples began to ache, and he still didn’t have any answers. Maybe he could seduce Nick into letting him keep them. His conscience flinched at the thought. No, he couldn’t toy with Nick’s emotions again. It wasn’t fair.
    Enough. He had to look at the recording and then decide what to do. Galen accessed yesterday’s footage, and his pulse leapt as he hit play. The image flicked on, bright from the morning sun that streamed through the windows. Ella stood back, studied the mural, and as the camera panned the room Galen leaned in to hit Fast-Forward.
    The sun glinted off the statues, including the first one of Dexios and Lykon. Galen froze, and his head spun as he tried to process it. What the fuck. He checked the time and date stamp then stared in disbelief at the whole statue. The sour taste of disappointment filled his mouth. He was crazy; there was no other way to put it. Delusional. Hallucinating.
    He clicked on another file from a few days before with the same results. All the way back to the first day when Knox carted the statues in, and sure enough, it depicted the two men bound in an embrace. Somehow when the change had occurred, it had rippled back in time. Not only had it affected the memories of the people around them, it had also affected the cameras and who knew what else.
    Galen sat back and drummed his fingers on his desk. There had to be a rational explanation for everything, from the statues’ strange arrival to the change last night. He’d been too besotted and excited over the exhibit to question it then, and now all of Suzane’s questions haunted him. And Nick was involved. Seriously, what were the chances that the guy he’d been obsessing over owned the Collection?
    He switched back to yesterday’s footage and fast-forwarded it until he saw himself enter the room. At least if he made a fool of himself, nobody else had to see. Galen leaned forward to study the black-and-white image as he watched himself walk toward the Collection. He stared at the statue until his eyes burned and didn’t notice anything change, even when he got to the part where he’d been tempted to kiss it.
    A flicker onscreen stopped him, and he held his breath as his image whirled around to confront someone. He needed sound. Why hadn’t he invested in sound?
    The man came further into the room, and Galen’s heart quickened. Dexios. He wasn’t insane. It wasn’t a dream. Oh damn, Nick had to see this. Somehow, between the two of them, they’d figure out what happened. Maybe this would be enough for Nick, and he’d let the museum keep the statues.
    Maybe this would be enough for the two of them to start over. He wanted to stay mad over Nick’s ultimatums, but he always had a hard time doing that once the heat of the moment was gone. Now that he had calmed down too, he could see where Nick was coming from. He had no reason to want to work with Galen, and the Collection seemed important to him. They’d just have to find a way to work it out as adults.
    Galen flicked off the program and saved the file to a hard drive. He headed out to the bus stop and tried to call Nick, but the call went to his voice mail. He hoped it didn’t mean that Nick was out and unavailable. If they were going to work together for a while, Galen wanted to find some way to heal this breach between them.
    “Nick, in case you decide to listen to your messages,