“In a way it does. You knew what blunt-force trauma to the head looked like, knew to ask questions. Knowing Mr. Stokes was murdered gives me a different view of what I’m doing now. I think the murderer is standing looking down at her.”
He followed her thoughts with ease. “Because of the way the man’s shoe is positioned?”
“If he were there to help her, or investigate, wouldn’t he be crouched down? A bystander wouldn’t stand so close. I’m going to try working on the painting while I’m awake, see what happens. I don’t think she’s dead yet; I think I’m picking up on something in the future and that’s why I’m doing just a little at a time. If I can finish it, see who she is, then maybe I can stop it from happening.”
He said, very gently, “I don’t think you’ll be able to finish the painting until it’s too late.”
His concern furled around her like tender arms. “But I have to try,” she whispered, her throat suddenly tight. She swallowed. She refused to cry in front of him again. When she cried, she wanted it to be about something real important, like being cold.
“I know. Got a pen?”
She reached for the pen and pad beside the phone. “Got it.”
“Here’s my cell phone number.” He rattled it off. “I’ll have the phone with me tonight. Call me if anything happens and you go into shock again.”
“How many numbers do you have?” she muttered. “That’s three.”
“Well, there’s the fax number, too, if you want it.”
“I don’t think I’ll be sending you any faxes.”
He chuckled, then said, “Take care of yourself. The last few days have been rough on you. Don’t let this get the upper hand.”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised, and went back to the studio warmed by the ease with which they communicated, the sense of being linked. No matter how upsetting this situation got, she wasn’t alone.
She stared at the painting for a long time.
Assuming she was looking at a murder scene changed her perspective. Picking up a stick of charcoal, she lightly sketched in the logical position of the woman’s body, given the position of her legs. And if the man’s right foot was here, then his left foot would be here. No, that was wrong. The angle was too severe. She needed a more direct angle, not exactly head-on but close to it.
She knew instinctively when she got it right. Her fingers moved rapidly over the canvas, sketching a rough outline of two people around the details she had already painted.
When she finished, she was trembling, as exhausted as if she had worked for days instead of—of however long she had worked. Glancing out the window, she saw night had fallen. She had no idea what time it was, but her stomach growled a warning that it was a long time past supper. She was a little chilly, but nothing unusual. Her efforts hadn’t triggered that scary, bone-deep cold, at least not immediately. She had no idea how she would feel in a few hours.
She rubbed her eyes, then remembered her hands were black with charcoal. Muttering under her breath, she went into the bathroom and peered in the mirror. The black smudges all over her face weren’t a surprise. She washed her face and hands, then went into the kitchen.
Soup was always good. It was fast and hot. She opened a can of chicken noodle soup and nuked it. What did Richard eat at business dinners? she wondered. More to the point, would he ever expect her to eat with him at those business dinners? The prospect wasn’t a pleasant one. She would manage, she decided. If necessary, she would even buy some high heels.
Good God, this was serious. She should be running as far and fast as she could. Instead she sipped her chicken noodle soup and smiled a little at the lengths to which she was willing to go for Richard, should he ask.
She showered and went to bed, and woke a little after dawn feeling warm and relaxed. She was almost disappointed; lying in Richard’s arms wasn’t exactly a hardship, no matter how cold she was.
She lay there for a while, enjoying the warmth. An electric blanket wasn’t as good as Richard, but she would have to make do. She daydreamed for a while, smiling, before noticing that the sunlight wasn’t getting any brighter.
She sat up and looked out the window. Fog pressed against the panes, white and a little luminous, as if it were just thin enough to allow a little sunshine through. The light was strangely reflective, filling all the shadows in the room the way sunshine on snow did.
Afterward, she didn’t remember getting out of bed. She got dressed, in her usual thick socks, sweatshirt, and jeans. The coffee hadn’t started brewing yet—she had got up too early—so she turned off the timer and turned on the maker herself. Then she went into the studio, because this white light was too unusual to miss.
She knew exactly what was missing from the high-heeled pumps.
Twenty minutes later she stepped back, blinking. The heels weren’t solid. A small gold ball formed the middle of each heel. The shoes were very distinctive, impossibly stylish. If she had ever seen a pair like them before, she would have remembered.
And the skirt. . . the skirt was fuller than she had sketched it last night. Flirty. Black The woman was wearing a black dress.
In some corner of her mind, she laughed. This was New York City; what else would the woman be wearing but black?
Hours later, the ringing of the phone jerked her out of her trance. She shuddered and stepped back, for a moment unsure of where she was or what that noise meant. Then she realized it was the phone and raced to answer it.
“Are you all right?” Richard demanded, and she realized she should have called him.
“I was,” she said, still more in a daze than out of it. “Nothing happened last night. But this morning—I was painting. I just knew how it should look. What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty.”
She had been working for almost four hours. She remembered very little of it.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
She was wrapped in a blanket when Richard arrived, a freshly nuked cup of coffee in her hand. She was cold, but the cold wasn’t unbearable, at least not yet. He bent down for a quick kiss, then started to take her in his arms to battle the chill.
“Wait,” she said. “I want you to see the painting first.”
He went with her into the studio and in silence studied the canvas. The scene was graphic in its violence. The woman’s body was sprawled in a pool of blood, which had soaked into a pale carpet. Her chic black dress had been slashed to pieces, and one arm, the only one Sweeney had completed, was covered with wounds.
The man standing over her was relaxed, the knife he had used in his right hand, which was hanging at his side. Working from his shoes up, she had completed him to just above the waist. He wore black pants, perhaps jeans, though jeans were a bit incongruous with the wing tips. She had also painted the beginnings of a black shirt.
“A burglar, maybe,” Richard said with the cool distance in his voice that said he had switched into his analytical mode. “They’re both in black, but she looks as if she’s been to a party. The shoes are wrong, though; a burglar would wear track shoes, or something else with a soft sole.”
“I thought there was something strange about the shoes, too. They look awkward.” She didn’t like the way she had done the feet; they were vaguely out of proportion. But when she had begun studying how she could correct them, the mental image refused to form. Perhaps she was just exhausted and she would be able to think better after she had rested.
“I need to get this finished,” she said, and even though she heard the fretful tone, she couldn’t do anything about it. She was just about an inch short of whining. “I have to know who she is.”
“Honey—” He clasped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “You have to assume you won’t know until after the fact. That’s the way it was with Elijah Stokes—”
“But this thing, whatever it is, is getting stronger all the time. Or maybe I’m just getting better at it. What I’m painting now is in the future, so why shouldn’t
the scope broaden and let me see her identity before it’s too late?”
“This might not be a burglary that went sour. This might be a planned murder.”
She didn’t follow him. “What difference would that make?”
“The plan could already be formed. If I were going to commit murder, I’d have it planned down to the ground. So what you’re picking up on could be a plan that exists now, not in the future.”
She gave him a sour look, or at least as sour as she could make it when she was shaking like a leaf. “Don’t be so analytical,” she said, even though she knew he was right.
“Being analytical is how I got rich. Come on; there’s nothing you can do about this right now. At least when the painting is complete, you’ll also have the murderer’s face. You probably can’t save her, but you can help in other ways.” With her firmly clamped against his side, he began easing her toward the door.
“You’re handling me, right? I hate being handled. I’m not one of those temperamental artistes who get hysterical if the least thing goes wrong.”
“I know,” he said soothingly, and smiled at the ferocious look she threw him.
He got her settled on the couch, in his lap, with the blanket wrapped around them. He wasn’t going to take his shirt off today, she thought, disappointed. Nor was he going to lie down with her. She understood; the temptation was just too great. The transfer of body heat wasn’t as efficient with their clothes on, but neither was the need as great.
He held her locked tight against him, absorbing the force of her shivering. “I didn’t think it would happen this time,” she said, with her face buried against his chest. “I was awake. I worked on the painting last night and felt fine, so why am I cold this morning?”
“Depth of involvement, maybe, or the length of time you worked.”
Trust Richard, she thought, to come up with a reasonable, logical explanation for what was innately illogical. At least he took her seriously and didn’t assume she was having panic attacks or was hysterical. He believed her, about something she herself had a difficult time believing.
She lay quietly for a time, letting his heat soak through her skin, and felt herself begin to grow drowsy as she warmed. With this to look forward to, she was beginning to think getting severe chills wasn’t such a bad thing. Remembering the time he had stripped them both down to their underwear made her breasts tighten and caused an ache deep inside. Maybe, she thought mischievously, if she put off calling him until she was really, really cold, he would do that again. Her entire body flushed as she remembered the explosion of pleasure she had experienced just rocking against him. She wanted to do that again. Often.
Sitting in his lap, she discovered, wasn’t much better than lying down with him, in terms of temptation. She ached with a physical need that shook her with its intensity. His erection was rock hard against her hip, and only sheer determination kept her from squirming around until she was astride him. “Sheer” described her determination very well. It was gossamer thin, and getting thinner every day.
He stroked her hair back from her temple and pressed his lips to the fragile skin. “Good news,” he murmured. “Candra has an appointment to sign the papers tomorrow. She would have done it today, but there had to be some additions and corrections made. I’ve already arranged to have the petition come before a judge next week.”
She tilted her head back a little, staring at him. Considering the well-known backlog in New York City’s civil court, she was astounded. He had “arranged” a small miracle. “How did you manage that?”
“Money.” His tone was careless. “I have it, so people come to me for favors. I collected on a lot of debts.” His hand on the back of her head, he settled her against him once more. His mouth lightly brushed her temple, and over to her eyelid. “After next week, when you get cold, I’ll be able to warm you from the inside out.”
Oh, God, he managed it now. Her heart leaped, and her pulse rate jumped to double time. “You’re doing just fine as it is,” she gasped.
“The way you shake and shudder, I won’t even have to do any work. All I’ll have to do is set you in place, then lie back and enjoy the ride.”
Laughter burst out of her. Her arms were confined by the blanket he had wrapped around her, but she punched him with as much force as she could muster. Grinning, he subdued her by the simple method of kissing her.
She had never before had so much fun, she thought as she relaxed in his arms, her head cradled on his shoulder. Even under the circumstances, she enjoyed every moment with him. She managed to work one hand free and curled it around the back of his neck, nestling her fingers in his hair. The sensation was delicious; his hair, silky soft, was warm close to his scalp and cool on the outside. Evidently he detected some remnant of rebellion, because he kept on kissing her.
She wanted him to deepen the kisses. She waited for him to do so. But he pulled back with a sigh, his face taut, and she knew his determination was in the same shape as hers. His dark eyes were heavy-lidded, and a faint flush rode his high cheekbones. “If this keeps up, I won’t be able to even kiss you,” he said gruffly.
“Keeps up, or stays up?” She meant to tease, but her voice came out too husky for that.
The sound he made was more growl than laugh. “Either. Both.” He breathed hard through his nostrils. “Talk. Distract me.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Her mind felt mushy. She didn’t know if she could muster a conversation, at least not a detailed one.
“Anything. Were you really born in Italy?”
“Really. Florence, to be exact. My mother felt the need to make some sort of pilgrimage—for her art, you understand. I was two weeks early, which evidently really fouled up her itinerary. I couldn’t keep the formula down and was losing weight, so I stayed in the hospital while she salvaged as much of her trip as she could. Hardy woman, my mother. She was back on the road two days after having me.
When she was ready to come home, she swung by the hospital to pick me up, but when she tried to leave the country, there was a problem with the paperwork—she hadn’t done any of it—so I ended up staying another week until everything was straightened out.”
She said it humorously, because she had long since become accustomed to her mother’s lack of concern for her offspring—not just for Sweeney, but for her brother, too. Richard didn’t laugh, though. He didn’t even smile. His gaze turned flinty. “Do you mean,” he said in an almost toneless voice, “that your mother left her sick baby in the hospital while she resumed her vacation?”
“Yeah, well, that’s Mom.” Sweeney tried to lighten the mood with an awkward laugh. It didn’t work.
“Where was your father?”
“Working on a movie somewhere, I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever heard.”
Fascinated, she watched his jaw set. If it got any harder, it would probably shatter under the pressure. His reaction startled her. She had long since stopped worrying about her parents’ behavior; she neither justified or analyzed. “Hey,” she said mildly, “they didn’t beat me. They didn’t pay any attention to us, period, but there are worse things.”
“Us?”
“I have one full brother, and several half-brothers and -sisters from my father’s various marriages. It’s possible he’s added to the total since I last heard from him.”
“Are you close to your brother?”
“No. He went by the ‘if you can’t beat them’ philosophy. His goal in life is to be stoned and trendy. I haven’t heard from him in . . . oh, I guess it’s been three years or longer.”
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“I sent everyone a postcard when I moved, so they would have my current address and telephone number, but I haven’t heard from anyone. I don’t know if their addresses were current. What about your family?”
“I don’t have any immediate family. My father died when I was three, and my mother and I lived with my grandfather. He died eight years ago, and Mom’s been dead
five years. I have two uncles and an aunt on my father’s side, and a lot of cousins, most of them in Virginia. I get home for family reunions and the odd Christmas every now and then, but Candra hated being around my relatives, so I always went alone.”
Just from the way he talked, she could tell he enjoyed being with his relatives. She tried to imagine a big, noisy family reunion where everyone was glad to see each other. “Excuse me while my mind boggles,” she said. “I can’t imagine a family reunion in my family.”
“What do you do for Thanksgiving and Christmas?”
“Nothing.” She shrugged. “Work. We aren’t big on holidays, either.”
“We’ll spend the holidays in Virginia, then,” he said.
She sat up, surprised. “You mean you want to take me with you?”
“Well, I sure as hell don’t mean to leave you here alone.”
Now she was more than surprised; she was downright astonished. She hadn’t thought about their relationship in terms of the future. She was so new to this relationship business that she had no idea what the normal expectations would be; she certainly hadn’t thought about where she would spend the holidays.
“Do you think we’ll still be . . . you know?” she said hesitantly.
“Oh, yeah.” His tone was as confident as hers was hesitant.
“Well.” She rubbed her nose. “Okay.”
He grinned. “Don’t overwhelm me with your enthusiasm.” He glanced at his watch. “I have an appointment I need to cancel if—”
“No, go ahead,” she said swiftly, sitting up. “I’m toasty warm; I was just enjoying sitting here.”
He eyed her, judging her color for himself. He took her hand to feel if her fingers were cold. They weren’t, and he dropped a quick kiss on them. “Okay. You know how to reach me if you need me. I have business dinners tonight and tomorrow night, but after that my week is clear.” He winked at her. “I think it’s time for a second date.”
* * *