A Stranger in Wynnedower (35 page)

Rachel watched Brendan
walk away, wanting to see him actually vanish around the corner. When he did,
she turned back to Jack.

“I don’t know where to
start.”

“Just start.”
Frustration showed in his sharp words.

“Okay. First things
first. You’re here, and you’re fine, so I don’t need this.” She removed the gun
from her pocket and held it out.

He was silent, aghast,
and made no move to accept it from her.

“I thought you might
need rescuing.” She laid the gun on the desk and put a finger to his lips.
“Quiet. Don’t say anything. Promise?” She pulled him into the hallway and to
the dining room. Once inside, she closed the doors and pushed him further into
the room, away from the doors. She couldn’t resist a quick scan of the windows.

“Well, there’s good
news. I found Griffin’s paintings.”

“Not good news. Old
news. Griffin left his paintings stashed here and there. My father once said
that his mother kept hiding them so Gramps couldn’t hang them. I’ve seen them,
and they’re pretty awful.”

The windows made her
feel exposed, but the upside was that she could see clearly along the three
sides of the room. If someone was eavesdropping they wouldn’t be able to hear
her.

“What’s the mystery,
Rachel?”

“Griffin’s paintings.
Not the ones he painted, but the ones he owned.”

Jack scoffed. “You mean
the fabled collection? The vanished collection? Griffin sold it off long ago.
Anything he didn’t sell off, his son did. I’m telling you, he impoverished the
family. House poor.”

“I found something in
the basement, but there were signs that someone found it first.”

“Were you hunting for
treasure, too?” Disappointment showed in his eyes and colored his voice.
“You’re wasting your time.”

Her palm itched to slap
him. “You can be so pig-headed. Shut up before you say something you’ll
regret.”

He drew in a slow, deep
breath, but stayed silent.

“Someone had already
been there, and secretively, so I moved the paintings. I believe someone
intended to steal them from you. I heard noises down there again today, and
that’s when I found Brendan.”

“Steal what?”

“The paintings.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, so I hid
them.”

“You took them from a
hiding place to hide them?” He smirked. “Where are they?”

“I’m going to show you,
but prepare yourself. Remember, the more valuable the treasure, the more
dangerous the treasure hunters can be.”

“Please just explain.”

She surveyed the row of
windows on either side and in the convex end of the room and saw no one.
Casually, as if approaching Jack’s own art work, she went over to where his
canvases were stacked, leaning against the wall. His canvases varied in size,
many quite large and in and among them were six newly-added works of art.

She grasped a painting
and gently pulled it away from the ones before and behind it.

Jack stared. He dropped
to his knees. He stretched his long fingers toward the thick impasto of the
vivid golden flowers but stopped short of touching it. He drew his fingers
back, pressing them to his forehead, lost in reverie. Or star struck.

“Nice sunflowers, huh?”
she asked.

Jack reached out,
grabbed her wrist and pulled her down to the floor beside him. His brain felt
at war with his eyes. He whispered close to her ear, “Is this real?”

“It’s very convincing
at first look. You need an expert to verify them.”

“It.”

“Them.”

Jack sat all the way
down. “Tell me.”

He stared at her. He
was missing something. This made no sense. She urged him forward. He obeyed.
They crawled a few inches, to within reach of the paintings further back.
Gently, careful not to shift the whole lot too much, she lifted a large, blocky
painting forward and motioned to him to peek into the gap.

“Ren–Ren–”

“Renoir.”

“
Girl With–With–
”

“This girl is without a
watering can. She’s sitting on the edge of a fountain, see? The watering can is
a few feet away.”

Jack shook his head,
then raked his fingers back through his curls. “They were in Wynnedower the
whole time?”

“Apparently.”

“Two paintings?”

He tried to keep the
evidence of his eyes at a distance, to stay cool and think it through. Rachel
leaned toward him, her eyes were almost round, the color afire. He felt her
breath warm on his ear.

“Six. Jack, these were
Griffin’s paintings, and they’ve been hidden in a chest in this house
since…well, at least for the past century. Sometimes artists practiced by
copying the masters, and a part of me can’t believe they are truly the works of
the masters. All I know is that you have to keep them safe until you can get an
expert to verify authenticity.”

He started to ask, “Who
was it.…” He stopped short.

She sat silently now.
Was she waiting for him to catch up?

The fog began to clear
from his brain. He spoke tentatively, “Recently, in France.…”

“That’s right. Someone
had a couple hundred Picasso works show up in their garage or something.
There’s some kind of dispute about ownership. But this is different, Jack. Not
a crystal clear path of ownership, but those receipts…and, Jack, these are
unknown works and yet so similar to known works. Artists often do variations on
a theme. I think these are the variations, not the paintings that ended up in
the hands of museums and clients.”

Jack stood abruptly,
lifting her to her feet. She weighed no more than a feather.

“Show me. I want to see
where you found them.”

“But, Jack, please
listen. Someone else found them first, and I’m sure they plan to come back for
them. I think they already did and didn’t find them, and they’re bound to be
angry, maybe desperate…. It could be anyone. It could be a stranger. Or not.” She
stared down at the floor, as if hesitant. “It could be someone you know.”

She touched his arm.
“Jack, I believe the only reason the paintings are still at Wynnedower is
because I found them and moved them before he or they came back again.”

“Who else could have
found them?”

“Brendan?” She said it
softly, lightly.

“Brendan.” He didn’t
want to doubt his friend or spend more time arguing the unknowable. Unknowable
for right now, anyway, and the minutes were flying past.

“Maybe not.” She waved
her hand at the paintings. “But we have to do something with them.”

“What? I can’t just
telephone someone and say, hey, can you come over and take a look at my Van
Gogh and Renoir? I might as well place an ad in the local paper and say, ‘come
help yourself.” He tried to think it through. “They’ve been safe here so
far…how long?”

“Two days. I found them
yesterday. I was waiting for you to return to tell you.”

“Where did you find
them?”

“In the basement, in
the area of the central stairs.” She put her hands against his chest. “You know
where the landing is on the stairs? Did you know there was a door there many
years ago?”

“There’s never been a
door there.”

“I saw it on the
blueprints.”

He frowned. “You have
blueprints?”

“I found them after you
left. Listen, the door opened onto a narrow hallway with a short set of steps
that led to the kitchen. The door into the kitchen was located where the Welsh
cupboard is now.”

“Okay.”

“Between the two
doors—now sealed off—is the hiding place. You can only access it from below.”

“Someone deliberately
constructed a hiding place for the paintings?” It sounded absurd.

“Maybe Griffin was
concerned about the safety of the paintings, too. In fact, now that I think of
it, the trunk the paintings were stored in couldn’t fit through the opening in
the floor. Griffin must’ve put the trunk there before closing it off.” She bit
her lip, then said, “In fact, Brendan mentioned his great-grandfather or maybe
it was his grandfather…but anyway they did carpentry work here.”

“Many did over the
years, including Kilmer’s grandfather.” Almost absentmindedly, he put one arm
around her shoulders and pulled her close.

She didn’t object to
his arm around her, even if he didn’t seem to be fully aware that he was
holding her. She felt wanted. Needed, valued—someone who belonged. Surely, it
was okay to pretend for a moment, before she had to go back to doing the right
thing.

Jack muttered, and his
dark eyes burned with excitement.

She asked, “What now?”

“Amanda. I should call
Amanda.”

Her heart dropped right
out of her chest and plummeted straight to the floor where it landed, splat,
like a bloody pulp.

Amanda.

She plucked Jack’s arm
from her shoulders and pushed it away, resenting that she had to. Resenting
Amanda. Resenting her resentment. Jack eyed her strangely.

She wanted to speak, to
say something clever and hurtful, but her lips were numb, and her jaw seemed
locked. She turned her face away.

Jack’s hand touched her
chin and turned her toward him. “Now what’s wrong?”

The softness of his
voice almost reduced her to tears. Foolish. “Let’s take care of these
paintings. Or, rather, do what you need to do to take care of these paintings
or you’re likely to find someone else has helped himself, or themselves, to
them.”

She stepped away, but
paused to throw back, “Oh, and while you’re at it, give my regards to your
wife.”

He moved like a man
caught between two powerful magnets—a step toward her, a step back to the
stacked paintings, then forward again.

“Wait, Rachel.” He
caught her as she turned the key and opened the dining room doors. “What’s
wrong?”

“What’s wrong? How
about Amanda? Does she think something is wrong?”

She thought she could
walk away coolly, but Jack had other ideas. A rude man with an ego and a hot
temper, he swept her into the curve of his arm.

“Who told you we were
married?”

“Not you,” she accused.

“Who?”

She tried to stare him
down, but then her heart gave a sad jerk. “I don’t remember.”

“I doubt that. Think
again.”

“Are you calling me a
liar? I may be very…inquiring and imaginative, but I know the difference
between reality and fiction.”

“That’s not what I
said. Who?”

 “Brendan. I asked May.
She said your marriage had problems. She said my presence here wasn’t helping.”
Or did she? “Well, she said something like that.”

Jack stared. His eyes
were dark and serious and unflinching. There was no perceptible change in his
expression, yet she received some intangible spark from the force of his
personality, and the tension flowed out of her. Her legs felt rubbery. Her
reaction made no sense. Pure emotionalism. No logic.

Falling in love had no
logic. Had she been fooling herself, thinking she had the option of walking
away with dignity?

He trailed his fingers
along the side of her face, tracing her cheek and jawline. As her heart swelled
and ached, he dropped his hand and stepped back.

“I’m sorry, Rachel.”

And? Next? Was he done?
Seriously?

“I can explain.”

“Perhaps Amanda doesn’t
understand you.” Her anger gifted her with the strength to push him away. “Give
me a break.”

Suddenly, she was back
right where she’d been. Gently but firmly, Jack held her.

His cheek against hers,
his breath warm on her ear, he whispered, “My marital state is no one’s
business—no one’s but mine and yours. Am I married? No. But I do have
obligations, and it looks like I’ve got some things to tidy up.” He put his
forehead to hers in a caress, and then stared into her eyes. “What I don’t
understand is why Brendan would bother saying anything at all. He hardly knows
Amanda.”

Why, indeed? “Well, May
wants me to leave…maybe Brendan wants the same.” Could that have been his
intent? She tried to remember what May had actually said.

“Trust me, Rachel. Can
you do that?”

Her eyes answered for
her. Jack nodded.

“I’ll call….” He
cleared his throat. “I’ll make some calls and we’ll get the paintings somewhere
safe. We’ll figure it out together.”

Together. It was more
than a house. More than people. It was the security of loving and being loved.
Being needed and needing.

Suddenly, she
understood. Home was in Jack’s arms.