Sarah, spent, had closed her eyes. "We'll speak again, Annie. Soon."
Seeing that the reclusive artist had nothing left in her, Annie quietly retreated. It wasn't until she was halfway down the stone steps, hanging onto the rickety handrail to keep from tripping on the ends of her skirt on the steep terrain, from going too fast, from utterly losing control, that she thought, once more, of Garvin MacCrae. As mortified as she was at her assumptions about his wife, he would have to know she hadn't deliberately bid against him knowing he'd merely wanted a profoundly moving painting of his murdered wife.
"Look before you leap next time," Annie muttered to herself as she stumbled to her car. She suspected her reputation in San Francisco would take a hit until people realized she hadn't known the background of the man bidding against her. But she was in no mood to cut herself any slack, never mind ask anyone else in town to. She should have done her research before she'd walked into that auction room.
Groaning, she climbed into her car and stuck the key in the ignition. The sun, she noticed, had given up and decided not to stay out. The skies were gloomy again, threatening rain. She glanced back up the steep hill, toward the little pink bungalow. It had been five years since the Linwood murders. Maybe, she thought, no one really cared whether or not Sarah Linwood was back in town.
* * *
Chapter Three
Annie had her gallery swept, dusted, and straightened by the time Zoe Summer arrived with the Sunday paper, two large gourmet coffees, and two fat, warm wild blueberry scones an hour before their noon opening. "Sorry, Otto," Zoe said, lifting the scones from their bag. "None for you."
"Don't let him fool you," Annie said. "He just had a treat. We went for a run on the beach first thing this morning."
"I'll bet no one bothered you with a rottweiler at your side."
"Not a soul."
Zoe laid out the scones on paper napkins on the chest-high half-moon desk in the far left corner of Annie's Gallery, then uncapped the coffees. She was in her late thirties—tall, angular, dark, thin— and had two children in junior high and a doctor husband who tolerated, if not endorsed, her passion for aromatherapy. Her inexhaustible wardrobe was in just two colors: black and ivory. Today she wore black knit pants and an ivory sweater and looked sleek and sophisticated. Annie, having had to rebuild her wardrobe from scratch, was enjoying the freedom of dressing for herself. She still tended to scope out the sales and stick to neutrals, preferring to keep her expenses down until she was better established in San Francisco. Given her morning of cleaning, she'd opted for a chamois-colored jacket over slim jeans, with her ankle boots, good watch, and silver earrings.
"I see you made the Sunday paper," Zoe said.
Annie sat on the edge of one of her two tall swivel chairs. "I did?"
"Yep. You hit the local gossip column. That'll teach you to buy a painting out from under Garvin MacCrae. What were you thinking, m'girl?" Zoe whipped out the paper and thrust a long, unpolished fingernail at the paragraph in question. "There. 'Annie Payne, owner of the new Annie's Gallery on Union Street, shocked the two hundred gathered for the Linwood auction on Saturday when she outbid Garvin MacCrae for an amateur painting of his murdered wife."
Blood draining from her face, Annie snatched the paper. "Let me see."
Going on in the same snide tone, the columnist related how MacCrae had "thrown in the towel" at five thousand dollars and Annie had "gleefully picked up her prize before the crowd could hiss her out of the elegant ballroom, just down the hall from where Haley Linwood MacCrae lost her life."
"Did they really hiss?" Zoe asked, biting into her scone.
Annie winced, remembering the hostility directed toward her after she'd bought the painting. "Pretty close to it. Oh. Did you see this? It says Garvin MacCrae looked 'fit to be tied' and had 'vengeance in his eyes when he stormed out of the Linwood house.' Actually, I saw him afterward. He didn't seem to have any hard feelings. He even tried to help me get the painting into my car. Otto was being a pain and—"
"Well, that explains it. I'd pretend I had no hard feelings with Otto around, too." Hearing his name, Otto stirred under the desk. Zoe, who loved dogs, scratched him with her toe. "You scared that mean old Garvin MacCrae, didn't you, buddy?" She sipped her cappuccino, eyeing Annie. "So. What do you want with that painting?"
Annie had anticipated Zoe's question and was therefore prepared. "I was asked to buy it for someone who wishes to remain anonymous."
"No kidding. You can't tell me?"
"That was the deal I made."
"Puts you in an awkward position, doesn't it? Well, I'm not going to ask you to break a confidence—not that you would."