"What?"
But he was trying to see around her, and someone in back hissed for her to move out of the way, and so she did, tightening her grip on her bag and shawl to keep her hands from shaking visibly. She burst out into the aisle.
Her opponent was the husband of the girl in the painting. Well, how was she supposed to have known? Probably he'd intended to buy it for an anniversary or a birthday present. Here, honey. Remember that crazy woman who painted you when you were sixteen? Was his wife a Linwood? How had she known lank-haired, odd Sarah? How had Sarah come to paint her as a teenager?
It doesn't matter, Annie told herself. You have the painting. It's yours to return to the woman who had painted it. Garvin MacCrae will just have to find something else to give his wife.
Garvin MacCrae unhitched the thick velvet rope that blocked off the drawing room and stepped into the center hall. Several people taking a break from the auction gave him pained, sympathetic looks. They would know who he was. It seemed everyone at the auction did. The experience had been far more of an ordeal than he'd expected.
He hadn't anticipated Number 112.
She had put up a determined battle, and she'd won, if only because Garvin had no interest in driving up the bidding even further, never mind that the money would go to the foundation he'd established in his wife's memory. He had expected to get the portrait of Haley for the five hundred he'd bid in advance and in secrecy. He had expected to remain anonymous, hidden amidst the professionals in the back of the packed ballroom.
He could have asked John or Cynthia Linwood simply to give him the painting, but he hadn't. He was part of the Linwood past not its future. Whoever had murdered his wife five years ago had seen to that.
He saw John Linwood coming up the hall and knew there was no way to avoid him. "Garvin—my heavens, I had no idea you would be here today. It's so good to see you."
In spite of his friendly words, John looked tense and awkward. Garvin understood. His former father-in-law had a smart, attractive new wife and was shedding himself of all reminders of his murdered daughter and father. Garvin was one of those reminders.
"It's good to see you, too, John." They shook hands, but Garvin couldn't bring himself to smile. It had been a difficult morning, more so than he'd expected. He wasn't in a light mood.
"I'm sorry about the painting—"
"It's all right. Forget it."
"I had no idea you'd want it. I can't—well, I can hardly bear to look at it."
Garvin nodded. He couldn't explain why he'd wanted it himself. There were so many tragic memories associated with it. It had hung in the Linwood library, where Haley and her grandfather were murdered five years ago on two separate nights. And it had been painted by Sarah Linwood, Haley's aunt, John's sister and the woman many believed had contributed to the murders of her own niece and father—or even actually pulled the trigger.
But something about Sarah's portrait of Haley at sixteen had captured her spirit, her soul, and gave Garvin solace that the woman he'd lost to the violent hand of another wasn't going through eternity with bitterness or regret. He couldn't explain what it was. Had Number 112 seen it too?
"I thought it had been destroyed," John went on. "I had it taken down, but I couldn't—well, I couldn't burn it myself. I guess no one else could, either."
"So you decided to sell it?"
"Actually, that was Cynthia's decision." John had lost his wife four years before the murders and had finally decided to remarry a year ago; Garvin hadn't attended his wedding. Cynthia was seventeen years her husband's junior and had operated in the upper echelons of Bay Area real estate, hovering in the background of the Linwood family for years. Now she was a part of it. "She arranged the entire auction. I didn't know until this morning. I might have done things differently had I known—which is probably why she didn't tell me." He attempted a smile, but gave up on it. "But I know she did what she thought was best for all of us. Perhaps it's just as well a stranger has the painting now."
"Perhaps," Garvin said, telling himself he believed it. What would he have done with the portrait anyway? Once he'd heard it was for sale, he'd only known he'd wanted it. The last gasp of his old life, he supposed.
John clapped his hands together, as if dismissing any insidious sense of melancholy. "We've a buyer for the house. Did you hear? A couple from Chicago. Cynthia found them." He glanced around the elegant entry of his longtime family home. "It'll be good to have people living here again."
Garvin swallowed, tried not to remember the terrible night he'd found his wife lying dead just down the hall. "Yes."