White Heat (20 page)

Max placed his hand at the small of her back, urging her to walk faster. “Move it. It’s too exposed out here. I want you inside.”

“Great:’ she muttered dryly, picking up speed. “That immediately conjures up the image of a bull’s-eye painted on my back.”

“I’ve got your back.”

Yes. He did. He’d slipped his arm around her waist, his hard forearm and splayed hand across her middle. He wasn’t just touching her, his body was angled to cover as much of her as possible. She’d never in her life needed, or thought she wanted, to be physically protected, but having Max do so was sexy as hell. She couldn’t figure out why she felt the prick of tears.

“There isn’t a neighbor for miles, and she lived alone, didn’t she? How sad.” Emily’s voice was not quite steady. “However it happened, by natural causes, or someone else’s hand. She was all alone when she died.”

“She wasn’t alone.”

“Good. It would be awful to—Oh.” The artist hadn’t been alone when she’d died. Right. The killer had been with her. Or at the very least, his was the last face she’d seen before succumbing to . . . to . . . whatever.

The only reason they were here was because a hazmat team had already been inside to take samples and had given the house the all clear. Max had wanted to look at the place before some other team came in to search.

Spreading his warm fingers on her midriff as they walked, he scanned her face. “How’re you holding up?”

It was chilly, but the sun was shining and visually it was a beautiful day, but nerves had a clamp on her neck and shoulder muscles, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel serene again. “I’m scared’ she admitted. “But I’m also furious that someone I don’t even
know
is capable of making me feel this way.”

“It’s not easy being a victim.”

“I’m only a victim if I allow myself to be,” she told him with asperity. “Believe me, I’m not planning on doing anything stupid. And I’ll try to be hyperaware of my surroundings at all times.” She suddenly froze. “My God, Max. Is my family in danger?”

“Nope. Got it covered. Someone followed what they thought was your car to the Bozzatos’, but it’s unlikely that anyone knows
who or where your family is. I had to have my people dig deep to track down both your mother and sister so I could send people to watch them.”

A slither went up and down her spine. “You have people watching them? In Seattle? In Boston?”

“Yeah. Got a problem with that?”

“I’d not only be ungrateful if I was, I’d be pretty damn stupid with a killer on the loose. Thank you, Max. I appreciate you doing that.” She was stunned. Not only that he’d thought of protecting her family, but that he’d gone to the trouble of taking care of it so quickly.

“Tell me what you know about Brill.” Max followed her inside, then closed the door behind him.

“Nothing more than I’ve read.” Curiously, Emily glanced around the small room. She felt like a voyeur. “She had a good reputation as a restorer. She was—I think—unmarried.” She shrugged. “That’s about all I remember.

“I can tell you she was a very private woman,” she observed as they walked through the parlor. “See? Not just drapes, but sheers and blinds as well. She could have let the drapes drop, but she loved the look of the flowery tiebacks, and left them that way.”

“Well, she sure as hell wasn’t worried about security She’s got an excellent system, but it was turned off.”

“She was done with whatever she was working on, maybe?”

“Maybe. What else do you see?”

“Quintessentially feminine, precise, and prided herself on her neatness,” Emily added, perusing the room with sharp eyes.

“You get all that walking through a ten by ten living room?”

“You know about iconography? It’s the study of subjects in art, and their deeper meaning. The same applies to our surroundings. Her pillows are trimmed with ruffles, her books are strictly alphabetized, and there isn’t a speck of dust or a thing out of place. The house is as neat as a pin. It wasn’t for show. Usually people’s living rooms, the public spaces in a house, show others who we’d
like
to be, but not who we really are. The rooms that visitors don’t see show us more of their real personality.”

“You’re very observant.”

“I have to be to do my job.”

Simple botanical paintings in identical white frames were lined up with military precision along the pale yellow walls above a red, white, and yellow striped sofa. The fireplace was flanked by similar antique wingback chairs covered in crisp yellow linen. A crystal vase shaped like a flower basket sat on the mantel and was filled with slightly drooping red-and-white parrot tulips from the garden.

A simple bunch of hyacinths filled a white bowl on the cherry- wood coffee table, perfuming the air with their sweet scent.

“No kids. No animals,” she told Max as they walked down a picture-lined hallway to the back of the house. The style of clothing in the photographs was dated, the color faded. Old photographs. “Too neat and clean.”

So was the woman’s glass-enclosed studio, which ran the full length of the back of the house. Almost a greenhouse, the room was flooded with light and had a breathtaking view of the landscaped backyard, surrounded by trees and overrun with flowers. Unlike the neatness and symmetry of the front garden, the one in back was a wild riot of color and texture with no apparent attempt at order.

Sunlight flooded the stone floor through the glass ceiling.

Like the rest of her home, Brill’s studio was immaculate, with everything neatly in its place. Besides the expected canvases, magazines and newspapers were neatly stacked on built-in shelving. Art books, sketch pads, and supplies filled various containers, from what looked like a Georgian, hand-chased silver soup tureen filled with paint tubes, to a child’s plastic rain boot filled with brushes. Emily touched the tureen. “She did pretty well for herself. This is worth about twenty thousand American dollars.”

An easel stood in the center of the room. She walked over to look at the stretched canvas. The impasto, the paint layer, was thick and raised from the surface. “The paint’s smudged. Is this the room where she died?”

“Yeah.” Max was crouched down looking through a stack of files in the bottom drawer of a bright red lacquered metal file cabinet. “How do you know?”

“She must’ve been working when she fell. The paint’s wet. Someone righted the easel and painting. You can see the fingerprints on the edge here where they held it on either side to pick it up off the floor. Something brushed against the high points of the wet paint, leaving a faint imprint.” She looked down at the stone floor. “The brush fell and then bounced here and here. See the orange splatter?”

“Nice catch. Let’s just hope those prints belong to the killer and not the sister, who found the body, or the EMTs.”

“Her sister picked this up.”

Max lifted a brow. “And you know this how?”

“Small hands. But I think if her sister came here to visit her and found her dead, after she called for help, and after she tried everything to save her, she would have spent the time waiting for medical help tidying up.”

Max raised a brow. “Her sister is lying dead on the floor, and she straightens up the room?”

Emily nodded. “Jacoba was concerned about appearances. She liked people knowing she was orderly. Her sister gave her order before the EMTs arrived.”

“Damn. That’s good. Logical.”

“Talking about good—” The painting was neither a restoration piece, nor a copy. “This is . . . interesting.”

Not to speak ill of the dead, but the painting was dreadful.

Head tilted, Max glanced at the painting. “Jesus. What’s it supposed to be?”

“An orange dog?” A very strange looking, five-eyed orange dog with only two legs. And either a super long penis, or a strangely shaped tail growing out of its front. The background was a slightly deeper shade of blotchy orange with a murky brown line running down the middle.

He smiled. “I think it’s a sofa with an antenna.”

“No, look. These are ears. Hmm maybe they’re cushions—”

Max’s slid his arms around her from behind and she jumped a little because she’d thought he was on the far side of the room. He moved as stealthily as a ghost. “What are you doing?”

He turned her in his arms. “If you have to ask,” he murmured against her mouth. “Then I’m not doing it right.”

Eleven

SHE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF HIS OPEN MOUTH AND PULLED HIS head down, taking his mouth like he’d taken hers when they’d made love. Like she owned it. Like she owned
him.
For a moment she pretended that she did. She teased him with her tongue, and when he groaned deeply, she felt heady with her own power. He stood perfectly still for a moment, letting her take the lead, then tightened his arms around her waist and pulled her harder against him.

His lips were warm and firm, and responded instantly as she probed inside the heated cavern of his mouth, challenging his tongue with hers. Her body did a slow, delicious burn as she did some slow exploring of her own.

His response was electrifying as he kissed her back, participating fully, his mouth hungry and hard, delicious. Her soft breasts snuggled against the solid plane of his chest, and her nipples ached for harder contact. Making a soft sound of need, Emily stood on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck, and pressed her body hard against his, wanting more. Threading her fingers through his hair, she grabbed fistfuls, kissing him with a loss of control that stunned her. The taste of him went straight to her head and made her dizzy with longing. And allowed her to forget, for just a few precious moments, what else had happened here.

He was crushing her against his body, his arms wrapped tightly around her, one hand on the back of her neck, the other pressing her hips against the ridge between them. Her heart slammed against her rib cage, and she kissed him back as if she’d die if she didn’t.

“Uh-oh.” Daklin came into the studio and skidded to a stop. “Sorry.”

Max lifted his head, but didn’t release her, although he shifted their bodies so her flaming face was shielded from his friend’s view. “What do you have?” The sound rumbled from his chest.

“Brill did work for Tillman as well. I found these in her office.”

Uncomfortable and suddenly aware of how exposed they’d been in a room made of glass, Emily dropped her arms and stepped back. Daklin handed Max a sheaf of papers that all carried a familiar letterhead. Max absently smoothed his hair down as he took them.

She’d done enough work for Tillman to know what his contracts read, pretty much verbatim. “Richard Tillman’s contract. I have similar ones in my files. He had us sign one for each painting to be copied. A date and time when the original would be delivered to the studio, and the date and time when each would be picked up. It also specified that he’d have extra security installed before the start of the project, and said security would belong to the artist after the work was completed.”

“That covers it,” Daklin told Max.

“Only one thing wrong with that,” Max pointed out. “There’s no security. All the equipment in the world doesn’t help if you don’t turn it on.”

“But don’t you think she
had
it on?”

“The sister and the EMTs got in.”

“Oh. Right.”

“FYI,” Daklin told them. “I called in and told the autopsy team to do a Western blotting test on Brill’s body. Also to take a serum sample to check for antibodies against
Borrelia burgdoferi.”

Max looked up from the paper he was scanning. He frowned slightly.
“Lyme
disease? You’ve lost me.”

“Forestry workers in the area are known to contract Lyme borreliosis. Brill lived in a pine forest, and did a lot of cutting back there. Seemed she was doing some art project with the limbs and leaves. Nature crap.”

Emily glanced from Max to the other man. “I know this sounds insane, but I
hope
that’s what she died of.”

“It’s just a theory at this point,” Daklin admitted. “Still, we’ll cover every avenue until we find concrete evidence of COD.”

“Cause of death,” Max explained.

She’d figured that one out herself. “So it wasn’t murder? Please tell me this poor woman died of something easily explainable.” It wouldn’t make her death less awful, but at least it wouldn’t be part of the whole macabre pattern.

“I’m all for leaving no stone unturned. But there’s no doubt in my mind she was murdered,” Max said unequivocally. “The only questions remains how and why.”

Emily rubbed her arms. There was no doubt in her mind either. And she also wanted to know the how and why. Suddenly being in the woman’s home seemed disrespectful. And being in an all glass room made her feel ill at ease. Anyone could be hiding in the trees, looking in. Even with AJ in the tree and Max and the other man here with their guns, she felt far too exposed. “Can we leave now?”

“In a while,” Max nodded to Daklin, who took the papers, and left. “Look around the studio. See if anything is out of place. Anything doesn’t belong. Take your time.”

She took her time but there didn’t seem to be a thing out of place. This much tidiness would make
her
crazy in about five minutes, but since everything
was
set precisely in its place, it was pretty easy to see nothing had been disturbed. Or nothing she could see.

She crouched down next to a bookcase to read the titles of some of Brill’s books on the bottom shelf. They had very similar reference and research materials, Emily noticed. “If I had a clue as to what I’m supposed to be looking for, it would make this a lot easier.”

“It’s like pornography, you’ll know it when you see it.”

No I won’t,
Emily thought impatiently. “We’ve done this before. At your father’s studio. We didn’t find any—Max?”

“Yeah?”

It was impossible to breathe, let alone speak. “I found something.” Something casually hidden in plain sight among a collection of seaglass in a little boat on the bottom shelf.

Max came up behind her. “What?”

“An empty vial.” Her voice was thin, and she was frozen in a half crouch beside the extremely neat and tidy bookcase.