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“We believe there are two paintings, Mr. Dixon. And one of them is a false image, used to distract or perhaps hypnotize the watcher. Someone changes the painting. ”
“No,” Dixon seemed to whisper. “The painting. I believe it is false. I believe it’s all lies. ”
A nurse came into the room. At first, Allison was so intent on Artie Dixon that she didn’t pay attention. Then, as the person in the scrubs began to flick a needle of medication to insert in the IV, Allison noticed that the nurse was wearing a cap and had a large air mask over his or her face.
A feeling of unease crept over her.
She rose abruptly. The nurses didn’t usually come in dressed as if they were entering a surgery or intensive care.
“What is that?” she asked.
She screamed when the “nurse” turned, the needle raised—ready to shove it in her chest.
Allison panicked and pushed at the bed. It was heavy, but she pushed it far enough to catch the person in the thighs.
“Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
The hospital seemed eerily silent.
The “nurse” was regaining his or her balance, but Allison had nothing with which to fight—other than her handbag. She slammed it across her would-be attacker’s face and flew out into the hall.
The hall was empty. She could hear her attacker, heavy-footed, coming after her as the loudspeaker announced, “Code Red, Code Green. Code Red, Code Green, Neuro Section twelve!”
There was no one else around because they were all answering the code calls. And Allison had a feeling that those calls were rigged.
She paused in the hall. Which way? Where should she go?
She started toward the elevators and then turned back; the person in the surgical garb was standing outside the room, dripping needle held high in a gloved hand.
She didn’t know what was in the needle.
She was sure it was lethal.
She ran toward the elevators, aware that the person was running behind her.
Allison reached the elevator bank and slammed all the buttons. She didn’t care if she went up or down—just so long as she could go somewhere.
She turned back. Her attacker was gaining on her.
She slammed the buttons again. An elevator door opened.
And Tyler stepped out. She threw herself in his arms, hysterically trying to explain that someone was behind her.
“Where, Allison, where?” he demanded.
“Artie!” Mrs. Dixon, who was beside him, cried out.
Allison swung around. There was no one behind her, no one at all.
* * *
Tyler didn’t doubt Allison’s word. He contacted a guard and had the hospital locked down, but he knew full well that in a hospital, it was easy for someone clad in the right uniform to simply disappear—hiding in plain sight.
And Allison, try as she might, couldn’t describe her assailant. “Tall, I think. Maybe not, but at least my height,” she said. “I don’t even know if it was a man or woman,” she told him.
Artie Dixon was fortunately unharmed. Tyler made arrangements with Jenson to send local officers to watch over his room from that point on. Haley Dixon remained hysterical for a long time after the incident and had to be sedated.
Security officers and police who had gone through the hospital reported to Tyler that they’d found no one answering the description hiding in lounges or in patients’ bathrooms.
Tyler hadn’t expected they would. The moment he’d stepped off the elevator, the perpetrator had been managing his or her escape. Strip off the cap and mask, walk calmly and briskly into a patient’s room, perhaps even direct a cop to a different location. Slide out of the uniform and walk out like a visitor.
When they were finally leaving, he heard Allison gasp.
“What?”
“Annette! There’s Annette. ”
Annette Fanning was hurrying through the parking lot to her car. Allison touched Tyler’s arm. “Let me see what she says when I catch up with her. I want to see her reaction to me being here. But Annette can’t be our killer. Really, it can’t be Annette. ”
Allison ran ahead of him. He slowed his pace, watching carefully. Allison caught up with Annette, and the other woman turned to her, a look of surprise on her face.
“Hey! My God, I’m glad to see you. I don’t know what was going on here, but I came to see my cousin in the maternity ward. And suddenly there were bells and bongs and security and cops all over. ”
Tyler could hear Annette speaking; he could also tell that she was reaching into her oversize handbag for something.
A needle? The needle she’d failed to thrust into Allison in Artie Dixon’s hospital room?
No more taking chances.
Tyler sped across the parking lot and tackled Annette Fanning. He slammed into her, twisting so he didn’t throw her onto the pavement but took that punishment himself.
Annette cried out. Tyler rolled, pulling her to her feet. He grabbed the bag from her.
“What the hell?” Annette demanded angrily.
“Tyler?” Allison said, as if she, too, thought he had lost his mind.
He ignored them both and searched Annette’s bag. There was nothing in it more incriminating than a hairbrush and a box of tampons.
He thrust the bag back at her. “What’s your cousin’s name?”
“Judy Hall, and she had a baby girl last night at 10:03,” Annette told him. “Check it out!” she added angrily.
“We will. ”
“What’s the matter with you people?” Annette shouted.
“Allison was just attacked. In Artie Dixon’s room,” Tyler said.
Annette gasped. “And you think that I—that I… Don’t be absurd! It couldn’t have been me!”
“Why should we infer that it couldn’t have been you?” Tyler asked.
“For one thing, because Allison is way stronger than I am!” Annette said.
“She’s right,” Allison agreed.
“You don’t need much strength to shove a needle into someone. ” Tyler shook his head. “I’m done taking chances. ”
“No, no, it wasn’t Annette—I know it wasn’t Annette,” Allison said.
“You can’t just assume,” Tyler began.
“I’m not assuming on the basis of friendship. But the attacker was taller. Annette’s too small. ”
Annette groaned. “Thanks. Thanks a hell of a lot!”
* * *
When Allison and Tyler returned, Logan was alone in the house. He was seated in front of the screens, glancing at them now and then, and going over papers and folders, eternally patient while he searched for what he wanted.
He knew what had happened because Tyler had spoken to him.
“Jane and Kat are with the police at Valley Forge,” he said. “There was an attempt to break into Martin Standish’s house last night. With Standish’s blessing, they’re transferring some of his papers to a bank vault. ”
“That’s a good idea,” Allison said. “Are we still expecting the others tonight?”
“We are,” Logan said.
“Including Annette. ” Tyler grimaced. His apology had been minimal, and Allison felt guilty, since they hadn’t really learned anything from the encounter. So Annette’s distress had been for nothing. Tyler had told Allison they couldn’t afford to take any chances, and she understood that, but…
She looked around. “Where’s Julian?”
“He went with Jane and Kat. He’s decided you don’t need him—and they might,” Logan said, smiling. “What a pity they met at completely the wrong time! He’s so courteous toward Jane, and while she pretends he’s a pest, she really likes him. ”
“Yeah, talk about the ultimate bad timing,” Allison murmured.
“Oh!” Both Logan and Tyler turned to her. “With everything that happ
ened, I forgot to tell Tyler what Artie ‘said’ to me. I don’t think he was denying there could be a second painting, but he wanted me to understand something about the painting in the study. He kept saying it was a lie. ”
“I’ll bet he means the painting itself is a lie,” Tyler said. “We know that when Tobias Dandridge painted it, he despised Bradley. Bradley and the British troops had left Philadelphia. Tobias was probably feeling a bit inadequate, since the Colonial forces didn’t defeat the British here. The British abandoned the capital just as the patriots had. ”
“Interesting. The history of the house and the family came down to us through Tobias Dandridge and his wife, Sophia,” Tyler said. “Lucy’s sister. ”
“So, he painted the picture of Bradley as a monster and left that image of him for the world. ” Allison sighed. “And now we know it’s probably unfair. ”
“Let’s go look,” Tyler suggested. “See if we can find the second painting. ”
“But…say there is such a painting,” Allison said, “would the killer leave it here?”
“Maybe not, but maybe we’ll find a clue as to whether or not it actually exists. ”
Logan checked his watch. “You have about an hour,” he told them.
“Let’s get on with it,” Tyler said.
* * *
Allison thought they should trace the path someone might take through the house and discover how easy it would be to slip from the study to other rooms—and then leave the property entirely. As they moved through the study into the ladies’ salon and the music room, she could see how someone could have crept through the various rooms without being seen by her, the lone remaining guide, on the night Julian was killed. The house alarms didn’t extend to the fence in front of the property or the wall that surrounded it.
She opened every cabinet and every drawer, looking for a place where a painting might have been hidden. They didn’t find one, but toward the end of their search, Allison opened a cupboard where musical instruments had been kept during the Revolutionary era. It still contained a couple of fifes, carefully displayed on shelves.