“And?”
“And I think I’ve just been fooling myself.”
Tony frowned and moved his eyes back to the wet road. “You think those principles don’t work, after all?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I know they work. I think I’ve been fooling myself about what I was capable of. Christianity isn’t about becoming a better actress. Hiding your feelings. Doing all the right things. It’s about changing your heart. And I think mine has a long way to go.”
Tony let those words sink in. They were foreign to him, for he couldn’t fathom anyone being more self-sacrificing than this woman who had taken in her ex-husband and the woman he left her for. “You have a pretty good heart, from where I sit.”
“I have a petty heart,” she said. “Petty and angry and vindictive.”
“Vindictive? How do you figure that?”
She began to cry again and shook her head with disgust. “Vindictive because I wish Emily had been taken alone. That it was just their child who’d been kidnapped. That mine was at home, safe and sound . . . because some part of me feels that they deserve that.” She looked at Tony, her eyes glistening. “Isn’t that terrible?”
He came to a red light and sat still for a moment, looking at her, wishing he could touch her and offer some comfort. But he knew better. He was a professional and had to maintain some detachment. Still, her tears reached straight into his heart, and he found himself doubting the logic of his own strict rules. “Sharon, there’s not a mother out there who has a child kidnapped, who doesn’t wish it was someone else’s child. You’re not horrible. And you’re not vindictive. You’re just distraught because something has happened to your child that you can’t control. I don’t have any kids, but if I did, and this happened, I’d probably have snapped and killed twenty people by now. I think you’re a very special lady for analyzing your own heart at a time like this.”
She dropped her forehead into her palm and wept quietly for a long moment. No other traffic was on the road as the storm raged around them, so he ignored the green light and watched her cry.
He reached across the seat and took her hand, almost tentatively. She accepted his touch, so he squeezed gently. “I want to find Christy for you,” he whispered. “I’d kind of like the chance to get to know her. She’s a pretty cool kid, from what I’ve seen. Any little girl with such a special mom is someone I’d like to make friends with.”
She looked up then, and he saw the torment on her face and wished from the deepest places in his heart that he could take it from her and carry the burden for her.
“I’m gonna find her for you, Sharon.”
She sucked in a sob and nodded as if she believed him. When he moved the car forward through the intersection, she leaned her head back on the wet seat. “Let’s go home,” she said. “Jenny might be awake by now. She’s going to need me.”
“Okay,” he whispered. But he kept holding her hand as he drove her back to her house, where those who loved the two little girls still kept vigil through the night.
Back at Sharon’s house, Ben, Anne, and Lynda still sat at the kitchen table with Larry, who had asked them a zillion questions a dozen times each. Ben had answered as patiently as he could, knowing how it looked to the police who had seen more bizarre cases than his, if not on their own turf, then in other precincts across the country. People did murder their bosses. Parents did sometimes do harm to their kids. He just didn’t know how to convince them that he wasn’t among them.
“All right, now, for a minute, let’s assume that you’re telling the truth, and that someone else killed Dubose, and wants something you have, and kidnapped your kids to force you into giving it to them. So let’s go back over it all. Try to think of everyone who came into the studio to see Dubose the week leading to his death.”
“I have,” Ben said. “I’ve given you the names of everyone I could think of. None of them seemed angry at him or agitated in any way.”
“Then can you think of a time in the days leading to his death when he was agitated or angry? Maybe after a phone call?”
Ben stared at the table, retracing the last few days. Dubose had been moody, quiet, and Ben had the feeling he was aggravated with him.
“There was something about his mood,” he said, finally. “He was distant. Preoccupied. Like I had made him mad or something.”
“Had you?”
“No. We usually got along real well. He was happy with my work . . . and was real generous to us. I thought he might have some personal problems.”
“Then you hadn’t had any blow-ups with him?”
“None.”
“Wait,” Anne said, her eyes widening. “There was a blow-up, Ben. Remember a few days before we were thrown out, when you found that hidden painting? You said he bit your head off about that.”
Ben frowned. “Yeah, but it was so silly. I thought he was just in a bad mood.”
Larry leaned forward and gazed intently at him. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
Ben threw up his hands. “I didn’t think it was related. It happened days before the murder. And it was such a little thing. I had gone up to the attic looking for an old-fashioned frame for one of my paintings. I thought I might find something up there, since he stored a lot of stuff there. But I bumped my head on something, and a rolled-up canvas fell out. I unrolled it, and it looked just like the famous painting The Multitude, by the sixteenth-century Italian painter Marazzio. I got excited—I’d heard that that painting had been stolen several years ago. So I took it downstairs and stretched it out on a table. It looked so authentic, I could have sworn—”
“Was it the real thing?” Larry prompted.
“Well, no. Louis walked in and saw what I had, and he blew a fuse. Started yelling at me that the attic was off-limits. Which was pretty strange, because that just didn’t seem like him. I apologized and told him to calm down, and I asked him if he knew that The Multitude had been hidden up there in a specially built compartment. Someone else owned the gallery before Louis, and I figured they might have hidden it there—although, when you think about it, they wouldn’t have left it there. Anyway, he finally did calm down, and he looked at the painting, and quickly discovered some mistakes. They were tough to see, because the picture has a crowd of hundreds of people, supposedly at the Sermon on the Mount. But Louis said he was very familiar with all of Marazzio’s work, and this wasn’t real. He knew his stuff better than anyone I know, and he had a keen eye because he saw a lot of fakes that people tried to pass off as originals. Of course, he admitted his main clue that it was a fake was that the original had been recovered a couple of years ago.”
“What did he do with it?”
“I don’t know. I told him we should frame the picture, reproduction or not, and display it in the gallery, but he refused. He took the painting and rolled it back up, and I never saw it again.”
Larry stared down at his notes now, thinking. “Why would anyone have hidden a reproduction?”
“I have no idea. It really didn’t make sense, but I figure someone might have mistakenly thought it was the real thing. Who knows?”
Larry’s eyes were riveted on Ben’s when he asked, “Do you think there’s any possibility that this Marazzio reproduction could be the painting our kidnapper wants?”
Ben frowned and considered that for a moment. “No. Why would anyone kill over a reproduction? It’s practically worthless.”
“What if Dubose lied, or was just wrong about that stolen painting being recovered?” Lynda asked. “What if it was the real thing? Do you think a real Marazzio could cause all this trouble?”
“A genuine Marazzio, particularly The Multitude, would be worth millions. Yeah, somebody might kill over it.”
“But wouldn’t they realize that when they sold it, they’d be sitting ducks with a murder and kidnapping attached to it?”
Ben shrugged. “It depends. The statute of limitations in Italy for stolen art is ten years. Paintings like that one di
sappear for a decade or more, then suddenly turn up at an auction one day, supposedly found by accident.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, though. It was a reproduction. The real one was found a couple of years ago.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” Lynda asked him.
“Yes. Louis knew his stuff. He traveled a lot, buying and selling important pieces of art, and he knew. For someone to go to all this trouble over a reproduction, they’d have to be fooled into thinking it was real. But I don’t see that happening here. Anyone willing to pay what a real Marazzio is worth would check it out and find out that the real thing has been found.”
“Then explain why Dubose fired you just a few days later, when you say it was completely out of his character. There must have been something else going on.”
He turned his palms up and shook his head. “I don’t know. I have no idea. Maybe the painting had nothing to do with it. Anyway, even if it did, I don’t know where the reproduction is. I went back up there the next day to see it again, just out of curiosity, but it was gone. I don’t know what he did with it.”
Larry sighed. “We’ve got to find it. It might be what he wants.”
“If I had it, and knew that was what he wanted, I’d have given it to him by now, and have my girls back in their own bed tonight.”
Lynda touched Ben’s hand, as if to offer some small bit of comfort, and looked beseechingly at Larry. “Larry, the man’s been through enough. Leave him alone. Go look for the children.”
Larry stared at them both over steepled fingers, then nodded reluctantly. “All right, Ben,” he said. “That’s all for now. But I may have more questions later.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Alight rain pattered against the window as Lynda Barrett sat at the desk in the corner of her den, hunched over the books she had picked up from the library on her way home from Sharon’s. There had to be something here. Something that might give her an idea about what to do next. She felt helpless. It had been bad enough trying to defend a man for murder when all the clues pointed to him, but the kidnapping gave it a terrible urgency. She felt sure that Ben wouldn’t be a suspect much longer, since they had confirmed that he was home with Lynda and Anne when the kidnapping occurred.
Desperate to get to the bottom of this complex case, she flipped through pages and pages of art books, trying to learn more about Marazzio and the painting that Ben had discovered. If it wasn’t the original, then it probably had nothing to do with the case at all. But if there was even a chance that it was, it might be the key both to clearing Ben of the murder charges and to finding the kidnapper.
Coming to a chapter on famous lost paintings, she scanned the pages for Marazzio. She found him listed halfway through and quickly began to read.
She heard a knock at the kitchen door, and before she could call “come in,” the door opened. Jake, who had lived in her garage apartment since the plane crash that had changed his life, came in and peered around the doorway to the den. “Hi,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep and I saw your light on. Are you all right?”
She smiled up at him. He looked good, standing so tall without his cane, though he still had a slight limp. He was handsome—even more now than he’d been before the crash, because now she knew his true character. In her mind, his looks weren’t marred by the scar that slashed one side of his face. That scar had special attraction for her, because it had special meaning. It was because of that scar that they had both bonded as human beings rather than adversaries. She cherished it now.
“I’m fine,” she said, sitting back in her chair and holding out a hand to him. He came over to her and bent to kiss her. She reached up and touched that scar that felt so familiar beneath her fingertips.
“You sure? You were so shaken about the kidnapping.”
“So were you.”
“Yeah, well. That Christy’s a character. I just hate the thought that . . .” His voice trailed off, and he slumped into a chair and looked at the floor.
“Yeah, me, too,” she whispered. “I went to the library a while ago and got everything I could find on Marazzio—you know, the painter? I thought maybe that reproduction Ben found had something to do with all this. The police searched the gallery tonight and didn’t find it. I can’t help wondering—if it was just a worthless fake, where is it? Who took it?”
“Find anything?”
“No,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Well, a couple of things, but I don’t know if they’re important. I feel like I’m barking up the wrong tree with those kids out there somewhere. . . .” She dropped her forehead into her hand. “But then I tell myself that I have to leave the kidnapping to the police. My job is to help Ben. I have to somehow help him figure out who could be setting him up. That will tell us who the kidnapper is, and who the killer is.”
“Not a very comforting thought, is it?” Jake asked. “That the kidnapper is the killer.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to think what I could do,” he said. “And it came to me. As soon as it’s daylight, I’m gonna head out to the airport, and Mike and I are gonna take one of the planes up and scan the landscape. See if we can spot the Taurus they were taken in. Who knows? Maybe it’s parked somewhere and we can see it. It’s a long shot, but it’s something.”
She smiled slightly. Flying was Jake’s passion, but he’d lost his license after the crash due to his temporary paralysis and his blindness in one eye. He was waiting for the opportunity to get his medical release and try to get his license back, but until now, he hadn’t been ready. “You gonna do the flying?” she asked.
“I might,” he said. “Mike’s a certified instructor. As long as he’s with me, it’s not a problem.”
“It’s been a long time. Are you sure you’re ready?”
“I’ve never been more ready,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see something. You never know.”
She thought about that as her smile sobered. “Even if you don’t see the car, make a note of any hiding places on the outskirts of town. We could try them.”
“There’s not much to go on, is there?”
“No, there’s not.” She closed the book she was reading and stood up. “I just hope Larry and Tony will let up on the parents now that it’s so obvious that they weren’t involved.”
“Sharon obviously couldn’t have done anything like that. She’s got a heart as soft as marshmallows. But what about Ben or Anne? Do you think they could have—”
“No,” she said without question. “I think Ben was telling it straight from the beginning. He was framed. Somebody killed Dubose and left a trail that pointed to Ben.”
“But why the kidnapping?”
“I don’t know. There are still too many questions. It seems strange. If the killer wanted us to think Ben did it . . . then why would he kidnap Ben’s kids? It would obviously indicate that someone else is the culprit, after all. The minute the police realize someone else is involved, Ben is out of the hot seat.”
“Maybe the killer’s desperate. Or maybe he’s just sure he won’t get caught. Maybe he’s trying to manipulate Ben in some way. Needed the kids so he could work a deal.”
“Yeah, but why? What does he want?”
“I’m with you. That reproduction keeps coming to mind.”
Lynda looked back at the book she’d been flipping through. “But a reproduction isn’t worth much. Certainly not all this.”
They heard a car in the driveway, and Jake went to the kitchen and glanced out into the night. His mother sat there in the red Porsche that was once his—the toy he had cherished more than any other possession. It looked more ridiculous each time he saw her driving it. But he had given it to her free and clear. He had expected her to sell it and buy a condo or something. But she was having the time of her life driving it all over town.
“It’s Mama,” he said to Lynda over his shoulder. “She probably came to get some of the posters of the girls. She’s working the late shift a
t the diner tonight and said she’d put some up and hand them out to her customers.”
“Great.”
Jake went to the door as his mother got out of the car, dressed in tight knit black pants, an over-frilly pink blouse, and four-inch heels. She had gotten her hair done, Lynda noted as Doris bopped in. Her roots weren’t quite as black as they’d been the last time she’d seen her. Though the woman had been hard to swallow when she’d first come to St. Clair, Lynda was growing fond of her now. She was a lost soul, desperately trying to find herself. That it had taken the woman fifty-something years to do it was not her fault.
“Hey there, boys and girls!” Doris said, clicking into the kitchen and reaching up to pat her son’s cheek. She took one look at Lynda and gasped. “Heavens to Betsy, girl, you look like something the cat dragged in.”
Lynda’s smile crashed. “I do?”
“You look like you haven’t slept in a month of Sundays.”
“Well, this kidnapping’s got me really worried . . .”
“Of course it has!” Doris said in her Texas twang. “Those poor little sweet boys . . .”
“Girls, Mama,” Jake said. “They’re girls.”
“Well, just imagine them out there with some awful person. It just makes my skin crawl. But honey, when this is all over, let me give you a make-over, won’t you? If you’re gonna keep my boy happy, you’re gonna have to take better care of yourself. He’s the type has to fight the ladies off with a stick, ain’t you, Jake?”
Jake grinned and winked at Lynda. “No, Mama. Not really. And I think Lynda’s beautiful. We’re both tired, that’s all.”
“Well, we’ve got to get out there and find these kids,” Doris said. “Now where are those posters you were gonna give me?”
He handed her a stack, and her face twisted as she looked at the sweet faces. “Bless their hearts. They’re so little. Oh, maybe some of the truckers who come through the diner will know something. I’ll give these out to everybody who comes in tonight.”
“Good,” Lynda said. “I’ve set up a television interview this morning for the parents. Maybe a personal plea from them will get people’s attention.”