Now You See Her (7 page)

“And finally,
Deep Space.”

“Quasars, of course.” It was another little game she played, trying to guess what the questions would be before she heard the clues. Lately she had been doing really well at that, too.

The defending champion began with Potent Potables. Alex read the clue. Stumped, the contestant stared at the board as if he could force it to give him the answer. The buzzer sounded, and the contestant in the middle rang in. “What is absinthe,” he said.

Sweeney reached for the remote control and turned off the television without waiting to hear Alex confirm that was the correct question. She knew it was right. These days she was always right.

She felt jittery, more unsettled than she could remember ever feeling before. Getting to her feet, she walked to the window and stared out at the rain. She loved rain; normally it soothed her. Tonight the magic wasn't working.

Surely falling in lust with Richard hadn't upset her to this extent. She was surprised, sure, because
such a thing normally didn't happen to her, but after all it wasn't such a big deal. Women lusted after men all the time. She chose not to act on it, and that was that. The excitement had been heady, though. She could understand how people came to act irrationally while they were under the influence, so to speak. Hormones were as potent as whiskey, and twice as sneaky.

No, she thought, it wasn't Richard and her unusually strong reaction to him. She had made her decision on that and put it out of her mind, sort of. This was something else, a bone-deep uneasiness that had nothing to do with the state of her ovaries. She felt sad, almost grief-stricken, and she didn't know why.

She tried to do some more sketches, but couldn't concentrate. Television held no appeal, but finally she settled down with a book, wrapped up in a blanket, and managed to get in a good hour of reading before she became so sleepy her head kept drooping. It was only nine o'clock, but Sweeney figured if she was that sleepy, then she needed to be in bed.

The on-and-off rain was on again, and she crawled under the covers with a sigh of pure pleasure. The electric blanket had her bed nice and warm; crawling into it was like crawling into a cocoon. It wasn't as nice as Richard's coat, but it was still wonderful. She stretched out, wriggling her cold toes against the warm blanket, and in minutes was asleep.

A little after midnight she began to toss restlessly under the covers, making pushing motions with her
hands. She muttered sounds that weren't quite words. Her head moved back and forth on the pillow, and her eyelids fluttered. Her breath rushed in and out of her lungs as if she had been running.

Then she stilled. Even her breathing stopped for a long moment.

Her breathing started again. Her eyes opened, the expression in them was distant. She got out of bed and silently, without turning on any lights, walked barefoot through the apartment to her studio. She didn't turn on any lights, but the wash of colorless light from the street was enough for her to make her way through the big, cluttered room without bumping into anything.

Several easels stood around the room, all wearing canvases in varying stages of completion. She took one canvas down and laid it on a table, then put a blank one in its place on the easel.

Her movements were precise as she took a tube and squeezed a glob of bright red onto her palette. The first brushstroke on the blank expanse of canvas left behind a violent streak of red. Next she reached for the black. There was a lot of black.

She stood there for two hours, her brush moving with silent skill. She didn't hear the sirens as a fire truck raced down the street beneath her window. She didn't feel the chill on her bare feet. Not once did she shiver.

Suddenly she sagged, like a balloon going flat. She dipped a brush into the black one more time and added a touch down at the bottom. Then she carefully placed the brushes in the turpentine and
left the studio as silently as she had entered it, retracing her steps through the dark apartment, a slim, barefoot woman in pajamas, with curly hair rioting around her shoulders. She moved as quietly as a ghost, back to her bedroom and the warm nest of her bed.

*   *   *

The alarm went off at six-thirty. Sweeney fumbled a hand out from under the cover and swatted the clock, stopping the obnoxious noise. The smell of coffee teased her out of bed. Dragging on a pair of thick socks, she lumbered like Frankenstein's monster into the kitchen. As she did every morning, she sent up a silent thank-you to God for electronic miracles and waiting coffee. With the first cup in hand, the first too-hot sip warming her on its way down her throat, she was sufficiently awake not to spill any of it on her way to the shower.

Ten minutes later, awake and warm, dressed in sweats, and with the now-drinkable coffee in her hand, she went into the studio, her most favorite place in the world. The room was in a corner of the building, which meant it had windows on two walls. Actually, the two walls
were
windows, great big tall ones that looked like factory windows, though she didn't think the building had ever been used for manufacturing. On sunny days, the light was fantastic.

It was still too early for that, though, so she flipped the light switch, flooding the room with almost blinding light. The lights she had installed were huge round metal fixtures that hung from the ceiling and beamed down an incredible amount of
wattage. Shadows were nonexistent in the room, which was great, but she preferred natural light.

She knew her studio intimately. The first thing she noticed was the canvas on the table. Frowning, she walked over. It was the St. Lawrence canvas, and she knew she hadn't put it on the table; she had left it on the easel. A chill went through her. Who had moved the canvas, and when? Another canvas stood in its place now, and Sweeney stared at it for a moment, strangely uneasy, before walking around the easel to see what it was.

She went very still, blue eyes wide as she stared at the canvas. Her lips were white, her fingers clenched on the coffee cup.

It was ugly. It was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. A man sprawled in the dirty, garbage-filled space between two buildings. She knew exactly what she was looking at, even though the buildings were nothing more than black hulks on either side that somehow gave the appearance of height. Something was wrong with the man's head. There was a little blood pooled around his nostrils, and a thin line of it ran from his left ear, curving under the ear to drip into his gray hair.

For a moment she stared at the painted face without recognition. The eyes were open, blank, glazed with the film of death. But then she saw the facial structure she knew so well, having sketched it so often.

It was the old hot dog vendor.

Her first irrational thought, rushing through her brain on a flood of rage, was that someone had broken
into her apartment and painted the disturbing picture. Logic pointed out the idiocy of that scenario. For one thing, the style, though not as detailed as usual, was her own. That, and her signature scribbled in the lower right corner of the canvas, told her she had done the painting.

The only problem was, she didn't remember any of it.

C
HAPTER
    F
OUR

A
t nine, the telephone rang. Sweeney was still numb with shock, and so cold she couldn't seem to get warm no matter how much coffee she drank. She'd kept edging the thermostat upward until it was sitting on eighty, and she refused to turn it higher. The local weather forecast, delivered by a woman so chirpy Sweeney felt like smacking her, had told her the day would be
beautiful,
with highs in the mid-seventies. People outside were walking around in short sleeves, children were still wearing shorts, and she was freezing. She felt as if her inner core was pure ice, the cold coming from inside rather than out.

She couldn't settle down to paint anything, not even something unsatisfactory. Every time she saw that ugly painting of the old hot dog vendor, she wanted to weep, and she wasn't a leaky-eye type of
woman. But she felt so sad, almost as if she were in mourning, and when the phone rang, she grabbed it up, glad for a change, for the distraction.

“Candra here. Is this a good time?” Candra's warm voice sounded in her ear.

“As good as any.” Sweeney pushed an unruly curl out of her eyes. “About yesterday—”

“Don't apologize,” Candra interrupted, laughing. “I should be apologizing to you. If I had stopped to think, I would have known immediately you wouldn't be able to stand them. A little of Margo goes a long way, though in her defense, Carson is enough to give a saint a bad attitude.”

“He has the hots for you.” Damn, she hadn't meant to say that. She liked Candra, but they had never crossed the line between friendly business associates and
friends.
Intimate conversation wasn't her strong point, anyway.

Candra evidently had no such hang-ups. She laughed dismissively. “Carson has the hots for anything female. To say he's like a dog would insult the dog community. He has his uses, though, which is why Margo stays with him.”

Sweeney didn't say anything, because she knew anything that came out of her mouth would be uncomplimentary, and the McMillans were not only in Candra's social circle, they were her clients. Insulting them wouldn't be diplomatic. Keeping silent was a strain, but she managed.

“I saw you get in the car with Richard yesterday,” Candra said after a slight pause, and there was a faint hesitancy in her tone.

Oh, boy.
Sweeney's radar began beeping an alarm. “It was starting to rain and I had the portfolio, so he gave me a lift home.” She clutched the phone, hoping Candra would leave it there and go on to another subject.

No such luck. “He can be very courteous. It's that country-boy Virginia upbringing.”

“I didn't know he was from Virginia.” That seemed like a safe thing to say.

“He still has the accent. No matter how I begged, he absolutely refused to have speech lessons to help him get rid of it.”

Sweeney didn't think she had ever noticed his accent, though now that she thought about it, his speech did have a certain lazy quality about it. Virginia wasn't exactly the Deep South, though Candra made it sound as if Richard talked like the Beverly Hillbillies. Sweeney didn't want to talk about him; just thinking about him made her uncomfortable. She especially didn't want to talk about him with his soon-to-be ex-wife.

“You know we're getting divorced,” Candra said casually. “It's a mutual decision. Richard and I had been drifting apart for some time, and shortly after you moved to the city last year, we separated and filed for divorce. He's being a bastard about the settlement, but I suppose that's to be expected. A divorce isn't exactly a friendly proceeding, is it?”

“Not usually.” Maybe if her responses gave Candra no encouragement, the other woman would tire of the subject and move on.

“Ah . . . did Richard say anything yesterday?”

The hesitancy was back in Candra's tone. Sweeney got the feeling this was the real reason behind the call. “About what?” She actually managed to sound blank. She was proud of herself, and irritated at the same time. She had no reason to feel guilty, because even though Richard had asked her to dinner, she had turned him down, but evidently logic had nothing to do with guilt.

“About the divorce.”

“No, he didn't mention it.” Relief crawled through Sweeney at being able to say something that was totally, one hundred percent true. She wasn't good at this subterfuge stuff, even though everything she had said was accurate in letter, if not in spirit.

“I didn't really think he would, he's so damn discreet.” The words sounded bitter. Candra paused again. “I noticed when we were in the gallery, he barely took his eyes off you.”

The uncomfortable feeling intensified as it inched like a worm up Sweeney's back. She didn't want this. She didn't want to get caught in the middle during their divorce. All she wanted was to forget she had been bushwhacked by some malfunctioning hormones and for a moment responded to his attractiveness.

“He's been so damn careful since we separated that if he's had any lovers, I haven't been able to find out about it,” Candra continued. “When I saw the way he watched you yesterday . . . well, I was curious.”

Yeah, sure. There was definite bitterness there, Sweeney thought. And she definitely wanted to end
this conversation. “Maybe there haven't been any.”

Candra laughed. “What, Richard go without sex? Not likely. Anyway, what I wanted to say is, if you and Richard have something going, I wouldn't mind. We've been separated for almost a year, so of course I've gotten on with my life. I've met someone I'm very fond of, and he's far more comfortable to be with than Richard ever was.”

Sweeney couldn't think of anything appropriate to say.
Thank you
was out of the question. Why on earth would Candra call about this, anyway? Was she concerned that if Sweeney actually did begin seeing Richard, she would try to find another art dealer to handle her sales? That didn't make sense, because Sweeney had no illusions about her worth to Candra; the gallery handled artists who made a lot more sales than she. No, this call was prompted by sheer nosiness, the curious inability of estranged couples to let go even though they were embroiled in the legal surgery that would sever them.

Well, she didn't want any part of it. She shivered and reached for a blanket to wrap around her while she tried to think of a way to tiptoe through this conversational minefield. But a response seemed called for, so at last she said, “I hope you'll be very happy.” There! That was innocuous enough.

Candra laughed, and sounded genuinely amused. “Oh, I doubt this is anything permanent. Life's too short and too full of men to chance making another mistake. But I admit I was hoping Richard was interested in you.”