Die in Plain Sight

by Elizabeth Lowell

  The irritation in Rory’s voice made Bliss look up from the cheese pastries she was making. Glumly she wondered if he was going to have to rush off and leave her watching TV alone. The drop in her spirits surprised her. It told her how much and how quickly he’d become part of her life again.

  The best part.

  “How’d it happen?” Rory asked. “You get out to take a crap or what?”

  The deputy at the other end of the conversation swallowed hard. “The subject had been cooperative, so we didn’t worry when he went through a yellow light. It was busy—Friday night and all—so we just let him go rather than endangering civilians by taking the light red.”

  “Uh-huh,” Rory said, understanding their predicament but not real sympathetic at the moment. “So, did the light stick on red?”

  “No, sir. He rabbited. Turned off the highway into a residential area. By the time we got there, he was gone.”

  “If I were you,” Rory said, “I’d pray to God that nothing happens to Susa Donovan before she gets back to the hotel, where you and your partner will be waiting for her.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Call me when you pick them up again.”

  Rory didn’t wait for the deputy’s agreement. He punched out and called Ward.

  “Hope I didn’t wake you,” he said when Ward answered the phone.

  Ward snorted. “That’ll be the day. You fight with Bliss and decide to play cribbage tonight with an old man after all?”

  “Not yet. Just got a call from my men. They lost Susa Donovan.”

  “How’d they lose her in a hotel?”

  “It wasn’t in the hotel. It was PCH on a Friday night.”

  Silence.

  Mentally Rory prepared himself for the abrasive edge of Ward’s tongue. It wasn’t a happy prospect. Rory was still raw from the explosion that had come when Ward realized that the paintings he wanted to buy had been stolen.

  “No big deal,” Ward said, “unless you think she stole the paintings herself or had it done, and is going to pick them up again.”

  “If she did, I’m a long way from proving it. Besides, why would she do it? It’s not like she needs money. Ian Lapstrake, now, maybe there’s a possibility. But I got to tell you, nothing in the information I’ve dug up on him suggests he’s anything except the answer to a mother’s prayer.”

  “Huh? You making any progress at all on the theft?”

  “I said I’d call you if we had any breaks on the case.”

  “So you can’t follow a truck on PCH and you can’t catch a brass-balled thief. What the hell good are you to me, Sheriff?” Ward hung up.

  Rory grimaced and turned off the phone.

  “You have to go?” Bliss asked.

  He turned toward her. The rosy silk wrapper she wore brought color to her skin and made her eyes look incredibly blue. “I’d have to be a fool to leave a beautiful lady alone on Friday night.”

  She smiled almost sadly. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He tossed the cell phone on the counter and unbuckled his weapon harness. He draped it over a kitchen chair and went to Bliss, drew her close, and kissed her. “Mmm, you smell good enough to eat.”

  “Is Daddy mad at you because you’re here?”

  “No.” Rory nibbled on her ear. “The paintings he wants to buy were stolen today.”

  “And he blames you?”

  “A firm I own part of was responsible for security at the hotel where the paintings were stolen.”

  “So? Does he blame you every time a bank gets held up?”

  Smiling, Rory kissed her carefully shaped eyebrows. “Nope. But he really had a yen for those paintings.”

  “Do him good not to get something he wants.”

  “Speaking of wanting something,” Rory said, sliding his hands into the deep neckline of the silk wrap.

  “You want food or sex?” she asked, but she arched her back to make it easier for his hands to find her.

  “Dinner in bed.”

  She laughed and kissed him hard.

  No sooner had she gotten his belt unbuckled than her phone rang.

  “Ignore it,” she said against his neck.

  “I was planning to.”

  The phone rang again. Then again. Then the answering machine kicked in.

  They heard Savoy’s voice. “Bliss, if you’re screening calls, let me in. It’s important. Really important.”

  “Well, shit,” Rory said. Slowly he withdrew his hands. “Better get it, sugar. Savvy doesn’t sound happy.”

  She sighed, touched his lips with her fingertip, and went to the phone. “Hi, Savvy.”

  “Ring me up.”

  Bliss’s mouth settled into sulky lines. “I’ve got a man with me.”

  “Your future husband?”

  “Who told you?”

  “Our father, who art not in heaven.” Savoy’s tone said more than words. “Ring me up. I promise it won’t take long.”

  A long, rosy fingernail stabbed at the number pad, opening the downstairs lock. By the time Bliss had her wrapper rearranged and Rory had his shirt tucked in, Savoy was knocking at the front door. Bliss opened the door and looked at her brother.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  “Spending time with the old man when he’s on a rant will do that to you,” Rory said.

  “Yeah.” Savoy pinched the bridge of his nose again. The headache that had begun at the ranch had really taken hold.

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “Scotch. Neat. And some aspirin if you have it.”

  Rory went to the wet bar just off the kitchen.

  Bliss crossed her arms under her breasts and waited. Then she saw the new lines on her brother’s face. “Oh, damn, Savvy. Sit down. I can’t throw you out when you look like this. You hungry?”

  Savoy hesitated, thinking about it.

  “Did you eat dinner?” Rory asked, handing him the drink and some white tablets he’d taken from the bottle behind the bar.

  Savoy knocked back half the drink, threw down the tablets, and finished the drink. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve been going over the latest version of the New Horizons agreement with Dad. Took away my appetite.”

  “How does country soup sound?” Bliss said. “I’ve got some left over from dinner, and some bread to go with it.”

  “You don’t have to feed me,” Savoy said. He smiled slightly, “I know you have better things to do. And by the way, congratulations to both of you.” Hope you get it right this time, but I’m not holding my breath. He glanced at Rory. “You were the only one of the crop that didn’t kowtow to Blissy. Drove her nuts.”

  “Went both ways,” Rory said. “She didn’t kowtow to me.”

  “And it drove you nuts,” Blissy said.

  “Only sometimes.” Rory looked at his future brother-in-law. “Another drink?”

  Savvy shook his head. “Thanks, but I promised Bliss to make this fast.” He reached into the breast pocket of his wool blazer and pulled out the ten-page “agreement to agree.” “Sign this and I’m gone.”

  Bliss’s eyes narrowed into glittering slits as she read the heading on the first sheet. “I’m not going to sign away my birthright to that sleek little church-talking bitch so that Daddy can have a fucking monument built to his everlasting memory.”

  “Your choice,” Savoy said evenly. “But if you don’t sign this deal, your birthright will consist of ten dollars and your father’s fervent hope that you roast in hell.”

  Bliss’s head snapped up. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  The corner of Savoy’s mouth turned down. “Believe it.”

  She stared at her brother for a long moment. “He’d do that to his own daughter?”

  “After what happened to our Moonie siblings, do you have to ask? Dad hasn’t so much as spoken to them for thirty years. Hell, he won’t even listen if I speak about them.
”

  “Jesus, thirty years.” Bliss shook her head, staggered by all the time. Where had it gone? “Has it really been that long?”

  “Yeah. And nothing has changed since,” Savoy said wearily, “except that Dad’s gotten less patient with people who get in his way on business.”

  Rory put a comforting arm around her waist.

  “When you sign,” Savoy said, “you’ll get your credit cards back. He’s a no-holds-barred son of a bitch when it comes to running the ranch his way, but he doesn’t hold grudges.”

  Bliss tilted her head back. Tears fell anyway. “Damn, damn, damn him. He always wins.”

  “Marry me,” Rory said. “I can’t keep you like a queen, but you won’t starve.”

  She gave him a watery smile. “You keep making me wonder why I ever walked away from you.” She looked at her brother and the smile faded. “Where’s a pen?”

  Savoy reached into his breast pocket and gave her a pen.

  “You don’t have to,” Rory said. “Money isn’t—”

  “I won’t deny money is part of it,” she interrupted, her voice as defeated as the line of her back. “I’m too old to be happy on the pension of a public servant, and I know it. You wouldn’t be happy having to find another job flipping burgers, and you know it.” She looked up and met Rory’s eyes directly. “Just like you know that if Daddy thought you were standing between me and my signature on this, he’d crucify you. So there’s no real choice, is there?”

  Savoy didn’t disagree.

  Neither did Rory. He’d never wanted to be one of the “retired” senior citizens working in fast-food joints to make payments on their medical prescriptions.

  Silently Bliss signed the New Horizons papers and handed them back to her brother. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”

  “What was?” Rory asked.

  “Yanking his chain.” She smiled thinly at both men. “It was a hell of a lot more satisfying than being one more Honey Bear licking his feet.”

  Corona del Mar

  Friday night

  41

  Hands on hips, Susa stood back and looked at the various paintings. So did Lacey. It reminded her of what a hard time she’d had picking just three canvases for Susa to view.

  “You’ve selected as many as you’ve rejected,” Ian said.

  “More, actually,” she said.

  “I was trying to be tactful,” he muttered.

  “Don’t strain anything.” But she smiled at him to take the bite out of her words. “Truth is, I’m having a hell of a time choosing. Each painting pretty much looks better than the others. He must have been ruthless when he culled his work through the years.”

  “No originals?” Ian asked.

  Susa shrugged. “Nothing that leaped out at me. Would Rarities rather have a handful to work with or a whole bunch?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at his watch. By now, Dana and Niall would probably be kicking back over garden catalogues, arguing about what to plant next spring. Niall would be looking for new varieties of peonies or violets. Dana would be back in the herb section of the seed magazines, licking her lips over the culinary possibilities and wondering how to sneak those bloody weeds into Niall’s gardens. “Want me to call and ask?”

  “No,” Susa said. “If they need more from me, I’ll handle it after the auction tomorrow.”

  “You’re leaving tomorrow,” Ian said.

  She shrugged. “I’ll stay an extra day or two if Dana wants it.”

  “I take it the Donovan is still in Uzbekistan?” Ian asked, trying not to smile.

  “Eating mystery meat from communal pots,” she agreed. “Everything that was once the eastern reaches of the USSR is rediscovering—or reinventing—tribal rituals to sanctify daily life of all kinds. It would be amusing if they had a sense of humor about it.”

  “The newer the state, the greater the need to be taken seriously,” Ian said.

  Susa sighed. “What do you think, Lacey?”

  “About global politics?” she asked, startled.

  “About my choices,” Susa said, gesturing toward the various paintings.

  “Don’t look at me for help. It took me weeks to pick the paintings I brought to you.”

  “Well, I’ve done all I can until I know what Rarities needs.”

  “Uh, there are more,” Lacey said.

  “Paintings?” Susa asked. “Where?”

  “In the cupboard. Shayla hates them so much I hide them so she doesn’t have to trip over them when we’re getting new stuff for the shop.”

  Susa’s eyebrows lifted. “Everyone’s a critic. Have you heard from her yet?”

  “No. I don’t expect to until she gets out of the back country of Peru and into a place where there’s cell phone coverage. That could be ten days.” Lacey headed for the far wall, picking her way through paintings. “Besides, she couldn’t do anything I haven’t already done, except maybe help me kick butt at the insurance company.”

  “A worthy cause,” Ian said. “If you need backup, I’ve got size thirteen boots at your disposal.”

  She looked over her shoulder and smiled slowly. “Save them for kicking the deputies who are looking for Susa’s paintings.” Lacey opened the first cupboard and began pulling out the Death Suite. “Help me pass these out to Susa, will you?”

  “Sure.” He walked with surprising delicacy through the mess, considering the size thirteen boots he wore.

  The light in the storage unit wasn’t great, but it was plenty bright enough for Ian to see the subject of the paintings as he handed them along to Susa.

  “Man, your grandfather must have been a cheerful bastard,” Ian said as he looked at the fifth version of the drowning woman.

  “He had his moments,” Lacey mumbled.

  Susa didn’t say anything. She just took each dark painting and propped the canvas against whatever she could so that she was able to compare them at the same time. There were eleven of the water.

  The twelfth painting was different.

  “New topic,” Ian said. “Finally.” He shifted the painting Lacey had just handed to him and whistled through his teeth. “This time he’s burning ’em to death.”

  “There isn’t a human figure in his fire canvases,” Lacey said.

  “That’s your story,” he said. “From here, it looks like a cremation.” And it reminded him far too much of the fire last night.

  Susa glanced at the painting, frowned, and began stacking it in a new area, away from the first eleven.

  Silently Lacey handed out six more paintings of a house or a cottage or something burning down. Despite her defense of her grandfather’s works to Ian, she was all too certain that the heaped shadows in the background of each canvas had once been human.

  Shaking his head, Ian passed the paintings along to Susa, who kept her silence.

  “Last batch,” Lacey said.

  “For these small favors, Lord, we give thanks,” Ian said under his breath. He’d seen violent death in his time, yet somehow the painter had managed to capture and vividly enhance the suffering, the rage, and the finality of the act of murder. “He might have been a forger,” Ian said, looking at a car wreck where what could have been a slack white hand dangled against the crumpled, sprung door. A trail of fire led down the slope to the car, marking the leakage from the ruined gas tank. Flames and a full moon leered down at the scene, competing to give ghastly illumination to death. “But he was damn good at it.”

  “Talk about small favors,” Lacey said under her breath.

  Ian kept staring at the painting, tantalized by the sense of something not quite seen. Something…familiar.

  “Hello?” Lacey said, holding out another canvas to him.

  “Huh?” He looked up. “Oh, sorry. Something about this…”

  “Pass it along,” Susa said. “The light’s better out here.”

  “And there are ten more of them to look at,” Lacey said.

  Ian handed the painting over, and the
ten that followed it. When he was finished, he was more certain than ever that the paintings were somehow familiar.

  Yet he was positive he’d never seen them before in his life.

  “Ian? You want to see the pictures in better light?” Susa asked.