Perfect Touch: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  At least fifteen minutes before Jay will call.

  She could eat and still have plenty of time to get her phone from the gallery.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE MOON WAS playing tag with shreds of a storm cell. When the moon was free of clouds, light from its crescent came shining through the naked branches of trees. They looked like black veins sketched onto the blue-white light.

  A single look at the sky told Jay it was cold and was getting colder fast. He slammed the door on the rental truck he’d parked illegally and went up the steps to the condo lobby. It was only a few miles from the gallery, but still in the sprawl of town that had grown up along the highway out of town, away from the national park.

  Another piece of the modern built on the bones of the old, he thought.

  If something is alive, it changes, the critic in his mind pointed out. That’s how you know it’s alive.

  Don’t have to like it, though.

  Patches of ice gleamed sullenly in the shadows, waiting for an unwary foot.

  He tried the lobby door, just in case.

  Locked.

  Will she let me in?

  The pragmatic part of his mind laughed. If he mentioned Muse, she’d run to let him in.

  “Yes?” came Liza’s voice, tentative and hoarse.

  “It’s Jay. Let me in.”

  “Jesus, what next,” she said dully, resignation in every syllable.

  The intercom went silent.

  He counted the seconds until he heard the door buzz, letting him in.

  Fourteen seconds.

  A lifetime.

  Ignoring the elevator, he raced up the stairs to Liza’s second-floor corner unit and knocked on the door.

  “It’s still me,” he said when the peephole darkened.

  She opened the locks reluctantly, dragging it out, telling him without words just how glad she was to see him. The door opened in slow motion. He didn’t wait for a verbal invitation. He was inside and closing the door behind him before she could blink.

  The room was as hot as a tropical beach. The air smelled of floral perfume, burned food, and stale alcohol.

  He opened his jacket while he measured the once-young woman his already-old father had married. Liza was wearing a red satin wrapper that was more suited to morning in bed than to evening anywhere. The fluffy red mules she wore might have been sexy at one time but were simply ratty now. Her hair was uncombed except for a long platinum sweep on the right side falling forward to conceal that side of her face. She was swaying slightly in place.

  All in all, she looked like a bad day in hell.

  “Blackmail keeping you up nights?” Jay asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  “No thanks.”

  Liza turned her back and went to a chair where a glass of gin or vodka or water waited on the end table.

  “Are you drunk?” he asked.

  “What do you want?” she asked, ignoring his question.

  “Remember the helicopter crash?”

  “The one you went Rambo on? Hard to forget.” She took a deep swallow from the glass, as though it would help her forget. “It crashed. So what?”

  A sense of futility and anger went through him, but he kept on anyhow. “Turns out the pilot was a seriously bad dude.”

  She shrugged.

  “The sheriff’s men found the pilot’s phone,” Jay said. “Your number was on the call record.”

  She took another swallow. For all the comprehension she showed, he could have been speaking Swahili.

  I have to make it simple, he realized. Something in her either isn’t home or has broken.

  “I can help you or I can hurt you,” Jay said. “Choose.”

  Liza stared at him blankly. “What on earth are you chattering about? I never called anyone in a helicopter. Why would I? They wear earmuffs or whatever.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Listen to me, Liza. It’s done. Over. Finished.”

  Starting past him, she chewed on a fingernail that was already bloody. Her hand was shaking.

  He swallowed his anger. Badgering a broken old lady wasn’t going to help him get closer to the answers he needed.

  “Cooke knows you were in contact with the men who shot at Sara and me,” he said evenly, “the same men who left boot prints in the Solvangs’ fresh blood.”

  She blinked at him like a sleepy child, waiting for him to say something that she understood.

  “Why, Liza? What made you hate me so much?”

  For a long moment, she stared at him like she was putting puzzle pieces of reality together, all but moving her fingers to mimic the act. Then her hands went limply to her lap.

  “It wasn’t ever about you,” she said finally. “You were just in the way.”

  She didn’t cry, but her lips were quivering. When she absently brushed the hair away from her face, Jay saw a livid bruise there, running from her temple to below her swollen eye.

  Who hit her? Jay thought. That’s a really fresh bruise.

  “And maybe he’s right,” she whispered. “Maybe it was all my idea and he was just doing what I was too weak to do.” She sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “He? Who are you talking about?” Jay crouched before her and touched her chin gently, tilting her face until she met his eyes. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “You have the painting and you didn’t give it to me,” she said.

  “Why do you want Muse?”

  “It wasn’t for you. It’s not yours.” Liza clenched her body and tried to lunge to her feet.

  Running into Jay was like hitting a wall.

  She fell back into her chair and grabbed one of his hands. “You don’t understand. I have to get Muse back. If you give it to me, this can all end.”

  He treated her like the child she had become, stroking her hair gently, avoiding the bruise that was still spreading, consuming her face.

  “It already has ended,” he said. “Your hired hit men are dead. I have Muse and I’m keeping it.”

  “Sara’s reputation,” Liza said, an echo of her old determination returning.

  “An engagement ring will take the sting out of any gossip.”

  “No.” She shook her head so that her hair swirled wildly.

  “It’s over, Liza. If you try to hurt Sara, I’ll hound you out of Jackson. I can do it and we both know it. You’ll have to live in a place where no one knows your name and no one cares.”

  “No. No. No.” She shook her head emphatically. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I told him but he laughed and called me names and threatened to . . .”

  Her voice died and silence filled the room until it was as suffocating as the tropical heat.

  “Who is murdering people and blaming you?” Jay asked.

  The question came out of nowhere, blindsiding her, sending her back into her childlike hiding.

  “No,” she said.

  “Do you owe some thug money because of another of Barton’s screwups?”

  “No. No. No. No.”

  It wasn’t an answer. It was a denial that this could be happening to her.

  “Why, Liza? Why?” Jay’s voice, like his hand holding on to her arm, was gentle. And relentless.

  She felt frail, vibrating so hard she might shake apart at any second. Eyes a darker blue than her son’s filled and overflowed, sending more tears streaking through yesterday’s makeup.

  “He owes me everything, but even that isn’t enough. More, more, more. He always wants more.”

  “Barton?” Jay asked. “He did this to you? He hit you?”

  Tears flowing from her swollen eyes were her only answer.

  “Where is he now?” Jay asked.

  More tears came.

  The intercom buzzed. “Ms. Neumann, this is Sheriff Cooke. You can talk to me in the privacy of your home or in the official interview room at my office.”

  Only the tears flowing down her face answered. Only they were alive.

&nbs
p; Jay found the intercom near the door. “Cooke, it’s Jay. Come up. Liza’s in shock.”

  “On my way.”

  Jay opened the door and waited impatiently for the elevator to arrive.

  “Talk to me,” Cooke said as soon as he saw Jay.

  “I think Barton is the one who backhanded her. Bruise is less than an hour old. Still developing.”

  The sheriff’s eyebrows went up.

  “I know Barton’s the one pushing Liza for more and more money,” Jay said. “I don’t know how the Solvang murders meant cash for Barton, but it’s all tied up somehow. And the Muse painting, too. But none of it makes sense. Barton’s just a spoiled kid. How could he be capable of this? What a bloody clusterf—”

  “Where’s Barton?” Cooke interrupted.

  “He has a downstairs condo. I’ll start there.”

  “Leave him to me. Go get Sara and have dinner. I’ll call you.”

  “I can’t just—” Jay began.

  “Leave it to the law. That’s an order.”

  Jay’s jaw muscles worked, but he nodded once before he turned and strode to the stairwell. He went down the stairs fast, the grip tracks on his boots scraping in the silence.

  Sara was so eager to see Muse again that she fumbled the combination twice. The third time the ice-cold lock opened grudgingly. Before she went inside the gallery, she looked over her shoulder again to make sure she was alone.

  There was nothing in the alley but the eerie gleam of ice buried in the thin shadows cast by the moon. A careless wind blew through the narrow lane, searching for something loose to play with.

  She slipped inside the gallery just before the wind found her. The door creaked as it settled back into place. Her purse was where she’d left it in the corner. Her phone was with the magnifying glass and the small flashlight. She took off her shearling jacket and put it on top of her purse.

  Just a few minutes with Muse. I have to be sure.

  She checked her watch.

  Five minutes. Then I’ll go back to the café and wait for Jay.

  With eager steps she went to the painting on its easel. She nearly tripped over the white sheets the previous owners had draped everywhere for their final art installation, a celebration of the ordinary.

  As always, Muse’s haunting and haunted eyes were the first thing to reach out to Sara.

  The second thing was the fact that she was sure the face—and maybe the rest of the nude figure—had been painted on top of something else.

  It could be just a redo. Even the greatest painters don’t always get it right the first time, and we have x-ray photographs to prove it.

  But a do-over gave a lot of insight into the artistic process.

  She shoved her phone in her back pocket and went to work with the magnifying glass and the light. The more she looked, the more certain she was that everything within the frame of the window was a redo, including the model.

  “Awesome,” she said to herself. “Once I have this x-rayed, I’ll know what’s beneath. If it’s more than just a correction of a mistake, I’ll make a giclee print of this version, restore the original, and show them side by side. It could be a real showstopper, a rare glimpse into the process of creation.”

  Then she sighed.

  “Or it could be nothing but a mess underneath, the usual reason for a redo. But I’ll—”

  The creak of the back door opening sent her pulse over the moon. Without even thinking about it, Sara whipped the phone out of her back pocket and punched in the three numbers she had come to know all too well. Holding the phone behind her back, her thumb on the call button, she waited.

  It’s just Jay.

  Or the wind.

  Or—

  “Barton! What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER 27

  BARTON STEPPED OUT of the shadows, his red hair wild from the wind and studded with snow. “Since you were too selfish to show Muse to my mother, I thought I’d see it for myself.”

  Sara didn’t know what was wrong, but she knew something was. Barton was flushed with more than the cold outside. His glance skittered from place to place, never quite fixing anywhere.

  Drugs? she wondered. Alcohol?

  Both?

  One of his hands was bruised across the back. The other was in his pocket.

  And then it wasn’t.

  The instant she saw the gun, she punched the call button and shoved the phone into her back pocket.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “With the painting? You can see for yourself. It’s right here.”

  Muffled words came from her back pocket. “911 operator. What is your emergency?”

  She prayed he didn’t hear.

  “Why do you have a gun, Barton Vermilion?” she asked, speaking loudly and very clearly. “Is it some new fashion statement?”

  He looked at her like she was crazy.

  “A gun, Barton Vermilion? Really? What kind of pistol is it? It looks small. Is your gun a .22? Point that gun somewhere else. This is an art gallery in downtown Jackson, not a shooting gallery.”

  Muffled words came from her back pocket. She coughed loudly to cover them.

  Can the operator hear me?

  Does he or she understand?

  “Shut up!” Barton shouted. “You talk too much! Just like my mother, yammering and yammering and never getting anything done. Well, I’m in charge now. It’s my ass that’s going to get kissed from now on.”

  The only response that occurred to Sara would likely get her shot, so she asked loudly, “What do you want, Barton Vermilion? Why are you pointing a gun at me in an art gallery in downtown Jackson?”

  Come on, operator, she thought frantically. You have a name and a location and the type of emergency. What the hell else do you need?

  The muffled voice came louder, asking her questions she couldn’t answer without getting shot.

  “I said to SHUT UP,” Barton shouted. “I know my name and where I am and—Shit, were you talking to someone before I came in? Where’s your phone?”

  “I left it in my room,” she lied.

  Jay, where are you? Barton’s skittering, pale eyes are looking more than a little crazy.

  “Come here,” he said, glancing around jerkily. “Now. Make it quick.”

  Her back pocket was silent.

  Is that good or bad or does it matter at all? Sara thought.

  She followed Barton’s directions, but she was looking for anything she could use as a weapon. The discarded boards with nails sticking out appealed to her, but she didn’t see a way to get her hands on one without getting shot.

  The claw hammer. It’s on the table only a few feet from Barton.

  Has he noticed it?

  “Barton, why are you doing this? Why are you threatening—”

  “Shut up and get over here or I’ll shoot you right now!”

  She began walking toward him. Slowly. She made sure that her steps took her close to the table and the butt of a hammer sticking out from beneath the sheet.

  “Faster or I’ll shoot you.”

  “I hurt my foot running from a helicopter,” she lied. “I can’t do fast.”

  “So that was why Jay was wheeling you around. Stupid bastards,” he said, shaking his head jerkily. “Charge me fifty big ones and end up getting killed. Waste all those bullets and they didn’t even nick Rambo after they killed the Solvangs just because they got bored waiting for you, what a nasty mess that was and all because my dear mother was too stupid to win a court case from a hick judge because if we’d had the damned Muse we’d have been safe and nobody would have ever known, but that’s okay now because I’ll burn the bitch after I burn you.”

  Sara couldn’t make sense of his ravings, except for a few words she’d understood very clearly. Her heart staggered, then raced.

  Barton sent the helicopter after Jay.

  Louder and louder with each second, the thought ricocheted around her mind.

  And following it
was the certainty that Barton had had some kind of psychotic break.

  I’m alone with a madman holding a pistol.

  She inched closer to the claw hammer.

  Jay, hurry. I could use a little help here.

  “It’s Jay’s fault,” Barton said, watching her through eyes that were almost entirely pupil.

  Sara jerked, wondering if she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

  “All of this is his fault,” Barton said, waving the pistol around. “He wouldn’t give me what was mine so what am I supposed to do, kiss his ass for another seven years and then take a DNA test with his blood?”

  Barton answered his own ravings with a stream of profanity that assured him he was a man, as good as any other man, especially Jay.

  Warily Sara eyed Barton as she inched forward. She was almost within reach of the claw hammer. One more step . . .

  Her right hand snapped out and wrapped around the butt of the claw hammer. The top of it caught on the sheet, dragging it behind like a big flag as she swung the unwieldy tangle at Barton.

  “What are you—Oof!” He gasped as the hammer thudded into his gut.

  The sheeted billowed up and over him like a cloud, then deflated, blinding him.

  She thought of trying for his gun, then did the sensible thing and ran to the back door, yanking tables and chairs askew behind her to slow down his pursuit.

  “I’m going to kill you!” Barton screamed as he fought the sheet shrouding him.

  You’ll have to catch me first, she thought grimly.

  She skidded to a stop, thumped against the back door, and yanked the handle. It moved, but the door didn’t open.

  The bolt. He locked it behind him.

  She clawed at the bolt until it opened. A second later she hurled herself out the door, skidded on fresh snow, spun, and fell on her butt so hard her phone bounced out of her pocket and skated away into the shadows. She scrambled to her feet, got traction, and ran.

  The night air broke around her like shards of ice, slicing straight through her light cotton shirt. Snow was intermittent, the latest storm coming apart and fraying into patches of stars.

  At first Sara barely felt the cold. She was too busy sprinting down the alley and praying that she wouldn’t slip on other hidden patches of ice. She thought she was heading back to the café, then realized she had turned the wrong way after she came out of her fall.