Die in Plain Sight (28 page)

“Interesting. You reversed the day and month.”

She made a questioning noise, but it was the drowning pool paintings she was looking at, not Ian.

Scream Bloody Murder

“You said nine October instead of October ninth,” Ian explained.

“Hangover from Grandfather,” Lacey said absently. “Like separating date and month and year with a period instead of a slash or putting a bar through sevens and Z’s—his way of being classy without a university degree.”

Ian didn’t say anything. He was too busy digging up the notes he’d taken the night before. He flipped through them quickly. Benford Savoy III had died on June second. Lewis Marten had died on June fourth.

2.6

4.6

Pieces of the puzzle he really didn’t want to fall into place fell there anyway. If he hadn’t been so worried about how any investigation would affect Lacey, he probably would have seen it sooner.

“What?” Lacey asked, looking up at Ian.

Instead of answering, he kept flipping pages, hoping he was wrong. He wasn’t. Gem Savoy had died on February ninth.
9.2
Just like the numbers painted across every version of the drowning pool.

“Ian?” Lacey came to her feet. “What is it?”

“The numbers on the front of each painting are death dates.” He pointed to the car wreck. “Three Savoy on June second. Marten on June fourth. And then, almost forty years later, Gem Savoy died on—”

“February ninth,” Lacey cut in, looking at the drowning pool canvases. “Murdered.”

There’s something
wrong
in Moreno County. Too many deaths. Not enough police work. Ain’t nothing changed. Stay away from it, boy.

But Ian hadn’t.

Digging up old graves was bad enough. Digging up old, buried murders was much worse—especially when the more pieces fell into place, the more holes in the puzzle he could see. But there was no help for it. It was too late to stop digging now.

All he could hope was that he dug up the truth before it burned them alive.

“Lacey? How did your grandfather die?”

Newport Beach

Noon Sunday

B
liss stood behind Rory, trying to knead the knots out of his neck and shoulders.

“What was that call about?” she asked.

“A tail. Subject spent some time in a storage yard, then got on the freeway. They just crossed the county line, headed east in an old SUV.”

She paused. “Is this something to do with the hotel robbery?”

“It sure as hell would be nice. But there wasn’t anything big enough to be stolen paintings in Lapstrake’s SUV, and there wasn’t any place to hide them.”

“Doesn’t sound very hopeful,” Bliss said.

Rory shrugged and expected to hear his shoulders creak. “I’ve gone through the files of every one of the security guards who worked at the hotel, plus the guys who installed the electronic lock-card system at the hotel. Nothing popped. Ex-cops, ex-military, nothing but good recommendations
in their files and no sign of anything else in the last five years.”

“What about Lapstrake?”

“On paper, he’s a fucking saint.”

“Now there’s an image.”

Rory laughed and pulled Bliss into his lap for a quick, hard kiss.

“The problem is,” he said, “if it’s not Lapstrake, I’m shit out of luck when it comes to leads.”

Bliss nuzzled his neck. “Do you think he’s stupid enough, or arrogant enough, to work for Rarities, steal Susa Donovan’s paintings, and drive off with them in his own truck while being followed by your deputies?”

“That’s what working inside is all about—arrogance. Nobody expects the guard to be the crook.”

“Good thing you’re on the right side of the law.” She nipped his neck.

“Why?”

“God knows you’re arrogant enough to steal elevators in broad daylight.”

“I’d have to be to marry you.”

The kiss he gave her took her mind off the problem of inside or outside or anything at all except getting closer to him. She could hardly believe she was married again. To Rory Turner.

Again.

He was right. It took attitude. That’s what turned her on in a man. Brass balls and the arrogance to make them clang.

But damn, it made them hard to live with.

Pasadena

Noon Sunday

M
other is all excited that I’m bringing a man home for Sunday dinner,” Lacey said gloomily. “I told her it was more or less business, but…” She sighed and shrugged at the same time.

“Are you trying to say that grilled Lapstrake will be on the menu?” Ian asked, smiling.

She sighed. “Yeah. Oh, they’ll be polite about the grilling.”
I hope.

“But they’ll want to know which of your ancestors came over on the
Mayflower
and is your mother a Daughter of the American Revolution and that sort of stuff.”

“None and no. There. Wasn’t that quick and painless?”

Lacey watched him as he drove bumper to bumper at seventy miles an hour with all the rest of the southern California lemmings on their way back from a Sunday outing.

“Not even a genuine horse thief hung from the old oak tree?” she asked after a few moments.

Before he answered, Ian eased through several lanes of traffic to take an off-ramp that headed up toward the expensive hills of Pasadena.

“Oh, I’ve got a few horse thieves in my background,” he said. “When Lapstrakes weren’t fishing and farming, they sort of alternated between being the cops and the robbers. Some of them were both. Made for interesting family reunions.”

She saw both the humor and the acceptance in his expression. “You really don’t mind about Mom and Dad, do you? Like you didn’t mind when the deputies pulled us over just short of the Moreno County line and took a good look at the inside of the truck.”

“It beat having them follow us up to your parents’ front door.”

Lacey didn’t know whether to cringe or laugh at the idea of arriving home for dinner with an unmarked police vehicle right behind. And there would be no way to hide the official tail on her parents’ manicured, sweeping drive.

“God, Mother would plotz.”

“Sounds entertaining.”

“It wouldn’t be. Guaranteed.”

He gave Lacey a quick sideways glance. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll be on my best meeting-the-parents behavior.”

“Have you done a lot of it?”

“What?”

“Meeting parents,” Lacey said.

“Nope. Never been married or even engaged. How about you?”

“The same.”

“Want to try it?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Getting engaged and married.”

“Frankly, the whole thing scares the hell out of me.”

“Me, too. Good thing we’re old enough to live together without the approval of parental units.” He grinned at her and then turned his attention back to driving. “How old was your grandfather when he disappeared in the desert?”

Lacey switched conversational gears as fast as Ian had. “He would have been eighty-eight last year.”

“Healthy?”

“A regular poster boy for the geriatric set. Had most of his teeth and
all of his wits. Said both his parents had lived to be a spry one hundred and he planned on doing at least that well.”

“When you inherited the paintings, did you get anything else of his? Other than his favorite pliers?” Ian added quickly, remembering.

“Paint boxes, brushes, easels, even his old painting tables and a chair. I still use them. Then there’s some other stuff in the carriage house at my parents’ place. That’s where he lived when he wasn’t roving around, painting. I haven’t had the heart to go through it. I don’t need mementos of him. I have my memories and his paintings.”

“So he gave you tables, huh?” Ian remembered the night he’d set Lacey’s warm, naked butt on a paint table. “Any particular one?”

She gave him a sideways glance that said she knew just what he was thinking. “Not that one. It wouldn’t have survived that kind of use.”

He turned up the sweeping drive toward the stately brick home on its huge lot. As he pulled to a stop in front of the double doors with their heavy iron decorations, he turned toward her with a slow smile. “Did I ever tell you how cute your butt is covered with bright paint?”

Lacey knew she was blushing. “Of all the things to tell me when my parents are opening the front door.” Then she laughed out loud. She couldn’t help it. The idea of her butt looking like a piece of performance art was too funny to bury in silence. “You looked pretty cute yourself. Bet you had the only purple-eyed pocket snake in captivity.”

“Don’t forget the green racing stripes.”

“I’ll
never
forget the green racing stripes.” Lacey was still laughing when she got out of the car.

Dottie Quinn couldn’t help smiling at the picture her grinning daughter made in a cream silk shirt, camel slacks, and black cashmere jacket. So much better than her usual wretched paint-stained jeans and flea-market coats. Then the late afternoon sun flashed on a ridiculous piece of sixties beaded sun-face jewelry that totally ruined the ensemble. Dottie sighed, wondering how that particular piece of junk had survived the fire. Then she remembered that the shop’s overstock items were kept in storage. No doubt the tawdry necklace came from there.

“Lacey, you look wonderful,” Dottie said, ignoring her daughter’s ratty sandals.

“I should. You handpicked my outfit.” But Lacey hugged her mother with enthusiasm. Neither of them could help their differences; they
could only accept them and move on. “It was lovely of you to fix dinner for us on such short notice.”

Brody came down the steps to shake Ian’s hand. “Are you kidding? You saved me from another night of tuna surprise.”

“Brody!” Dottie said, horrified. “I’ve
never
served you
anything
called that.”

“Now that’s a shame,” Ian said, smiling. “All my relatives swap recipes for tuna surprise. I was wondering what the Pasadena version tasted like.”

Lacey shot him a warning look.

He winked. Then he gave Dottie the smile that made people forget all the reasons why they thought they shouldn’t trust him.

All through dinner and cleanup afterward, Lacey watched in bemusement as Ian charmed her parents into forgetting that he wore a gun under his cheerfully unfashionable sport coat and didn’t have any ancestors worth painting and hanging on the wall. She also noticed that each time he brought up the subject of her grandfather, her parents changed the subject without really saying much of anything about David Quinn. She was sure that Ian noticed it, too.

“Did you always live in Pasadena?” Ian asked Brody.

“I have vague memories of living in Antelope Valley as a child, but otherwise I’ve always lived in Pasadena. Dottie and I bought this place after Lacey was born.”

Ian’s eyebrows went up. “I should have gone into law instead of law enforcement.”

Brody looked uncomfortable. So did Dottie.

“Grandfather helped,” Lacey said.

Her parents stared at her.

“Who told you that?” Brody asked.

“Grandfather. I was about five. You and he had just had a shouting match and I was crying in my room, afraid that Grandpa Rainbow would go away and never come back. He found me in my room, set me on his shoulders, and told me not to worry, he owned the house so he wasn’t going anywhere he didn’t want to.”

“Sounds like being an artist paid pretty well,” Ian said casually.

Dottie gave her husband a worried glance.

“Well enough,” Brody said. “Who do you think will win the Super Bowl?”

Ian looked past Dottie to Lacey. “Sorry, darling.”

“I didn’t think we drove all this way for small talk and a big dinner. Go ahead,” she said, though she suspected he would have anyway.

He gave her a smile, a different one, gentle and sad and admiring all at once.

“I wish I’d come here just as Lacey’s…beau,” he said to her parents, remembering his great-grandmother talking about her youth, when girls had beaux instead of boy toys and roommates. “But Lacey and I came here to find out more about her grandfather.”

Dottie’s smile vanished. “He’s dead. That’s all anyone needs to know.”

Brody picked up his wife’s clenched hand and put it between his own. “It’s all right, honey. I’ve already withdrawn my name from the judge pool, remember?”

She looked even more grim. “It’s so damned unfair. You always—”

“It’s all right,” he interrupted. “Part of me was always trying to overcome my father’s lack of scruples. I don’t have to be a judge to prove that I’m not what my father was. Besides, now we get to travel.”

Slowly her fingers relaxed and she returned his smile. For a moment she looked years younger. “Paris first?”

“Then London, Rome, and every other place on your list. Our list,” he corrected. “First the cities, then the golf.”

When Lacey’s parents faced Ian, it was as a unit. They weren’t happy about the compromise life had forced on them, but they weren’t going to waste time and energy fighting it.

“My father was an art forger,” Brody said bluntly. “Lewis Marten was his specialty. Ever since I figured out what was going on, I’ve known the shit would hit the fan someday. Still, for Dottie’s sake, I’d like to keep it as quiet as possible. My wife’s family…well, they wouldn’t accept the scandal very well. Neither would our other daughters. They really take after their maternal grandmother, who regularly lectured the minister on his moral duties.”

Lacey winced. She didn’t like to think which grandparent
she
took after. No doubt that was one of the reasons she’d been so reluctant to see the truth in her grandfather’s paintings.

“Don’t even think it,” Ian said coolly. “Any of you. Lacey is as clean and honest as sunshine. Just because she can paint doesn’t mean she’s some kind of social slime.” He took her hand. “You hear me, darling?
What our family was or wasn’t has an effect on us, but it sure as hell isn’t chiseled in stone unless we want it to be. Otherwise I’d be serving life for murder like one of my cousins, or be living in Guatemala with the poor-est of the poor like another of my cousins, a priest. Two brothers, and different as night and day.”

Lacey moved closer to Ian on the couch and threaded her fingers through his.

Dottie’s chin came up in a gesture that reminded Ian of Lacey. “I never so much as
hinted
that Lacey wasn’t honest. She’s our daughter and we love her.”

“I know that, or I’d have chucked you out the hotel room the first time I met you.”

“You can be a very rude man.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled slowly. “But I love your daughter and she’s getting around to loving me, so you’ll have a long time to get used to my manners.”

Lacey looked stunned. Then she smiled—a slow, wide reflection of Ian’s smile.

Dottie gave both of them a startled look. Then the older woman let out a long breath. “Well, I always knew it wouldn’t be a doctor or a lawyer. At least he’s quick and hardheaded. You need both.”

Ian felt himself relax, just a little. The upcoming conversation wouldn’t be fun, but at the end of it Lacey would still have a family. He hadn’t been sure of that going in.

And he’d been afraid that she would shoot the messenger, one Ian Lapstrake, on the way out.

“When did you figure out what your father was doing?” Ian asked.

“Do you really think the women need to hear this?” Brody asked.

“They can decide for themselves,” Ian said.

Neither woman got up to leave.

“There’s your answer,” Ian said.

Brody hesitated, then decided that since hiding the truth hadn’t worked, he might as well empty the whole bag. “I suspected, but didn’t know for sure until he shoved it down my throat about fifteen years ago, give or take.”

Dottie looked startled, started to say something, and thought better of it.

“I kept it to myself for years. I knew it wouldn’t help anyone and could hurt a lot of people.” Brody shrugged. “After our first two daughters were born, Dottie wanted a bigger home closer to her parents. So did I. I knew it would mean the kind of life that would help me professionally and please us personally. So I borrowed money from my father to buy this place, and I carefully didn’t ask him where the money came from. Not many unknown painters can come up with almost half a million in cash to buy a house.”

Ian’s dark eyebrows lifted. Even thirty years ago, that was a lot of money.

“Then one day, about fifteen years ago,” Brody continued, “Dad and I were arguing over him pushing Lacey into paint—”

“I wanted her to spend more time with her peers,” Dottie interrupted. “Spending all her time with her grandfather instead of having friends and parties. It wasn’t good.”

“Dad started shouting,” Brody said. “Told me painting like Lewis Marten had put the fancy roof over Dottie’s head and if she didn’t like it she could move out. Lacey had talent and he was going to see that she wasn’t flattened by the social steamroller of Dottie’s snooty family.”

Dottie drew in a harsh, surprised breath. That was something else she hadn’t known. It was one thing not to like Brody’s disreputable father; it was quite another to know that the old man had disliked her just as much.

“I was furious,” Brody said. “I’d been paying back the loan on a regular basis, but not enough to have majority ownership of the house. I told him I wasn’t going to gag Dottie just to make him feel better, and that Lacey was getting old enough to need more than her grandfather for company. And if he didn’t like that,
he
could take a hike.”

Lacey started to say something, but pressure from Ian’s fingers made her stop.

“After that,” Brody said, “things got fairly tense. Dad spent more and more time in the carriage house and on the road. Dottie’s parents put all the girls through the university, but when Lacey wanted to study painting overseas, the education money dried up. My father went on the road with some paintings and came back with enough money to send Lacey to France. He didn’t even tell us, much less ask us. He just—”

“Handed me a ticket and a checkbook, and told me not to come back until I could stand up to my parents or support myself,” Lacey finished.

Dottie winced. “I didn’t mean, that is—” She held out her hands. “I wanted what was best for you.”

“So did he,” Lacey said. “It’s just that you wanted different things.” She closed her eyes on a wave of pain. “And in the end, I didn’t please either of you, did I? I didn’t turn into a society woman like you or a vagabond painter like Granddad.”