Diddie had shown her how to open the cupboard long ago, but also made sure Sugar Beth wasn’t tempted to do it herself. “See, precious. Nothing’s in there except great big bugs and hairy spiders.”
Sugar Beth knelt in front of a two-foot-wide section of the old bead-board paneling and felt along the base. “My grandfather lived in terror of a return to Prohibition. He said that knowing this was here let him sleep at night.” She felt for the concealed latch and released it. “There’s another latch above the ledge at the top.”
The expensive fabric of Colin’s trousers brushed her shoulder as he moved closer. “I have it.”
The paneling had warped over the years, and she pushed hard on the sides to loosen it. Colin stepped in front of her and lifted it away.
The cupboard was too small to hold one of Ash’s larger, mounted canvases-she’d known that all along-but he might have left Tallulah a smaller work. Or a larger one could have been rolled up. She’d dreamed of the moment for weeks, but now that it had come, she was afraid to look. “You do it.”
He peered inside. “It seems to be empty, but it’s hard to see.” He turned his shoulders and crouched so he could reach along the floor. “There’s something here.”
Her mouth went dry, and her palms felt clammy.
He withdrew a dusty old liquor bottle. “My God, this is fifty-year-old Macallan scotch.”
Her spirits crashed. “It’s yours. See what else is there.”
“Be careful with that,” he exclaimed as she jerked the bottle away from him and set it on the floor with a hard thud. He reached into the cupboard again. “This definitely isn’t scotch.”
She gave a soft cry as he pulled out a fat tube about three feet long wrapped in ancient brown paper tied with string.
He straightened. “This doesn’t feel like-”
“Oh, God…” She pulled it from his hands and rushed toward one of the windows.
“Sugar Beth, it doesn’t seem heavy enough.”
“I knew it was here! I knew it.”
The string broke easily, and the brittle craft paper fell apart in her fingers as she peeled it away. But underneath, she found only a fat roll of paper. Not canvas at all. Paper.
She slumped against the window frame.
“Let me look,” he said softly.
“It’s not the painting.”
He squeezed her shoulder, then opened the roll. When he finally spoke, his voice held even more awe than he’d shown toward the scotch. “These are the original blueprints for the window factory. They were drawn in the 1920s. This is quite a find.”
To him, maybe. She hurried back to the cupboard, crouched down, and reached inside. It had to be here. There was no place else to look. She felt along the floorboards and into the corners.
Nothing but cobwebs.
She sank back on her heels. Paper rustled as he set the blueprints aside. He knelt next to her, bringing with him the smell of cologne and sympathy. He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, ran his thumb along her cheekbone. “Sugar Beth, you don’t need the painting. You’re perfectly capable of supporting yourself. Maybe not in the first lap of luxury, but-”
“I have to find it.”
He sighed. “All right, then. We’ll search the carriage house and depot together. Maybe I’ll see something you overlooked.”
“Maybe.” She wanted to lean against him so badly that she pushed herself away. “I’d better get back to work.”
“I’m giving you the rest of the day off.”
That unbearable sympathy again. She rose to her feet. “I have too much to do. And I don’t need coddling.”
He’d only been trying to be kind, and she’d snapped at him, but she couldn’t manage another apology, and as she made her way to the stairs, she felt as blue as a person could get.
He stayed in his office the rest of the afternoon. Whenever she passed the door, she heard the muffled clatter of the keyboard. As evening approached, she put one of the mystery casseroles from the freezer into the oven, set the timer, and left him a note saying she’d see him in the morning. She felt too fragile to risk having him showing up at the carriage house later, so she added a P.S. I have cramps, and I intend to do some serious self-medicating. Do not disturb!
By the time she left Frenchman’s Bride, she still hadn’t told him she was quitting to take a job with Jewel, hadn’t thanked him for his kindness in the attic, hadn’t said anything to him she should have.
It had begun to drizzle again, and Gordon shot ahead. She let him in the house but didn’t enter herself. Instead, she made her way to the studio. As she opened the lock and stepped inside, she tried to convince herself that what had happened today hadn’t marked the end of her search. Colin had said he’d help. Maybe fresh eyes would see something her own had missed.
She flicked on the overhead bulb and gazed around at the workroom-the paint-encrusted ladder, the ancient cans and brushes. Even through the dirty plastic that protected it all, she could make out thick dabs of vermilion, splashes of pulsating green, curls of electric blue, and great sweeps of acid yellow. On the drop cloth that covered the floor, tacks and cigarette butts, a lid from a can of paint, other objects that weren’t as recognizable had become encapsulated like beetles fossilized in amber.
Paint was everywhere, but the painting was nowhere. And the man who lived in Frenchman’s Bride wouldn’t leave her thoughts. She struggled to hold back her despair.
“When are you going to end this folly?”
GEORGETTE HEYER, These Old Shades
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The apartment above Yesterday’s Treasures was cramped and dingy, filled with furniture that either hadn’t sold or hadn’t yet made its way downstairs. The living area had an exposed brick wall, two tall windows that looked down over the main street, and a sleeper sofa. A plastic shower stall occupied the corner of the old-fashioned bathroom, while the kitchen nook offered up an ancient refrigerator, a modern microwave, and an apartment-size harvest gold gas stove from the 1970s. The apartment couldn’t have been more different from Winnie’s house, and although she wasn’t exactly happy here, she wasn’t entirely unhappy, either.
She carried a cup of Sleepytime tea to the French café table she’d pulled from the display window so she’d have a place to eat, and gazed down on the dark, empty street below. It was nearly eleven, and the stores had closed long ago. The red neon sign for Covner’s Dry Cleaning blinked in the light drizzle that had begun to fall, and a passing headlight reflected off the window of Jewel’s bookstore. Winnie was thirty-two years old and living alone for the first time. Not that she’d been alone for long. It was only her second night.
“This is so dumb!” Gigi had exclaimed when she’d stormed into the shop after school today. “Last night Dad made me do everything. I had to clean up the kitchen after we had pizza, and then I had to take the garbage cans out. He didn’t even help; he just went in the study and shut the door. When are you coming home?”
Winnie had been so taken aback by Gigi’s black outfit and eye makeup that she hadn’t responded right away. Her baby! As much as Winnie had yearned to see the end of her baggy Salvation Army clothes, she hadn’t expected this. What would be next? Tattoos and tongue piercing?
She took a sip of tea. Not even the Seawillows knew she’d moved out, although Donna Grimley, the woman Winnie had hired as her new assistant, was getting suspicious.
On the street below, the traffic light flashed red, and the lone figure of a man came around the corner. He was tall, broad-shouldered, jacket collar turned up against the drizzle. It was Ryan, and her pulses quickened just as they used to when she was a girl. She felt a rush of sexual awareness she hadn’t experienced in a long time and rose from the table so she could get closer to the window.