Maxfield Parrish Morning Light painting

Maxfield Parrish Morning Light paintingLouis Aston Knight Cottage by the River paintingVittore Carpaccio The Virgin Reading paintingGeorge Frederick Watts Orlando Pursuing the Fata Morgana painting
inside the threshold, he stood listening. He left the door open at his back.Rain drummed on the roof, a distant rumble like the marching feet of legions gone to war in some far, hollow kingdom.Otherwise, only silence rewarded his keen attention. Maybe spiral now like nautilus shell into nautilus shell.Searching in a hostile situation of the usual kind, Ethan would have proceeded with both hands on the gun, with arms out straight, maintaining a measured pressure on the trigger. He would have cleared doorways quick and low.Instead, he gripped the pistol in his right hand, aimed at the ceiling. He proceeded cautiously but not with the full drama inherent in police-academy style.instinct warned him or maybe imagination misled him, but he sensed that this was not a slack silence, that it was instead a coiled quiet as full of potential energy as a cobra, rattler, or black mamba.Because he preferred not to draw the attention of a neighbor and didn’t want to facilitate any exit but his own, he closed the door. Locked it.From scams, from drugs, from worse, Duncan Whistler had made himself rich. Criminals routinely grab big money, but few keep it or keep the freedom to spend it. Dunny had been clever enough to avoid arrest, to launder his money, and to pay his taxes.Consequently, his apartment was enormous, with two connecting [90] hallways, rooms leading into rooms, rooms that ordinarily did not spiral as they seemed to