by Molly Greene
Gen hooked a thumb toward the door and Patrick and Oliver followed her through it. “You’ll have to answer a lot of questions when the police get here. Are you ready for that?”
Patrick nodded. “We’ve always known our lives could change in an instant. I think it helped us be grateful for the moments we had. Jacovich told me you had the painting, and you were asking questions. We figured it was a matter of time. We thought about running, but it wouldn’t be right for Ella. So we waited.”
“Did you push me off the cliff path in Carmel?”
“Me? No.” Patrick shook his head. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. The three of us have been together here for weeks.”
“Do you know anything about it?”
Noonan’s eyes went dark. “I can guess. Jacovich wouldn’t want to lose the income if Shannon was exposed. He’s been pressuring her to take over all Dad’s work, to push Dad out.”
Gen thought about it and came to a decision. “I’ll back your story, but I don’t know whether they’ll arrest Shannon or not.”
“Will they make her go back to New York? Will they take Ella away?”
“I don’t know, Patrick.”
He groaned with an ache that cut through Gen like a knife, then scrubbed his hands across his face as though he could wipe away the truth.
Finally, he found something good to cling to.
“In a way, I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “We’ve worried for her, cooped up here so much. It’s just that I’ve always prayed I’d be by their sides when the changes came.”
“Keep praying.”
He nodded.
“Ella seems strong enough to handle whatever comes,” Gen said.
“She’s her mother’s daughter.”
Patrick gave them the key, and Gen and Oliver went out to open the front gate and wait for the authorities.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Hours passed while the police questioned them all. In the end, they took Sophie into custody and left Shannon and Patrick with a warning not to leave the area until an official determination had been made.
Shannon, Patrick, Oliver, and Gen regrouped in the living room. Ella was asleep in her bed.
“My father was wild for me to apply myself and make it as a painter.” Patrick Noonan stood apart, staring out the window into the dark. “So I tried. I tried to do it for him.
“I met Sophie when I sat in on one of his classes. We went for a cocktail. I liked her a lot, but she hid her drinking at first, and over time it became a problem. I discovered I didn’t feel as deeply as she did. We were together for a while, but in the end I broke it off. She didn’t take it well.”
“What did she do?” Gen asked.
“Called me, cried, begged, hung around outside my apartment and threatened all sorts of things.”
“So she stalked you. And your reaction?”
“I stood my ground. I told her it was over and avoided her calls. When that didn’t work, I came and went through the service entrance in my building.”
“How did you meet Shannon?”
“It was a few weeks after the last time I saw Sophie. My father contracted for a model and I sat in on the session. It turned out to be Shannon. It didn’t take long to figure out they were sisters, you can see the resemblance. I fell deeply in love, probably for the first time in my life. I was afraid to tell her about my involvement with Sophie because I didn’t want to lose her.”
“Your father didn’t mention your relationship with Shannon to the police,” Gen said. “Did he lie?”
“My father didn’t know until much later.”
“Corey was the one who figured it out,” Shannon said. “She worked for Greg. She watched the whole thing unfold, and it worried her. She asked to meet me that night. She could see Patrick and I were serious, and she wanted to tell me something.
“She was nervous. She started by saying Patrick had a girlfriend before me. But when Corey said he’d slept with Sophie and that Sophie took their breakup hard, I was stunned. It was difficult for her to get it out, and she got blitzed while she was trying. I took her home in a cab. I tried to get her to drink some water, but she didn’t want it.”
“And your prints were on the glass,” Gen said.
Shannon nodded. “I had a shoot the next morning, but I’d left my day planner. The address was in it. So I went down to Corey’s early to pick it up. There was a crowd outside and the police were there. I got out to see what happened. They said some college kid on the ninth floor was dead.
“People from the building were talking about how they saw a blonde leaving her apartment the night before. I knew it was me, and I panicked. We’d been together at the bar, we’d been together in the cab. A million people might be able to point the finger at me.
“I went to Patrick’s and told him what happened. I was crazy mad, screaming at him to tell me why he hadn’t told me he’d slept with my sister. He said it was before he knew me. He said if he could take it back, he would.”
Patrick left his vigil at the window and moved behind his wife, then squeezed her shoulders. “I asked her to marry me,” Patrick said. “We made a plan to get out of the city until we knew what to do.”
“He went to my apartment and left the note,” Shannon continued. “He’d never been there before, and we’d both watched enough TV to know he couldn’t leave prints, so he wore gloves. He didn’t touch anything or take anything away.”
“What were you thinking?” Gen asked.
“We thought it would buy us time,” Shannon replied. “We hoped it might make everybody stop looking, or the cops would have a chance to figure out who really killed her. I had no idea it was Sophie.”
“We split right away,” Patrick said.
“How did you get out of the city?”
“I had my car shipped to New York when we moved. We drove straight through and came here to my mother’s. I bought two weeks’ worth of food, then I got on a plane and flew back to the East Coast. I pretended I’d had the flu, and that’s why I hadn’t gone out or returned calls.”
“How did you explain your missing car?”
“Said it was stolen. It was New York, so it wasn’t hard to believe.”
“What did your father say about Corey?”
“He felt wretched. Corey was prepping a series of canvases for him, something a dealer in Europe had pre-sold and needed quickly. It was the first time he’d ever had an apprentice, and they agreed to keep the relationship quiet. Nobody knew Corey was working for him.”
“How could the police not have found out?”
“I have no idea,” Patrick replied. “Apparently the cops found Shannon’s prints on the glass right away and stopped looking into the circumstances. They were on file from some screw-up when she was a kid.”
“A pro-choice protest in high school,” Shannon added. “The crowd got out of hand. They arrested us and let us go right away. I didn’t think much of it at the time.”
“But it was enough for the detectives to stop asking questions.”
“That’s how it seemed,” Patrick replied. “My Dad heard through the school grapevine that Shannon Keene was the suspect. He’d only hired her once and he remembered her name, but he didn’t have anything to tell the cops, so he didn’t go talk to them. But he told me all about it.”
Shannon picked up the thread. “Patrick flew home to California soon after that. Greg stayed to finish out the semester.”
“I sold the car and we set up the house and Shannon stayed inside. We lived that way for over a year.”
“Why didn’t you stay and face them in New York?” Gen asked.
“We were afraid,” Shannon said. “At first, we thought hiding was the only way. After a while, we loved what we had and decided it was enough. We didn’t want to take the chance.”
“I would find it impossible,” Gen replied, “to leave everyone and everything I knew and loved.”
“Patrick and I were together,” Shannon said.
Her voice was firm. “I walked away from what I had because I was walking toward what I wanted. I’ve never been sorry. My family was wounded and scattered all over by then, and I didn’t miss the drama. I know it was selfish to let them think I was dead. It was wrong, but I did it anyway. I let them suffer.”
“How could you stay hidden all that time?”
“Patrick eventually got me a fake ID. I don’t use it much, just to go to the doctor or the dentist in San Francisco. Everything was going well, but then one day Greg dropped by and caught me. We had to tell him.”
“Greg thought Shannon killed Corey. How did you convince him that wasn’t true?”
“My father could see I’d been happy since I came home,” Patrick replied. “I told him it was Shannon’s doing. We told him she didn’t kill Corey, and he believed us.”
“So he agreed to keep your secret.”
“He wanted us all to go to the police together and tell the truth.” Shannon’s eyes roved the room and stopped on a painting of the ocean beyond the window. “He begged us to clear it up, but I was frightened. I knew I’d have to go back, and I didn’t think they’d ever let me return. I pleaded with him to let me be.”
“Once Ella was born, we didn’t discuss it anymore,” Patrick said. “He didn’t want to change things, either. He loved Shannon, and he loved his granddaughter.”
“It was Greg who taught me to paint,” Shannon said. “I had a lot of time on my hands. I gardened and cooked, but he saw I was bored, so he invited me into his studio.
“First he showed me how to stretch canvas. Later I learned to cut mats. Then one day he sat me down at an easel and instructed me in the proper way to prep a painting. Neither of us ever imagined I might have an aptitude for it.”
“But she does.” Patrick rubbed Shannon’s shoulders. “She has enormous ability, as you’ve seen.”
“Why didn’t you take her on as a student?”
Noonan flashed a wry smile. “I did my best to talk her out of it.”
“Why?”
He took in some air, then let it out before he spoke. “Nothing but disappointment has ever ridden into my life on a paint brush.” He was silent for a beat.
“Until I met Shannon. I thought she might be the only gift that would ever come of it. So when I fell in love with her, I made a deal with the powers that be. I never opened a tube of paint again.”
“And you haven’t?” Gen asked.
Patrick shook his head.
“So you’ve been hiding here, in this house, for twenty years. I don’t see how it was possible to avoid detection.”
“Don’t you listen to the news?” Patrick replied. “They just found that old gangster Whitey Bulger hiding in plain sight in Santa Monica. They’ve been searching for him for almost twenty years, and they couldn’t find him. If they were looking for Shannon, they weren’t trying very hard.”
“And I don’t feel we’ve been hiding,” Shannon added, “so much as living a wonderful life together. We have the beach and the house and the land and Greg’s place, too. We go up to the city once in a while.” Shannon covered Patrick’s hand with her own. “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“It’s Ella who’s gotten the worst of it,” Patrick said. “She’s been home-schooled. A few select people know she’s my daughter, but all the same we’ve kept her close. She needs more now.”
“Shannon,” Gen said. “You can’t tell me you didn’t miss being free, too.”
She shrugged. “When I got restless, I painted myself gone. I imagined being out in the world. I painted myself into scenes I wished I could be in, places I wanted to see in person.”
“You painted yourself here, too.”
“Yes. Flying off the cliff.”
Gen pulled the photographs from her pocket and held them out. “That’s how we found you.”
Patrick leaned in. “I don’t remember this.”
“I do,” Shannon said. “I was afraid to confess, all those years ago. When I saw it was missing, I knew what had happened. It must have been included in a group of Greg’s work we sent out for a show. It was before Jacovich repped Greg. The dealer had no way to know it shouldn’t be sold.”
“But it’s unsigned,” Patrick said. “No one could have passed it off as Dad’s.”
“They didn’t,” Gen replied. “But that’s how Ruth Formby bought it, nonetheless. It hung in her house all this time, and eventually they donated it to a thrift shop, and from there someone brought it to Sophie. Why did you paint over the child, Shannon? Was it Ella?”
Shannon shook her head. “It was just a practice canvas, that’s all. I wasn’t trying to send a message, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t use Greg’s show to send out a plea for someone to rescue me. I didn’t want to be rescued. I’ve loved my life, in spite of its limitations. Patrick saved me.”
The mention of Greg turned Gen’s thoughts to the man in the wheelchair. “Patrick, why is your father locked away upstairs in his estate?”
“You get around, Genevieve Delacourt.” Patrick’s face fell into lines that made him look his age for the first time. “He has multiple sclerosis. The MS is taking him slowly, and he doesn’t want anyone to watch. It’s his choice. He sees us and his housekeeper and Ella, and sometimes Jacovich. He’s dying the way he wants to die.”
“Does Jacovich know about Shannon?”
“He knows she preps for Dad. Of course, he keeps that fact quiet. Like I said, it’s a lucrative account. But lately he’s been making suggestions. He asked her to take over completely, start to finish. He wants her to forge Dad’s name. We wonder if he somehow found out the truth and plans to blackmail us into doing it.”
“Jacovich may have sent someone after me to protect his interests.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Patrick said. “He wants this farce to continue.”
Shannon stood and walked to the window, taking up Noonan’s former position. “It would be wrong for me to represent my work as Greg’s, and at the same time we all know I can never sell under my own name. I could never exhibit my canvases or tell the truth. Greg cries sometimes, because he wants people to know. I think that’s why he insists we keep painting together. He doesn’t want to quit and take it away from me.”
“Speaking of taking something away, Patrick, there’s another piece that doesn’t fit,” Gen said. “What happened between you and Laura Ingburg?”
“She thought she was in love with me, but she was a just a kid. It was a child’s romantic fantasy.”
“She said she knew you wanted to be with her.”
“Yes.” Patrick skirted the couch and sat facing Gen. “That’s the story she tells.”
“You mean it’s a lie?”
“It’s her illusion.” Patrick gave Gen a look that said he was resigned to the truth. “She fell in love with the idea of me, and painting together, and living in this house. There was never an us, not even remotely. I loved her like a sister. She imagines it differently.”
“You never told her you loved her?”
“No.”
“Why would someone make that up?”
“So they can live in their safe dream world and not in the real one. Haven’t you ever known anyone who couldn’t let go of the past?”
Gen thought about it. Sophie, and Laura Ingburg. Then she murmured, “I’m guilty myself.”
“Laura ran away from college and found me here. I called my father, and he came to get her. He took her home to her mother, his wife. Laura told them her story and they split up.”
“So he took you to New York to get over it.”
Patrick nodded. “He’d been invited to Columbia. We closed up the houses and left.”
“And that’s where this story begins,” Gen said. “It seems the tempest followed you from coast to coast.”
“Look, Genevieve. I’m not a perfect man. I–” Patrick stopped. “I squandered my life when I was young. I deserved everything I got, but Shannon did not. She and Ell
a are the ones who had to pay. I’ve spent the last twenty years doing my damnedest to make sure the regrets didn’t pile up higher than what we have that’s good.”
Shannon walked to the couch and cupped her husband’s face in her hands. “And you succeeded.”
* * *
It was late by the time Gen and Oliver drove back to the motel. Gen was exhausted. They didn’t talk much, just grabbed some food and hit the sack.
First thing in the morning they packed, checked out, and headed for home. Oliver was in the driver’s seat. Gen had been thinking about what Patrick revealed about Laura Ingburg.
“Livvie, this whole thing has made me realize something profound. You’ve probably known it for months.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m stuck.”
“Yeah, you are. A little bit.”
“Why do you think that is? How do people’s hearts get trapped in one place?”
“It’s not your heart, Gen. It’s your head. Your heart moved on. It’s your mind that’s holding you back.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Of course.” He reached out and patted her arm. “And I understand. But it’s time to snap out of it.”
“It blew me away to see the love they have for one another. Can you imagine having something like that?”
Oliver nodded. “I can.” He looked at her. “Don’t you think it’s your turn?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Palace of Fine Arts was one of Gen’s favorite places in all of San Francisco. She often went there early in the morning, before the tourists and the sun-seekers had a chance to fill up the parking spaces and horn in on the peace and quiet.
Today she sat cross-legged on the grass with a view of the porticos. A car door slammed out in the lot. She’d have company soon. Other than that, the only other sound was the hum of bees in the flower beds.
So far August had been balmy, although it was still early in the month and the weather could be as fickle as a woman out to cuckold an unwanted suitor. Life was like the city’s changing climate; you had to take each minute as it came and grab it and fill it up with every ounce of living you could. You had to stuff a lot of gratitude into every beautiful twenty-four hours.